DAVID GREENE, HOST:
Oh, gosh, I feel like I'm at the spa. This is so peaceful. I feel like doing some yoga, Mary Louise.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
(Laughter).
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MORNING EDITION THEME")
GREENE: This gentle music, believe it or not, is actually a version of the "Morning Edition Theme." It was submitted by one of our listeners, and it starts with a familiar voice.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MORNING EDITION THEME" COMPOSED BY CURTIS SUN)
STEVE INSKEEP, BYLINE: Through all the changes in those elections, one thing has remained constant, a bit of music that we've heard from this program since its debut 35 years ago this week.
KELLY: That is Steve, of course, our colleague Steve Inskeep. That recording is taken from a couple of years ago. He was talking about celebrating the 35th anniversary of MORNING EDITION.
GREENE: And 16-year-old Curtis Sun of Cincinnati, Ohio developed this take on our theme after his French teacher told him about our theme call-out.
CURTIS SUN: I don't know. I just wanted to just make something that sounded sort of otherworldly. And, like, I also thought it was just really ironic 'cause in the sample, Steve's talking about how the music hasn't changed. But here I am making a remix with that sample in it.
KELLY: I think we're going to call this the Zen edition of our theme tune.
GREENE: I think we should.
KELLY: But Curtis Sun says his inspiration comes actually not from the world of yoga, but from the world of hip-hop.
SUN: There's, like, a sort of genre. People call it cloud rap I guess. It's like a really experimental, like, fusion of, like, ambient sounds and hip-hop beats. I tried to emulate that with as many cool effects as possible to make just a really interesting evolving texture.
GREENE: I just can't get spa version of Steve out of my head right now. So Curtis also developed a hip-hop theme for another flagship NPR program. He calls it, "All Traps Considered."
(SOUNDBITE OF CURTIS SUN SONG, "ALL TRAPS CONSIDERED")
KELLY: I do actually like that. But it is just wrong to hear the All Things Considered music at this hour of the morning.
GREENE: Yeah.
KELLY: Yeah, you can keep sending us your versions of our show's theme tune. Post them on SoundCloud with the hashtag, #morningeditiontheme Then go to morningeditiontheme.npr.org and send them in. We'll keep playing the ones we love. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
