You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and,
piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made.
My name is Tao Nguyen.
The Daily is a hit podcast from The New York Times, hosted by Michael Barbaro.
Every weekday, over 1.7 million people download the show.
It launched in February 2017, and in honor of its two-year anniversary,
we're publishing a bonus episode about the show's theme song.
It was originally published on the New York Times website in 2018.
Here's Song Exploder producer Rishikesh Hirway.
The theme song for a show,
whether it's on TV or on the radio or on a podcast, faces a lot of pressure.
Often, before anything else,
it's the theme that tells you something about the personality of a show and its point of view.
And while the content of every episode changes,
a theme has to stay the same while still setting the stage appropriately for what's to come.
And ultimately, it becomes an indelible part of the show itself.
So when the team from the New York Times was getting the daily podcast started,
they were thinking about all of these challenges.
Here's Michael Barbaro.
There are some really unique needs on a show like this.