Recently, the former TLC show TRADING SPACES was rebooted with the broadcasting of brand new episodes. 

In the show, neighbors rehab one room of the other’s house in just a couple of days, on a strict budget. The original run began about the year 2000 and continued in one incarnation or another until 2008. Though hosts and designers changed through the years, one thing mostly remained basically the same…

The music. And I wrote it.

Sure, they tinkered with it a bit after the first couple of years when another production company bought out the show. But my distinctive trumpet flourish was incorporated in the newer techno-sounding versions. You know….

“da da da DAAAAAAAH, dup!”

And no one ever forgets that fast-forward music when they are resetting all the furniture in the rooms. That’s part of my original theme.

So, I know you’re wondering, “How in the world did a baptist pastor end up writing the music for a hit TV show?”

Good question. Almost 25 years later, I’m still trying to figure it out.

Way back at the end of the last century, I was a worship music pastor at a church in Knoxville, TN. That area just happens to be home to the company that produced many of the shows on HGTV, THE HISTORY CHANNEL, and others. 

One of my church members, Eddie, was a producer for a local company that was bringing a hit British show “Changing Rooms” over to the US. He approached me one day after our morning services to ask a question.

“So Dave, I know you write music. Have you ever written any theme music for TV shows?”

“No, I haven’t” I wrote Christian songs and music for productions we did at church, but nothing for TV. I was a full-time minister, and that was my calling.

“Well, my go-to-guy for theme music is out of pocket for the next month. And I’ve got to get something in the can for this new show.”

He explained the show’s premise to me, and honestly I was not particularly impressed. Sounded like something my wife might like to watch. I’m not really into home design, and I avoid tools like hammers and saws with the same caution I’d approach the Ebola virus.

After a few more minutes of conversation, I agreed to give it a try. However, I made him promise not to pay me if he didn’t like what I did. I’d never done anything remotely like this before, and I was a little nervous about putting a church member in an awkward position of telling the pastor his music stunk.

So…I sat down with my trusty Kurzweil keyboard and tried a few things. After a few hours of fiddling and then sequencing the whole thing, I had a demo I could send him.

“Hmmm…it’s not bad, really. But it sounds a little bit too much like something you’d hear on Regis and Kathy Lee. Try and make it more distinctive sounding. less generic. And also, if there’s a place you could make it get more uptempo, that would be great too. We need a section for when people are moving stuff around in fast motion”.

So…I sat down again. What style should this thing be?  I thought about listening to other shows, but decided I didn’t want it to muddy the water.

One style that I’ve always liked is what I’d call “urban gospel piano”, which given my profession should be of no surprise. And in the jazz world, the great Dave Grusin is one of my favorite pianists. He did all that bouncy fun music for the movie TOOTSIE with Dustin Hoffman. After seeing that film, his style was forever stuck in my brain, in a good way.

So what I ended up with that second try was a one minute long piece that suddenly shifts into high gear toward the end (that’s the furniture-moving music on the show). By the way, every instrument you’re hearing played on the original track above is my keyboard: the piano, the drums, the slapping bass, the horns – everything.

The next day I handed off my demo to my friend Eddie. He gave it a listen and said, “I think we can do something with that”.

Soon, I was dragging my huge keyboard into his studio, and we multitrack recorded the whole thing. Then a few months later, they had a premier party for the first episode. To be honest, I went by the studio complex, didn’t see anyone I knew, and walked out just a few minutes later. I wasn’t much of a social animal in those days, so I split. 

The rest, as they say, is history. The show became a big hit. After a couple of seasons, it was sold to another company who changed up the theme some. And I never wrote another tv theme, though I do write extensively for musical theatre. But that’s the story of my one moment of tv fame…