This episode is sponsored by Sonos. You know that moment when you hear a song you've loved for years and suddenly you notice something new? A harmony over in the left channel, a faint acoustic guitar, a breath before the chorus. That's what I love about Sonos. Their speakers are designed to connect you to the details that make music feel alive. And whether I'm playing a vinyl record in my kitchen or a modern blockbuster on my home theater system, the sound is rich, immersive, and incredibly clear. If you want studio-quality sound in every room, visit Sonos.com. That's S-O-N-O-S dot com. You're listening to 20,000 Hertz. The stories behind the world's most iconic and fascinating sounds. I'm Dallas Taylor. As an 80s kid who watched a lot of television, there are certain TV theme songs that instantly take me back to childhood. Stuff like Fraggle Rock, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and The Wonder Years. Then there's Reading Rainbow. As a little kid, that song felt magical. And it still does. Which is why I was so excited when, out of the blue, I got an email saying, Hey Dallas, I'm the original composer behind the Reading Rainbow theme, and I'd love to come on 20,000 Hertz and talk about it. Um, yes please. Hey, I'm Steve Horlick, composer, producer, performer of electronic music. In the late 70s, Steve co-founded an experimental band called the Electronic Art Ensemble. They played wild, improvisational music through interconnected synthesizers and effects. This is a track called Cauldron from their album In Quietude. Steve wanted to bring that adventurous spirit into the world of commercial music, and he knew just the people to do it with. My musical partner at the time was Janet Weir and another partner, Dennis Neal Kleinman. Dennis and I had been working together for several years doing some songwriting, and Janet and I were basically business partners starting our music production company in New York City. The company was called Patchworks, as in the patch cables used to connect modular synthesizers and other audio gear. At the time, there were very few music houses in New York City that did like crazy, avant-garde, electronic music. Patchworks was going to try and fill that niche. And in 1980... There was word on the street that there was going to be a new kids' TV show and they were looking for a theme song. It was a PBS show called Reading Rainbow. Its purpose would be to get kids to fall in love with reading. And through a mutual connection, Patchworks got the opportunity to prove what they could do. We got invited to create a demo. But they weren't the only ones. The legend goes is that they had asked maybe 10 different music production companies to write theme songs. Meaning they'd have a lot of competition. The producer showed up at our little homemade studio and presented us with a storyboard. Basically, it was a book and a butterfly and lots of different characters. and that's where we started working. They started with the lyrics. Dennis was a very fine lyricist and presented us with some ideas but they were a little sing-songy like a butterfly. I'm trying to remember them exactly. You know what? Can I run upstairs real quick and grab them? Yeah, so I actually have the archaeology right here in front of me of the development of the theme song. Kept the papers all these years. So the original lyric was really cute. A butterfly can touch the sky. A book can take you twice as high. Open up a book and see fantastic things that you can be. And it went on from there. But it didn't kind of meet the energy that Janet and I were looking for. We wanted something that was more empowering, more energetic. So Janet took these lyrics and turned them into Butterfly in the Sky. I can go twice as high. Take a look, it's in a book, A Reading Rainbow. So Dennis had the initial inspiration, and Janet had the concept that actually turned into the final theme song. Once they had the lyrics, Steve could begin laying down his synth tracks. Now, at the time, synthesizers were still fairly new, and they were not common in TV theme songs, especially kids' shows. Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street? Let me move. It's time to play the music. It's time to light the light. But the producers of Reading Rainbow wanted a wide range of options, so they didn't give Patchworks much direction. I think they were expecting us to, like, just kind of dive in and be as creative as we could. At least I'm hoping that's what they thought. In their studio, Steve had several high-end synthesizers, including a Fairlight CMI, which stands for Computer Music Instrument. He also had an Oberheim four voice, named for the fact that it could play four sounds at once. But the crown jewel of his collection was... A Buchla 200 series made by the great instrument designer Donald Buchla. Don Buchla is a legend in the world of synthesizers. He made experimental instruments that you played with touch-sensitive metal plates, rather than traditional piano keys. Using this setup, Steve got to work. And as it turned out, the biggest challenge was the very first sound. Janet said, we have to create a sound in the beginning so that when people hear it, especially kids when they hear it and they two rooms away they come running to the TV set and sliding themselves right into place So she tasked me with trying to figure out what that sound was Steve wanted the sound to represent a fluttering butterfly Because if you ever watch a butterfly fly, it's constantly kind of changing its altitude and bouncing around in a kind of a random way. He wanted to recreate that randomness musically. To do this, he turned to his bukhla. What makes the 200 series unique is that it only had touch plates, right? It didn't have a black and white keyboard. But it had this amazing module called the Multiple Arbitrary Function Generator. It was a souped-up sequencer. A sequencer allows you to make repeating patterns of notes. Each piece of that pattern is called a stage. And you would set the knobs to create the different pitches for each stage. So let's say you made an eight-stage pattern. In those days, every sequencer in the world, except the MARF, the Multiple Arbitrary Function Generator, went from one to eight and back to one. It would just cycle through those pitches, right, in a specific order. What made the Multiple Arbitrary Function Generator unique in its time is that you could randomize the location of the sequencer. That allows you to create a set of sounds that you can access randomly. The next step was to decide which notes he wanted the synth to randomly choose between. So I'll go over to the piano, and I'm going to play you the first five notes of a major scale in A major. Those are the notes that the theme is based upon. But what I did is I kind of transposed them. Basically, I've taken the two lower notes and transposed them up. With those five notes, Steve made a 16-step sequence. And even though the order of the steps would be random, he could still prioritize some notes more than others. In that set of 16, let's say, maybe there were four of them that were A, and only three of them that were E, and two of them a B. So I could weight them more towards different notes. For our interview, Steve wanted to demonstrate how he shaped the sound. Unfortunately, he no longer has his original Buchla, or the Marf that went with it. In the mid-90s, he sold them both... ...to Danny Carey of the band Tool. What I didn't know at the time was that Donald Buchla only made eight of those modules, and they're pretty much worth what a Ferrari is worth today. And Danny, if you're listening to this, you know, send it back. Fortunately, Steve has the next best thing, a newer model called the Buchla Easel. So I'm sitting next to my bukla easel, and I'm going to try and replicate how I created it. So here are those same notes that I played on the piano. But a butterfly isn't percussive like these notes, right? Butterfly is more fluffy, shall we say. So I had to shape the timbre a little bit. Soften the attack. And then soften the release a little bit. So here are the notes. I'll add them one at a time. But they're not random, right? They're a typical sequencer or arpeggiator. So now I'm going to make them random. So I'm shaping the attack and decay a little bit more. a little bit more. And I remember back in the day I had a lexicon delay line which sounded like this. And I had a spring reverb that sounded like this. And that kind of sounds like the Reading Rainbow theme song. Here is Stephen Janet's original demo version from 1980. Which is similar to the broadcast version, but had a little bit of an island-y feel. Butterfly in the sky I can go twice as high Just take a look It's in a book A reading rainbow And by the way, the demo was sung by my writing partner and actually now my wife forever. my lovely wife Janet Weir. A weeding rainbow Weeding rainbow Weeding rainbow Weeding rainbow They submitted the song to the show's producers. I wasn't there when they listened to it. But soon after, they got the news. Out of all of the submissions they'd received, they picked ours. But Steve and Janet weren't done yet To bring this song to life, they'd need to redo the instrumentation. Everything was kind of running wild because I had no synchronization. And they needed to find the perfect singer. We really searched hard to try and find the right singer for the project. That's coming up after the break. Congratulations to Stephanie Green for getting last episode's mystery sound right. Those sounds came from Bubo the Owl in the 1981 movie Clash of the Titans. Bubo is a mechanical, almost steampunk owl given by Athena to help the characters on their quest. Sort of like an ancient Greek R2-D2. And here's this episode's mystery sound. If you know that sound, submit your guess at the web address mystery.20k.org. Anyone who guesses it right will be entered to win a super soft 20,000 Hertz t-shirt. Every January, I get the urge to level up, not just personally, but for my business too. And upgrading to Gusto is one of the easiest ways to instantly make your business more efficient and more effective. Gusto is online payroll and benefits software built for small businesses. It's all-in-one, remote-friendly, and incredibly easy to use. So you can pay hire onboard and support your team from anywhere With Gusto you and your employees will save time with automated tools for things like offer letters onboarding materials direct deposit and payroll tax filing You can also use it for commuter benefits, workers' comp, 401ks. Basically, all of those things that can be a big headache if you manage them on your own suddenly becomes a breeze with Gusto. I've personally used Gusto at DeFacto Sound for years, and I am never looking back. Try Gusto today at gusto.com slash 20k and get three months free when you run your first payroll. That's three months of free payroll at gusto.com slash 20k. Once again, that's gusto.com slash 20k. The pilot episode of Reading Rainbow was filmed in 1981. As the show's host, they cast LeVar Burton, who had a breakout role in the 1977 miniseries Roots. I am Kunta Kinte, a Mandingo from the Villa of Jujufare. Each episode of Reading Rainbow was built around an illustrated children's book, which was often narrated by a celebrity. Then, LeVar would visit places related to the book and talk about its themes. The pilot featured a book called Tight Times, about a boy whose family can't afford to get him a pet dog. There are times when problems can't be solved, at least not right away. Sometimes the only way that people can help each other is to hug and show they care. In the pilot, they used Steve and Janet's demo as the theme. But once they got funded, they came to us and said, well, let's do the actual final version of it. The final version was built around the same fluttering Buchla sound, but it was a bit funkier and more energetic. It included a bass part that Steve played on his Fairlight CMI. And a drum beat from a Lynn LM1 drum machine. And the Fairlight was playing like these sax parts. kind of stuff, and there were some electronic chords and stuff that was being played by the Oberheim. Now, this was all just before the invention of MIDI, which allows digital instruments and devices to communicate. One of MIDI's biggest advantages is that it lets devices sync up their timing, so they all play at the same tempo. But without MIDI, Steve had to do all of that manually and time everything perfectly. Everything was kind of running wild because I had no synchronization. You'd hit a tape machine go button and you'd run to your synths and try to get everything lined up together. So it was quite a task, actually, and a lot of fun and sometimes really, really frustrating. Eventually, he got it down and the instrumental track was ready. But they still needed a professional singer. We really searched hard to try and find the right singer for the project. And that turned out to be a wonderful singer named Tina Fabrique. It was really big in New York City at the time, doing a lot of shows. Really, really terrific singer. I can make you feel love. I can make you feel love. Yes, I can. I remember Tina walked into the studio at M&I Recording in New York, and she just lit up the room. Her energy was so amazing. She had heard Janet's demo, of course, and she just nailed it, man. Butterfly in the sky. I can go twice as high. She got the whole vibe. Even though she was in those days like a disco singer, she really, instead of being like real cool, she just was really joyful. I can be anything. And it was wonderful. Here's the classic version of the Reading Rainbow theme song, which was used from 1983 to 2000. Butterfly in the sky. I can go twice as high. Take a look, it's in a book, a reading rainbow. I can go anywhere, friends to know and ways to grow, a reading rainbow. I can be anything Take a look, it's in a book A reading rainbow A reading rainbow A reading rainbow A reading rainbow Reading Rainbow debuted in 1983 and quickly became a cultural touchstone and Stephen Janet's music was a key part of the show's identity I produced all the music for every episode of Reading Rainbow and wrote about 90% of it. That theme and all the music for Reading Rainbow kind of exploded my career because it led to 155 episodes for Reading Rainbow and lots of different TV series like Shining Time Station. Don't be afraid. Just be yourself. Don't be afraid to reach on. And The Puzzle Place. The Puzzle Place. The Puzzle Place. We're going to the puzzle. But the evolution of Reading Rainbow's theme song wasn't done yet. In the late 90s, the show got a new intro, with updated graphics and more focus on LeVar Burton. So Steve and Janet crafted this new arrangement. This time, they dropped the fluttering synth sound and gave it more of a live band feel. On vocals, they got another New York R&B singer. Johnny Kemp, who was just an amazing singer. Butterfly in the sky. Brought tremendous energy to it. I can go twice as high. Take a look, it's in a book, a reading rainbow. Now, this version is in the key of F rather than the key of A. Johnny couldn't sing it in the original key. It just didn't work out for his range. So we had to change keys, bring it down a little bit, so that it would hit his high range better. I can be anything But because they were kind of tagging it on to the other episodes, the music cues that came out of it in all those other episodes were related to the original key. So they made the song end on a key change to get it back up to the key of A. So we had to do this kind of magical modulation. A reading rainbow Oh I really like the Johnny Kemp version but it only about a year year and a half later LeVar came and said, you know, I think I can get Shaka Khan to sing a version of the theme song. Shaka Khan is a legendary R&B singer who first got big in the 1970s with the band Rufus. Since then, she's had lots of hit songs, like Ain't Nobody from 1983. So we created another version for Shaka Khan. Steve flew out to L.A. to meet with Shaka Khan's team, and together they crafted a new arrangement that would gel with her singing style. I was still kind of a young guy. I was a little intimidated, right? She was a superstar and one of my favorites. But she did a beautiful job. She's an amazing person to work with, just a delightful human being and so, so talented. But what I learned as we were working on this arrangement is that Shaka wanted to play drums. I had no idea that Shaka was a funk drummer, and she was amazing. So we recorded it with the band. We recorded it with Shaka playing drums. But after Shaka left, they realized there was some issue with the drum recording, and it would need to be redone. And so here I am. We have this great rhythm section and no drums. So I remember running out to the common area of Westlake Recording, where we were recording in L.A., and I said, is there any drummers around? Please, I need someone to redo the drum track. And some guy says, oh, yeah, sure. What's it for? I said, we're all reading, maybe. He said, I'm there, man. he came in, listened to it once, put on headphones, and he just killed it. You know, to this day, I don't know who he was. I have no idea. I would love to say thank you to him again. Here's the third official version of the Reading Rainbow theme song with vocals by Shaka Khan and drums by some guy in the studio that day. I can go twice as high Take a look, it's in a book A reading rainbow I can go anywhere Friends to know and ways to grow A reading rainbow A reading rainbow The original run of Reading Rainbow finally ended in 2006. Over the next couple of decades, there were some starts and stops, like a special called Reading Rainbow Live. Then, in 2025, fans of this beloved series got great news. Reading Rainbow was coming back. Nearly 20 years after the show went off the air, Reading Rainbow is returning with a new digital platform. But the same message. Open a book. The new host is Michael Threats, better known as Michael the Librarian. He's an actual librarian who became a viral star for his kid-friendly videos. In them, he recommends books and tells inspiring stories about working in the library. Library kids are helpers, helping with empathy and kindness. That's the library. Let's be like the library, kids. The library is for everyone. This series includes a new version of Steve and Janet's classic theme song. It was created by a singer-songwriter named Bukola and her producer, Anthony Anderson. Butterfly in the sky I can go twice as high Take a look, it's in a book A reading rainbow I can go anywhere Friends to know, ways to grow A reading rainbow A reading rainbow A reading rainbow Back in 1980, when Steve, Janet, and Dennis dreamt up this song in their little New York studio, they could never have guessed what an impact it would have. I had no idea that it would become so beloved. You know, to this day, I hear people singing it on the street. It's like crazy. I get emails almost every week from someone who talks about how it changed their lives and how important that song is to them. So the theme means a lot to me now. With this theme song, the creators hit on the perfect combination of a catchy melody and a moving message. And that's what makes it so timeless. It was about empowerment. You know, that song is all about empowerment. I mean, who doesn't want to sing, I can go anywhere, I can be anything. We weren't saying, you can go anywhere, you can be anything. It was always sung from the perspective of the child. Those are really powerful things for kids to hear. and they were delivered in such a melodic way that they'll always be remembered. 20,000 Hertz is produced by my sound agency, DeFacto Sound. To hear more, follow DeFacto Sound on Instagram or visit defactosound.com. This episode was written and produced by Casey Emmerling. With help from Grace East. It was sound designed and mixed by Brandon Pratt. And Jade Dickey. With original music by Wesley Slover. Thanks to our guest, Steve Horlick. To learn more about his work, visit stevehmusic.com. Finally, subscribe to my YouTube channel, dallastaylor.mp3. Over there, I go behind the scenes with the music and audio crews of Bluey, Disney Imagineering, Cirque du Soleil, and more. You can also find clips of these videos on Instagram and TikTok under that same name, dallastaylor.mp3. Thanks for listening.
