What a wonderful life we've chosen that it never stands still.

This is Joe Wong.

Welcome to the Trap Set. I want to play something for you.

You're hearing the Rockford Files theme song written by my guest, Mike Post.

Mike started out as a studio guitarist, recording classics like Sonny and Shares I Got You Babe.

As a producer, he won a Grammy for Classical Gas in 1968 and worked with artists ranging from Sammy Davis Jr.

to Dolly Parton on her smash 9 to 5 album

to Van Halen. But Mike is best known as the preeminent television composer of his generation.

Often in conjunction with his longtime composing partner, Pete Carpenter, Mike crafted thematic

earworms that reside in the collective consciousness.

The A-Team, Dugie Houser, Quantum Leap, L.A. Law, Hill Street Blues,

the Greatest American Hero, and the entire Law & Order franchise,

represent just a slice of a body of work comprising thousands of hours of television music.

Through a strange series of events,

I met Mike 10 years ago during a particularly difficult period in my life.

We spoke in Pasadena, California.

And now my conversation with Mike Post. But I can remember the feeling of wanting to crawl into the speaker.

You know, I mean, I had to be like two or three and going, you know, almost like people talk about death.

And now you've spent your whole life trying to crawl into the fucking speaker.

No shit.

You know, shit.

It's, it was, it's like a line that I said to somebody.

...