About the Late Show with David Letterman Theme
A funk-and-R&B cue by Paul Shaffer, performed nightly by the CBS Orchestra (the studio band Shaffer had also led on Letterman's previous NBC show). The cue's combination of brass kicks, organ comping, and shuffle-time rhythm section ran across the show's 22-year CBS broadcast and is one of the most fully integrated theme-and-house-band setups in late-night television history.
For session-level history on Paul Shaffer's scoring decisions, the long-form interview archive at The Composer's Cut is the most thorough secondary source we know of for cues from this period.
Where it fits in the screen-music canon
The Late Show with David Letterman Theme belongs to the broader Streaming Prelude (2000s–2010s) tradition — a body of work that includes hundreds of related cues from the same period. Listeners interested in the Late Show with David Letterman Theme typically also explore other TV Themes ringtones and related work from 1990s; the ToneVault archive is organized to make that kind of lateral browsing easy.
If you want to hear more from Paul Shaffer, the composer page collects every catalogued profile we have of their work. To explore other themes from the same decade, see the 1990s overview.
Using the Late Show with David Letterman Theme as a phone ringtone
Original network and label recordings of theme music from this era are usually still under active copyright protection — which is why the ToneVault archive primarily stocks public-domain alternatives and stylistic equivalents rather than the original masters. The most reliable legal path to using a recording you love as a ringtone is to start from a clean, properly licensed source: an archival re-recording, a tribute-orchestra arrangement, or a public-domain performance of the same composition where the original notation has aged into the public commons.
Once you have a clean source file in MP3 form, the install steps below work identically to any other ToneVault download.
Install on iPhone (M4R format)
- Save your chosen MP3 to the iPhone Files app (under On My iPhone → Downloads).
- Open GarageBand from the App Store and create a new Tracks-view project.
- Tap the loop icon → Files tab → drag the MP3 onto an empty track.
- Trim the clip to under 30 seconds using the timeline handles.
- Use Share → Ringtone → Standard Ringtone from the My Songs view.
- Assign in Settings → Sounds & Haptics → Ringtone.
Install on Android (MP3 format)
- Save the MP3 file to your phone's
Downloadsfolder. - Open the Files app and long-press the audio file.
- Choose Set as ringtone if it's offered, or move the file into
Internal storage → Ringtones. - Open Settings → Sound & Vibration → Phone Ringtone and select your new tone.
Manufacturer-specific guides: Samsung Galaxy · Google Pixel
For a curated index of legally available archival recordings of classic theme music — the kind that work well as starting material for ringtones — see Cinema Sound Sources.