John Tesh jolted awake at 2 a.m. humming a tune.

“Da-da-da-da-da da-da-da ...”

It was July 1989. The setting: a hotel room in the tiny Alpen village of Megève, France. Tesh was a cohost at Entertainment Tonight, but he’d taken a leave to cover the Tour de France. His role on the race was similar to his job in the early to mid-’80s at ABC Sports, where he worked as both a broadcaster and composer of themes for such events as the Super Bowl and the Pan American Games. Upon his arrival in France, Tesh learned NBC would begin airing NBA games in the 1990-91 season and needed a theme song for the broadcast. Even as he busied himself producing synthesizer accompaniment to footage of cycling’s Super Bowl, Tesh found himself consumed by thoughts of a basketball jingle.

Roused by the catchy melody running through his mind, the 6-foot-6 songsmith leapt out of his hotel bed. “It was one of those lightning-bolt moments,” says the 68-year-old, calling from the Los Angeles studio where he records Intelligence for Your Life, the nationally syndicated radio show he cohosts with his wife, actress Connie Sellecca. Tesh could hear the song in near-complete form, as if the composition were handed down by the jock-jam gods: the muscular interplay of piano, strings, brass, and guitar; the fast-break tempo; the distinct sections, with one throttled back to allow for a broadcaster’s voice-over.

Tesh had his NBA theme. What he didn’t have was a tape recorder. He feared that if he went back to sleep, the idea would evaporate by morning. Thinking quickly, he called his home in L.A., got the answering machine, and left a momentous message at the sound of the tone: Da-da-da-da-da da-da-da . . .

[Read Jake Malooley's oral history of "Roundball Rock," the theme for NBA on NBC.]