As soon as you hear that opening “dun dun,” you know it’s time to get down to business. The theme song for Law & Order, created by Mike Post, has all the moody aura necessary for a police procedural, and it’s rightfully become one of the most iconic TV themes ever. Whether you’re giving it a close listen to suss out the theme’s various instruments or hearing it casually as you dissociate on the couch with the TV on, the Law & Order theme is a singular, unforgettable piece of music. But how, exactly, does it achieve such a perfect musical balance and serve as an apt primer for the show?
Musically, Post brings a ton of choices that establish the mood and get us in justice-seeking mode. Let’s start with the opening “dun dun,” created by, essentially, two bass notes and bass drum hits. Though played via sampler, the hits sound like they’ve come from a timpani, which is a very large set of drums that are used to emphasize moments of drama in an orchestral setting (think the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey, where timpani hits crescendo in a dun-dun-dun-dun fashion). Already, from the first two notes, they suggest gravity and high stakes.
But the notes themselves tell a story, too. Together, they create a minor second, which is a short step away from a tritone. A tritone, usually found in alerting sounds like car horns, elicit tension and unease in the listener, at least in the Western musical canon. Post picking these specific notes is intentional, because they suggest that what the viewer is about to see comes from something unresolved and unsettling. They trigger an immediate emotional response: something is wrong, justice is needed.
In reality, the two opening notes aren’t as easy to parse out after all these years — even for its creator. In a 2024 interview with Consequence, Post described the sound as “a guy hitting an anvil with a hammer. It’s somebody hitting a brake drum with another kind of something. It’s a bunch of men in Japan stomping on a wood floor. It’s a jail door slamming. Then we went in and banged on some crap and some drums and some metal things, and we put all this stuff together, and we sent it over to the dub stage about five, six hours later.” Still, whatever chaotic alchemy went into crafting that sound, the result is precise and purposeful — two notes that instantly communicate drama, authority, and unease.
Post continues building suspense by employing a slinky, syncopated groove and frequently offsetting it with instrumental accents. The rhythm drives almost faster than it should — like a recently-dispatched police car speeding towards the action or detectives hammering through a case.
In between syncopated percussion hits, a tinny, harshly-plucked acoustic guitar pops up; it’s there as an accent mark, but it’s quite jarring. Not only is it hard to tell whether the guitar sound is coming from an organic instrument or being mimicked by one of Post’s synthesizers, it’s strangely the most soulful aspect of the whole theme. The score seems to make space for the guitar that it can’t make for other instrumental accents, mirroring the show’s focus on individual humanity within the larger machinery of justice.
The guitar and its ambiguous origins also hints at a fascinating “theme within the theme”: Post deliberately creates tension between organic instruments and electronic ones. Written and recorded in 1990, the composition is situated between two eras of TV scoring: the raw orchestral tradition of classic television (and procedurals, at that) and the synthesizer-driven sound of the ’80s and early ’90s. Post doesn’t choose one approach over the other; instead, he uses both.
At a first listen, the electronic palette Post employs tends to dominate each phrase. The aforementioned opening bass hits and keyboard line are from a synthesizer, and the drums — especially the ultra-crisp “snap,” or rim shot, that serves as the theme’s metronome — are mechanistic and never veer off script. These electronic elements immediately bring us straight into the concrete jungle of New York City, the steely timbre of the city’s soundscape, the rigid systems of urban justice and bureaucracy.
But then Post weaves in the organic: beyond that plucked guitar, there are real strings that swell beneath the mix, adding emotional weight and a sense of legacy to suggest that this is a system with history, with tradition. A closer listen also reveals the sound of a triangle or chime cutting through at key moments, with its bright timbre and incessant rhythm a reminder that justice runs on a relentless clock, always ticking forward with each new case. Whether that triangle or chime is played physically or recreated via a synth, like the guitar sound, is slightly ambiguous — but it doesn’t exactly matter. The feeling of urgency, however faint in the mix, is always present.
Post utilizes this tension to a smart extent; the Law & Order theme is never too dissonant, nor is it too colorful and satisfying. That clever balance is emphasized by the theme’s main chord progression and keyboard line, which refuse to give the listener a comfortable resolution. The harmonic movement stays restless, circling around tension, without ever landing on a clear “home” chord that would signal completion or closure.
This isn’t a flaw — it’s the entire point. The chords shift and the melody moves, yet we never get the cathartic release of a proper resolution. The theme ends almost exactly where it began: unsettled, unfinished, ready to start again. It’s as if Post is telling us that the work of justice is never truly complete. One case closes, but another file lands on the desk. The detectives solve one crime, but the city keeps churning out new ones.
Post would go on to expand the original Law & Order theme for its long-running spinoff show, Special Victims Unit, bringing more instruments (like a soprano sax and electric guitar) and even more tension. But for the most part, the SVU theme operates on a template extremely similar to its predecessor, and achieves the same level of suspense and intrigue. In just 30 seconds, the Law & Order theme manages to encapsulate the show’s entire philosophy: Within the framework of a cold, historic-but-unyielding system, you cannot crush the inherent humanity of those seeking justice.
The blend of electronic precision and organic warmth, the driving rhythm that never rests, the harmonic tension that never resolves… Every musical choice reflects the show’s understanding of justice as an unceasing fight, a system where human drama and institutional austerity are forever intertwined, neither fully in control. That’s why, decades later, those two “dun dun” notes still hit so hard. It’s not just the signal of a TV show beginning. It’s the sound of a cycle that never truly ends, justice perpetually in motion.
Editor’s Note: Check out our list of the 30 Best TV Procedurals of All Time, including Law & Order.