Music is a quintessential part of the Zelda series. And some of Zelda’s most iconic melodies go all the way back to the original game, on the Nintendo Entertainment System. These tunes were born in an age of 8 bits, and 5 lo-fi channels of audio. But those limitations forced composer Koji Kondo to make them as distilled and powerful as possible. Featuring Thomas of Thomas Game Docs, and Kirk Hamilton of Strong Songs. Follow Dallas on Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn. Watch our video shorts on YouTube, and join the discussion on Reddit and Facebook. Sign up for Twenty Thousand Hertz+ to get our entire catalog ad-free. If you know what this week's mystery sound is, tell us at mystery.20k.org Subscribe to Thomas Game Docs, on Youtube. Subscribe to Strong Songs wherever you get your podcasts. Check out more work by DragonDePlatino, who composed the 8-bit version of Boléro. Go to indeed.com/hertz to start hiring today. Visit babbel.com/20k to get 55% off your subscription. Find the right doctor, right now with at zocdoc.com/20k. Visit shopify.com/20k and sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period. Support us by supporting our sponsors at 20k.org/sponsors. Episode transcript, music, and credits can be found here: https://www.20k.org/episodes/zeldabeep Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It's Christmas morning, 1987.
I'm seven years old, sitting in my living room, rocking my favorite he man pajamas.
It's the best Christmas ever.
I just don't know it yet.
This is the year that Santa brought me a mysterious Nintendo game in a golden cartridge.
It's something called the Legend of Zelda.
I slide the game into the console, press it down, close the COVID and push the power button.
Then I hear this.
The screen shows the games title underlined by a sword.
In the background, a waterfall cascades down a rocky mountain.
Suddenly, the screen goes dark.
Then text begins to scroll up from the bottom of the screen, almost like the opening crawl of Star wars.
It tells the tale of a prince of darkness named Ganon, a princess named Zelda, and a magical power called the Triforce.
The text tells me that Im on a quest to find the eight pieces of the triforce and save Zelda from Ganon.
Thats how I was first introduced to the Zelda series, and that title sequence pretty much blew my seven year old mind.
It was the perfect introduction to this world of magic and adventure, and a huge part of what made it so powerful was that epic music.
But my first introduction to Zelda was almost completely different because for a long time during the games development, composer Koji Kondo used a different song for that title screen.
It was originally a rendition of Maurice Revelles famous piece bolero.
Here's a recording by the London Symphony Orchestra.
Now, obviously, it wouldn't have sounded like that on the hardware of the original Nintendo.