(Ed – This post is not by Gareth Newnham but a good friend of Laser Lemming – Holly Newnham. Enjoy!)
Ever since the first tale of an especially gruelling hunt inspired the first cave painting, art has inspired art. There are countless works of fiction inspired by famous works of art, such as ‘The Girl With A Pearl Earring’ by Tracy Chevalier and ‘I, Mona Lisa’ by Jeanne Lakogridis. There are innumerable songs and albums inspired by novels including ‘For Whom The Bell Tolls’ by Metallica and the concept album ‘Leviathan’ by Mastodon which is inspired by ‘Moby Dick’.
The world of video games is not exempt from this culture of borrowing inspiration as we can see with titles like Alan Wake, Silent Hill and BioShock which are all heavily influenced by literature and authors.
And all of this is without mentioning the wealth of adaptations out there as books become films and video games become books.
So, it should come as no surprise that our newest art form is inspiring other artists to create. I’d heard a few video game inspired songs before and heard the odd reference here and there but last week I heard a song that made me wonder, just how many songs are out there inspired by video games? More specifically, how many songs have been inspired by the don of video games? I’m talking of course about Mario.
During my research I discovered one thing, a lot of people are really bitter about Princess Peach.
Well, here are my top 5 songs inspired by everyone’s favourite plumber, Mario.
- The song that started my quest, ‘Hey, Mario’ by Patent Pending. It sounds like an intervention for our good friend to help get him out of an unhealthy relationship.
- ‘Mario A Cappella’ by Jimmy Wong. I wasn’t sure about including this one as it’s not a straight up original song but the ingenuity and talent involved convinced me that it deserved a spot. If game theme song covers are your thing, YouTube is a goldmine.
- No list of video game inspired songs would be complete with a mention of Kirby Krackle. These guys have a wealth of material covering subjects including the Konami code, Megaman and comic book superheroes. ‘In Another Castle’ again draws on the frustration of finding that Princess Peach appears to be avoiding you.
- By this point I was starting to see a theme. People are really not happy about the way Peach seems to move around.The Mountain Goats and Kaki King give us a song from the perspective of Toad. ‘Thank You Mario, But Our Princess is in Another Castle’ is a haunting tune about waiting.
- Last but not least we have the far more upbeat Super 8 Bit Brothers with ‘My Princess is in Another Castle’. I searched high and low for a video of this track but to no avail so here’s a link to their bandcamp page. Super 8 Bit Brothers are another amazing group with a major video game influences.
My Princess is in Another Castle – Super 8 Bit Brothers
Finally, as a bonus because there’s no video with number 5, here is the Super 8 Bit Brothers track ‘Don’t Sell The Barrels To The Monkey’ which is the fantastic tale of a barrel salesman struggling with the decision to take the biggest sale of his career.
