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Many, many video games feature an underground ocean: Aquaria, Song of the Deep, and of course Sunless Sea — but while this song is entitled "Sunless Sea", and is intended as an homage to all of gaming's underground oceans, it's not based on that game at all, but on NES classic Blaster Master, which features such an environment as one of its many levels. All of the music from Blaster Master is great, and I've always especially loved the music from the ocean level, and have long planned to put lyrics to it.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: the Area 5 theme from Blaster Master by Naoki Kodaka

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"When I'm Gone" by Phil Ochs is a touching meditation on mortality and the temporary nature of our lives. It's also — I'm sorry, I can never unhear this and now neither will you — note-for-note almost exactly the same as the theme from Nintendo's original Donkey Kong, so this mashup was inevitable.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "When I'm Gone" by Phil Ochs

and the theme from Donkey Kong by Yukio Kaneoka

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Deep Rock Galactic is one of my favorite multiplayer games — a class/squad based co-op miner/shooter with missions just the right size for a casual play session, and a truly friendly online scene. I highly recommend it (unless you balk at enclosed spaces, chasms, darkness, or swarms of creepy crawly things).

Anyway, you play as classic-RPG-trope Dwarves mining a hostile planetoid on behalf of a heartless sci-fi megacorp — or, as the song puts it: Dwarves, workin' for the Man... in spaaaaaace!

Of course I had to write this as a parody of that most famous of Dwarven ballads, from The Hobbit, and it was the animated movie's setting of it that stuck in my head first, but for this I went with the setting from the Peter Jackson film.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "Misty Mountains" by Thorin Oakenshield & Co., as recorded by J.R.R. Tolkien

set to music by Plan 9 and David Long

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This mashup — based on a typo! — of The Last Unicorn (and its theme song) and the Transformers movie may be one of the most 80s things I've ever written.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman
ttto: "The Last Unicorn" by America

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This is my lyric arrangement of the underground theme from Final Fantasy IV. In the game, the first cave you encounter is the Mist Cave, which is haunted by a Mist Dragon — and the Mist Dragon turns out to have a specific connection to the game's plot, which is not explored in the song. The song represents more of a legend that might have grown around the place, before the events of the game occur.

The chords, based on an analysis of a MIDI file, are as close as I could make them and unfortunately quite difficult to play on the guitar — F#m is, based on a computer search, the least-annoying key, and I still can't pull it off consistently. My recording is a cappella.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman
ttto: "Into the Dark" from Final Fantasy IV by Nobuo Uematsu

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This song is a setting of a verse of Psalm and also a video game meme.

The verse is Psalms 51:12, לֵב טָהוֹר בְּרָא-לִי אֱלֹהִים וְרוּחַ נָכוֹן חַדֵּשׁ בְּקִרְבִּי: lev tahor b'ra li, elohim, v'ru'ach nachon chadesh b'kirbi (create for me a pure heart, O G-d, and renew within me a right spirit). Why is this a video game meme? Because the Hebrew word for "within me" is also the name of Nintendo character Kirby — and the Hebrew word for "spirit" also means "wind" or "breath", which is Kirby's main form of attack/interaction.

The meme image (below) was made first, and shows Kirby performing his iconic inhale attack, captioned with the verse in Hebrew. But then I thought, why not set this verse to music from one of Kirby's games?

lyrics from Psalm 51:12, trad. Hebrew
ttto: "Cloud Stage" from Kirby's Adventure by Hirokazu Ando

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One of the catchiest tunes from The Secret of Mana. I spent a long time working on the instrumental sections, and only wrote the lyrics afterwards.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "A Curious Tale" from The Secret of Mana by Hiroki Kikuta

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The theme from Kraid's hideout in the original Metroid is haunting, catchy, harmonically strange, and technically demanding to perform. I hope this lyric's multiple internal rhymes and impossibly fast patter are worthy of it.

Unexpectedly, the horror here comes not from the titular monster, but from that uncanny and unnatural process which video games trick us into accepting as commonplace — respawning. Does your character remember your previous attempts? What must that be like?

lyrics by Benjamin Newman
ttto: "Kraid's Hideout" from Metroid by Hirokazu Tanaka

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The lore of the Legend of Zelda series was invented to make a cool background for a video game and not to make sense as a mystical system. Certainly, its problematically simplistic idea of how evil reapppears works better in a game that needs a clear villain than it will in your actual worldview.

However, the association of three (!) elements (water, fire, and wind) with three divine attributes (wisdom, power, and courage) does echo some real-world magical systems, and I'm the kind of pagan who will take that and run with it, especially if there's a catchy tune to set it to.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "The Legendary Hero" from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker by Kenta Nagata, Hajime Wakai, Toru Minegishi and Koji Kondo

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At the halfway point of Final Fantasy VI, the world is shattered by a magical cataclysm. This is a lyric for the musical theme that introduces the "World of Ruin", where the rest of the game takes place.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "The Day After" from Final Fantasy VI by Nobuo Uematsu

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This song was previously released as "Yehudi Mind Tricks". The song hasn't changed, just the title.

The stories of Moses and of Luke Skywalker match up in a lot of places. Being taken away from their parents. Encountering a deeper spiritual reality. Hearing the Call. Standing up to an Empire. But, most of all, what ties them together is the Desert.

lyrics and music by Benjamin Newman

chorus based on Ben Kenobi's theme from Star Wars by John Williams

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In Jewish tradition, a niggun is a wordless melody, often used in prayer to set a mood. This one is based on the theme from The Legend of Zelda by Koji Kondo.

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/ Em - - - / C - G - / F - Em - / F# - B7 - /

/ Em - - - / C - B7 - / / / F - Em - / B7 - Em - /

Chocobos are mostly flightless avian steeds from the Final Fantasy multiverse.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "Chocobo Chocobo" from Final Fantasy IV by Nobuo Uematsu

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The town of Zozo in Final Fantasy VI is a terrible place. Everyone there always lies, even about the time of day, and then they try to beat you up. Enjoy your visit!

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "Slam Shuffle" (the theme of Zozo) from Final Fantasy VI by Nobuo Uematsu

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Based on a climactic scene from Final Fantasy IX, a game I have not played myself. That scene, and this piece of music, were recommended to me by a dear friend.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "You're Not Alone" from Final Fantasy IX by Nobuo Uematsu

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From Final Fantasy IV, a song for Rydia, an apprentice caller (or summoner).

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: Rydia's theme from Final Fantasy IV by Nobuo Uematsu

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I'm not the only filker to notice that "McGillavry" sounds a lot like "of Gallifrey". Marc Gunn and Devo Spice also took on this challenge and produced a very different song.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "Donald McGillavry" by James Hogg

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lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: the theme from Final Fantasy VI by Nobuo Uematsu

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lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: The Temple of Fiends theme from Final Fantasy by Nobuo Uematsu

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Besides just the phrase "shadow of", Shadow of the Colossus and "Shadows of Evangeline" share a sense of forbidden ritual and forgotten secrets. The instrumental break features one of the musical themes from the game.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "Shadows of Evangeline" by Dave Carter, with "The Opened Way" from Shadow of the Colossus by Koh Ohtani

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