Video game music. By me. I didn’t even have a Nintendo, but I think my parents’ instinct on this point proved to be correct – the secondhand fumes were, clearly, more than strong enough. Of course, I’ve gotten to play all those games more recently in emulated form, but I assure you the present piece comes from deeper memories.

I could yammer about what it is that’s so intriguing and enveloping about Nintendo games – I’m tempted, and I probably will someday – but that’s really beside the point here.

I guess this is a tribute? parody? in addition to being a symptom of my childhood fascinations. It was calibrated solely to amuse Beth and as such is not exactly a coherent genre piece. It’s an amalgam of elements from several different archetypes. While I was writing it, I joked that the game was called “LA Streets,” picturing a Double Dragonesque setup starring two cops, but that’s wrong on several counts. First of all, a fighting game wouldn’t specify a locale in its title like that because it could never live up to it over the course of many levels; they’d want to make it international or have it go indoors – “LA Streets” is more likely to be a racing game. Second of all, though the initial buildup suggests the gritty world of street toughs and/or cops, the opening fanfare and the upper figuration in the A section clearly indicate that this game takes place in outer space, whereas the chord progression and counter-fanfares in the B section suggests that this game has fantasy elements. In other words, fireballs are involved. So obviously “LA Streets” is the wrong name for this game. But that’s what it’s called.*

Furthermore, the loop is clearly too short. A third section (or a repeat of the B section) would be necessary to turn this into title-screen music, and even more if it’s in-game music. Each time you start a new guy, by the way, a fast version of that opening fanfare leads you into the level music. Just wanted to let you know.

The “square waveform” lead instrument is in honor of the Commodore 64 of my youth, but the rest of the instruments are just choices off my synth that amused me, not all of them historically realistic. Plus there are way too many voices going at once for a Nintendo. I think that thing could handle, like, three voices plus percussion.

I am vaguely aware that there are whole “communities” of people out on the internet making up music like this and all sorts of other crap to indulge their Nintendo demons, but, for what it’s worth, I made this in isolation to amuse Beth alone, and the idea of bonding with anyone over this sort of thing fills me with trepidation.

That said, I continue to believe that hanging my not-particularly-dirty laundry out in public is a worthwhile inner exercise for me. So enjoy.

* On the other hand, one of the odd charms of Nintendo games (I said I wasn’t going to do this!) was that they tried to instill any scenario with the same hyperactive Japanese sense of !!! excitement and !!! power !!! … so it’s actually quite likely that a game about thugs punching each other would be presented as though it were epic and magical. That’s actually the joke here, isn’t it. Yes.