Getting Nintendo Music Stuck in Your Head

Imagine, for a moment, that you work at the Middle East desk of an international newspaper. After a hard morning of editing, you have a rare free moment, and you lean back in your chair to savor it. Suddenly, in the back of your mind, an idea forms. Is it an insight about US foreign policy in Saudi Arabia? Is it the genesis of a book proposal about democracy in the Arab world?

No. It's the overworld music from The Legend of Zelda.

Dum. Diddly dum. Diddly DUM ... DIT dumdumdum. Dit dumdumdum, dit dumdumdum, dit dumdumdum dit ... bum bum bum bum Dum. Diddly dum...

Once the soundtrack to your childhood, it's a now an uninvited guest in your adult life, strolling through the door wearing corduroys and toting the premiere 1988 issue of Nintendo Power under its arm.

And it won't leave. It's camped out on the comfortable couch of your mind, sprawling out, snacking on Funyuns and watching "Everybody Loves Raymond."

Thus: Are we in charge of our minds, or are they in charge of us?

"Don't think of an elephant" is a traditional starting point for this sort of discussion, but it's more complicated than that. The proverbial elephant, at least, recedes into nonexistance shortly after it has been forcibly conjured up. But the overworld music from Zelda is totally tenacious. It just won't go away, no matter how much we'd like it to.

It serves no useful purpose. It's not making the slaying of octoroks more delightful. It's not accompanying the use of the blue candle to burn down trees, or the destruction of tektites. It's humming around the room while you're trying to concentrate on the United Nations withdrawing its foreign staff from Baghdad.

Like a clown stubbornly appearing at a nun's funeral while in full Barnum & Bailey regalia, the overworld theme music for The Legend of Zelda has no sense of shame or propriety. It just runs on, and on, and on, in an endless loop, accompanying nothing, and making all other thought processes sit muted in the background.

How is this advantageous, from an evolutionary standpoint? Was there a time when our fur-clad ancestors needed to memorize specific musical chants in order to pass checkpoints without being hit over the head by thigh bones?

OKAALAT: Quickly. What is theme song to southern forest hunting trip?

UGH: Oh. Uhm. Is it this?

OKAALAT: HIT UGH WITH THIGH BONE! HIT UGH WITH THIGH BONE!

There's no denying that the human mind is an amazing piece of work, and that it has depths and subtleties its owners can't begin to comprehend.

But Nintendo music. Seriously, the human mind. Seriously. Is that really the best you can do?

— James Norton (jrnorton@flakmag.com)

— graphic by Charles Fincher (charles.fincher@thadeusandweez.com)