Itās more of a rite now than an actual need but Iāve been singing it since the first one was born, so theyāre pretty used to that melody. I think everything works if youāre persistent enough
Well, MAK said at DavidĀ“s talk in italy that there has been a lot of borrowing in his tunes for Zak. Of course itĀ“s obvious that we hear Mars The Bringer Of War at the cinematic at introduces the martian surface. And that thing with Leaving On A Jetplane is fun because you could miss it easily as it is not the main melody. There are occasional beeps in the airport theme that when you play the theme really fast actually sound like the John Denver tune
But I believe that the opening theme is entirely original, it has a vibe of mystery around it that I find hard to explain why it works to well. It could be the theme tune to a great secret agent series. ItĀ“s so good it is actually a bit of a shame it was only the intro tune to one single game.
But I love Maniac Mansion too, even though it is only the opening theme. However only the C64 version because that is the only one to have that menancing John Carpenter like sutstained chord at one point when the title appears:
(timecode @51 seconds)
Those four seconds are pure genius!
I also like Monkey Island main theme, the ending (or love) theme and LeChuckĀ“s theme.
Had I to pick a single favourite it would probably be Zak.
The first MI theme. Another favourite is Zakās main theme. These are rather obvious choices, but I also love one of the in game tracks from Curse. I havenāt heard it in years, so itās bit sketchy now. I thought it was one of Landeās best. It has long sustained notes from some strange ethereal instrument that give it kind of a haunting quality. Reminds me of the band Opeth which seem very different (itās a rather heavy prog metal band), yet they often create this kind of strange, sad mood with this kind instrumentation.
Definitely the MI1 theme. I even had it as ringtone for a while (on my Ericsson GF 768).
But I also very much like āA Pirate I Was Meant To Beā from MI3.
Because I think a song should be sung, and it is sooo hard to pick one favorite out of all other instrumental tunes, I am going with:
and this one on Friday Nights:
Curse of MI spoiler ahead!! Donāt watch the video link or read my story below until you played it/solved a puzzle involving a gun duel.
Fun anecdote: I always played the musically correct notes - so I got to redo that puzzle so many times, because I just couldnāt bring myself to picking the ācorrectā note - correct to solve the puzzle at least Luckily, it would randomise the notes to pick, so once in a while a whole section would make sense!
Of course I love The Secret of Monkey Island game the most, but I must say, that the Bones song from MI2 stuck most in my head. Back then we didnāt have a sound card, all sounds and effects went through the pc speaker. Oh, it was so beautiful!
This is bit offtopic but should be interesting. In Grim Fandango there was a guy underwater singing an old gospel song. It was pretty annoying to say the truth : ) I suppose itās at least a semi-well know song in America, but living in Poland Iāve never heard it before and my only reference point is Grim Fandango. So anyway, I was just listening to an album by a great band Firewater consisting of cover songs when this came up. I struggled to remember where Iāve heard it first and it was fun to realise itās the Grim Fandango song (well, sort of).
Iāve realised that I actually really like the intro music to the special edition of Monkey Island 2. Itās a kind of a slowed down, āfunked upā version of the original theme, with the usual flutey sound for the main tune, a deep bass, tin drums(?) and nicely timed cymbal clashes.
Odd, as I normally prefer the older style sounds.
Iām having a bit of a bob to it while writing this Do, do, do, do-do-do-do do, do, do