The Legend of Zelda is known for, among many things, its brilliant music. Nintendo has always put its best foot forward when creating original scores for the soundtrack of this legendary franchise. As the music progressed with each new title, fans and critics alike praised it’s wonderful compositions, so much so that it eventually resulted in orchestrated concerts held across the globe in its honor. However, it all could have been vastly different.
“The Legend of Zelda Theme Song” is one of the most well-known themes in gaming history, and it’s hard to imagine this franchise without it. However, early in the original NES game’s development, Nintendo wanted to give it a different tune — one that they didn’t even write! Maurice Ravel’s “Boléro” was almost picked to be the overworld theme of the game! As classy a tune as it is, it’s hard to imagine it taking the place of the now iconic music.
Luckily for us (and the franchise itself), Ravel’s composition was still considered under copyright laws, meaning that they would either have to find another piece that was free for public use — or compose a whole new song specifically for the title. Instead of trying to find a different stock song, Nintendo asked the now-legendary composer, Koji Kondo, to write the theme for the game that we all now know and love — and in a very impressive amount of time! Talk about your all-nighters!
Since then, the piece has evolved from its simple 8-bit tracking and upgraded to synthesized orchestration, which eventually led to using the real deal. The song continued to reappear throughout each game, showing up in either a full-on orchestration such as “Termina Field” in Majora’s Mask, or a subtle nod in one of the games’ newer tracks such as “On Horse (Night)” in Breath of the Wild.
It’s crazy to think that this theme almost didn’t exist, but thanks to a happy accident, we now have a video game score that revolutionized the way that not just Nintendo, but all gaming companies have composed the music for their games.
