Was the Zelda Fairy Fountain Music Inspired by a Track From Super Mario Bros. 3?
For your consideration: two tracks from classic Nintendo titles that sound similar that you would be forgiven for supposing that one might have inspired the other. Exhibit A is the fairy fountain theme from the Legend of Zelda series.
And exhibit B is the map theme to the water world in Super Mario Bros. 3.
They’re both composed by Koji Kondo. Surely, the similarity must be intentional, right? The short answer is no, despite that seemingly like a likely explanation, but as is so often the case, the journey of answering the question is more interesting than the final destination.
Back when I hosted a video game music podcast, I learned something that about musical soundalikes that ultimately helped me make sense of the non-musical elements of video games and even about culture itself: There will be times when all signs may be pointing to the idea that two things are connected or even that a cause-and-effect relationship must exist between them, but don’t make any bets because sometimes this is just not the case. For example, it seems like a given that the stretchy-armed yogi fighter from the 1976 martial arts movie Master of the Flying Guillotine *has* to be what inspired Street Fighter II’s Dhalsim, but game co-designer Akira Nishitani says he was not familiar with the film during the development of the game, and in fact Dhalsim’s elastic limbs were inspired by JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. There’s always the chance that Nishitani is mistaken, of course, but unless someone can prove that, this is one of those instances in which a person in position to remember where an idea came from says that no, the origin story that everyone presumes is correct just is not.
I bring up the video game music podcast because I would frequently get messages about how a given track from a video game “sounded just like” some piece of pop music to the point that the former *had* to have been inspired by the latter. The theme to Elec Man’s stage from the first Mega Man game, for example, truly does sound like “Faithfully” by Journey.
However, composer Manami Matsumae actually told GTV in 2018 that the similarity is a coincidence. In fact, quite a few pop songs out there contain an element that sounds a lot like what some people think is proof of some kind of inspiration relationship between the Journey song and the Elec Man stage, including Prince’s “Purple Rain,” REM’s “All the Right Friends,” and Cheap Trick’s “Way of the World,” which was actually released before “Faithfully.”
For my Singing Mountain episode about this phenomenon, I talked to Karl Brueggemann of Super Marcato Bros., a podcast that gets very technical about VGM, and he explained the common element a follows:
It’s a pretty simple idea, melodically and rhythm-wise, with lots of repetition. … The rhythms here start with four dotted quarter notes. The harmonies typically change, but the melody repeats a few times. That repetition with changing context, plus the rhythmic displacement, is very pleasing and quite a common songwriting technique. Add the descending progression, and it's a very emotional and powerful effect.
He also identified the main theme of Space Harrier, composed by Hiroshi Kawaguchi, of having an element that does something very similar.
What this amounts to, more or less, is convergent evolution: a handful of composers stumbling onto the same musical structure because it creates a specific, desired effect in the person listening. And while this might be evident to someone who studies music on a structural level, someone who just experiences music passively might hear the two tracks and jump the conclusion that two different composers couldn’t have arrived at the same idea separately; one musty have inspired the other, to say nothing of one ripping off the other.
The question of the SMB3 water world theme sounding like the Zelda fairy fountain music came up in response to a recent episode of the Nintendo Cartridge Society podcast because Mark, one of the hosts, pointed out that he couldn’t place a piece of music on the Mario Kart World soundtrack, and that it sounded to him like the fairy music from Zelda. On Discord, it was determined that it was actually the newly orchestrated version of the water world map theme from the game’s SMB3 medley.
The water world and fairy fountain themes do sound alike, especially removed from their original arrangements, to the point that I wondered if maybe overlap might be intentional. They both have something to do with water, after all, and Kondo is not above referencing his own work in a way that crosses franchises, seeing as how the original Legend of Zelda warp whistle theme shows up in SMB3. It would not be unreasonable to imagine that he composed the rather bossa nova beach theme for SMB3 and then, years later, when needing to create music for Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, revisited the same concept to create a second piece that evoked the idea of sparkling water, just this time in a more tranquil arrangement.
You’d be wrong for guessing this, however, because Kondo said in a 2001 interview that this is note the case.
Interviewer: I think the music for world three (Water Land) sounds like the fairy spring music from the Legend of Zelda. Was it in fact modeled on that song...?
Kondo: Oh, now that you mention it, they do sound alike! I hadn't noticed before. (laughs)
Interviewer: Also, the whistle sound is the same sound as the one in Zelda, isn't it...?
Kondo: That was the director's idea, I think. He intentionally wanted to parody it.
So does this mean that there’s a connection that Kondo just was not consciously aware of? Or that the two compositions sounding alike is a coincidence? Obviously, only Koji Kondo could say for sure, but there’s a third option that puts these two pieces of music in context of pop songs that use a similar structure. If you search around online to see what other people are saying about this matter, you will eventually stumble onto the theory that both pieces of music are actually inspired by “Morning Glory,” a 1982 city pop track by Tatsuro Yamashita.
In fact, you will find people claiming that Kondo has actually admitted to this, but I couldn’t find that proof anywhere. Again, it would be reasonable to believe that this could be true as Kondo has gone on record about other Japanese pop songs shaping the music he’d go on to create for video games. In that same 2001 interview, for example, Kondo says the 1984 track “Sister Marian” by the Japanese jazz fusion band T-Square influenced the Super Mario Bros. theme.
I had always liked Latin music. There was more going on than just a Latin influence, but I do like those bright, happy Portuguese songs. I think Sadao Watanabe’s music was also an influence. The overworld theme in Mario might show some influence from the Japanese fusion band T-Square, too. The rhythms in their music were easy for Japanese listeners to follow. Sadao Watanabe’s Nabesada was like that too.
And no kidding — you can really hear the SMB overworld theme in “Sister Marian,” and yes, that song title does seem somewhat prescient.
But lacking any confirmation from Kondo that “Morning Glory” inspired either composition, we’re left to merely point out the fact that a lot of other songs not related to video games or Japanese pop also feature a similar element.
For example, there is Janis Ian’s “At Seventeen,” which I have to admit I did not imagine I’d envision ever bringing up on a video game blog, but here we are.
There’s Coldplay’s “Viva la Vida.”
And there’s even a song by the band Creaky Boards, which back in 2008 accused Coldplay of plagiarizing in “Vida las Vida.” Their title for the song featuring this element? Ironically “The Songs I Didn’t Write,” and this was actually a story that got some play on video game blogs back in the day because gamers noted that both songs sounded like the fairy fountain theme.
In the end, the Creaky Boards frontman withdrew his accusation of plagiarism, saying instead that thought both his song and Coldplay’s were “heavily influenced” by Legend of Zelda. Go figure. Chris Martin, to my knowledge, made no such admission.
In 2023, composer Nahre Sol posted a TikTok in which she linked the fairy fountain song not with any pop song from this or the past century but instead with Chopin’s Fantasie-Impromptu. She’s not saying that Chopin is necessarily the originator of this element, but I have to admit it seems very possible that this composition might be what popularized it with the most people since its publication in 1855 — Janis Ian and Koji Kondo included.
TikTok displays weirdly on this blog, but you can look at the video comparing the fairy fountain theme with Chopin here. The relevant part of the piece is sampled below.
So what is this common element, exactly? Well, it can be hard to describe, depending on your music fluency. Greg L. Smith, a composer who’s also part of the NCS Discord, described it as “hanging up and down and around the major seventh [chord],” and when I asked him how he might explain that idea in layman’s terms, he offered this take on the SMB3 map song and the Zelda fairy theme: “They both use very similar notes in similar orders, but the arrangements are wildly different.”
The most conclusive note we can end on is that both the water world theme and the fairy fountain theme are two examples of compositions featuring a wildly successful melodic structure that appears in many other works. That’s enough for me, honestly, but I’m also just happy to write about any creatives engaging in the call-and-response process of making a thing, sending it out into the world and then having someone else incorporate that thing into their own creative effort. Rinse. Remix. Repat. Honestly, I think humanity is at its best when it’s doing this — but because I like video games, I’m also happy to point out when they’re included in the process. Sometimes, the art that’s created for video games gets siloed off on its own, but putting the Legend of Zelda fairy theme in line with a tradition that goes back to at least Frederic Chopin? That’s one point in favor of any of this mattering and any of it being worth researching.
Miscellaneous Notes
As far as I know, Koji Kondo has not weighed in on whether other songs strongly associated with Super Mario Bros. compositions actually inspired him. There’s the 1979 track “Let’s Not Talk About It,” for example, that really seems like it is the origin from the SMB underground theme. (For what it’s worth, the Youtube account 8-bit Music Theory says it’s too similar to be a coincidence.)
It’s also been widely speculated that the 1983 track “Summer Breeze” by the Japanese band Piper is being referenced in the iconic star theme.
Timeline-wise and genre-wise, it certainly seems like something that could have crossed Kondo’s path in time to make its way into Super Mario Bros., it doesn’t explain the similarity to the other song people point out as sounding very close to the star theme, “What’s the Buzz?” from the soundtrack of Jesus Christ Superstar.
One surprising connection we do know of between Kondo’s work and pop music is the Deep Purple track “April.” Released on the band’s self-titled third album in 1969, “April” is an epic, twelve-minute baroque masterpiece, but around the 3:44 mark, you can hear a segment that will sound familiar if you’ve put in time to the original NES Legend of Zelda.
It sounds just like a segment in that game’s dungeon theme.
In this case, even though Koji Kondo has not admitted to the latter being inspired by the former, we have a pretty good piece of evidence pointing towards this anyway. In 2005, in promotion of Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Nintendo Power magazine ran an interview with Kondo in which he admitted he was not just familiar with Deep Purple’s work but actually had played it in the past.
I actually got my start with electric keyboards, way back when I was five years old. Though I also studied piano, the true backbone of my musicality is on keyboards. When I was in junior high and high school, I really pushed my skills in a cover band that played jazz and rock music--mainly the songs of Deep Purple, as well as Emerson, Lake & Palmer, which some people back then really considered some of the most progressive sounds in rock. Even though my bandmates eventually grew out their hair really long in tribute, I didn't go that far to copy my favorite bands!
And in 2007, Chris Kohler interviewed Kondo for Wired, and in that conversation Kondo admitted to being very into hard rock and Deep Purple in particular in his middle school years, before moving on to jazz fusion. It’s not an explicit admission, I admit, but it’s so very close to one that I am fine with presuming that the similarity between “April” and the dungeon theme is not coincidental. I did one of my earlier Singing Mountain episodes about this, in case you’re interested.
But in researching this post, I happened across another song alleged to have influenced the original Zelda dungeon theme.
I have no proof that it did or if Kondo has any awareness of it, but surely you can hear why people associate it with Zelda, no?
I’m not all about disproving urban legends about the origins of video game music. It’s the best when the thing that sounds like another thing actually is inspired by it. For example, the reason “Bayou Boogie” from the Donkey Kong Country 2 soundtrack sounds like “In the Air Tonight” by Phil Collins is because composer David Wise was intentionally emulating the latter and has said as much.
Wise never responded to my question about whether “Aquatic Ambiance” has a similar relationship with Kate Bush’s “Wow,” so I guess I’ll just have to wonder about that one.
If there was one of those “has to be inspired” songs that people contacted me about back in the day that I could never quite put to rest, at least in my own head, it was this track “Smoke Rings” originally performed by the Casa Loma Orchestra but it the Mills Brothers version that most people associate with the overworld theme to Super Mario Bros. 2.
Again, I do hear it. Do you?
Going back to the Japanese band T-Square, there’s another song from the same album that has “Sister Marian” called “Travelers” that bears a striking resemblance to Guile’s theme from Street Fighter II. As far as I know, composer Yoko Shimomura has never commented about the similarity.
Finally, there’s an interesting coda to the story about the theme to Elec Man’s stage reminding so many people of that Journey song “Faithfully” despite the fact that the composer saying there’s no connection. Have… you ever seen the cover art for Journey’s Frontiers, the album that “Faithfully” debuted on? It’s… a face. It’s a face that has technology on it. So it’s like a blend of tech and a human face. You might say it kind of looks like a robot. But a robot with big blue eyes. And also a helmet. That is blue.
Yeah, the album art looks oddly like Mega Man. Maybe I wouldn’t be thinking that without being set up to have “Faithfully” remind me of Elec Man, but you have to admit that it’s an odd coincidence. The Journey album was released in 1983. Mega Man 1 was released in 1987. It’s probably just a weird, random coincidence, right?