The composer of the iconic Mario theme tune has revealed that Paul McCartney once bought him backstage to sing it for him.
In an article for the Washington Post, composer Koji Kondo said he and Super Mario Bros. creator Shigeru Miyamoto went to see The Beatles in 1986 while they were touring Japan.
After learning they were in the audience, Paul McCartney and his wife Linda invited them backstage. Upon meeting Kondo and Miyamoto, the first thing the McCartneys did was sing the first six notes of the Super Mario Bros. theme.
It was an “incredible moment,” said Kondo.
Kondo is the only video game composer to be included in the Library of Congress – a collection of sound recordings that “are culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” to life in the United States – and is responsible for soundtracks to several Mario, The Legend Of Zelda and Star Fox games.
He was the first person hired by Nintendo in 1984 to specialise in video game music and worked alongside one other composer. “We basically just took turns making whatever was in development,” said Kondo. “They would come to us and say, ‘Hey we’ve got this game, you make it.’ It just happened to be my turn in the rotation when they were developing Super Mario.”
More recently, Kondo worked on the soundtrack to 2023’s Super Mario Bros. Wonder and helped compose the soundtrack to The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
In 2014, McCartney wrote the song ‘Hope For The Future’ for online shooter Destiny, alongside several of game’s main themes. “I know from my kids and my grandkids, they just bury themselves in a game and I don’t think they’ve got time to listen to my music,” he said at the time. “Their agenda is pretty full with all the other stuff, you know, so I like the idea of infiltrating into their agenda.”
“I’m not very good at games,” he added. “I’ve got so much else to be getting on with; I can’t have my face in a screen, you know, bopping along in a game. I had a go and it was great, but I got mashed almost instantly. The aliens mashed me.”
There is also speculation more McCartney music may feature in Destiny 2’s The Final Shape soundtrack, which is set for release in June.
In other news, Sony Pictures Entertainment have announced the details of four Beatles biopic projects, told from the perspective of each band member.
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