So, I have a Twitter account, called “thomas
g docs”, and sometimes people send me interesting things they think I should make videos about. Generally speaking, I don’t normally make
those videos. But, someone called Max sent me a message
almost 2 years ago, and it’s one of the most interesting messages I’ve ever received. He discovered an old pop song that sounds
almost identical to one of Mario’s most famous themes. So, today I’m gonna tell you the story Max
told me. One day, he was watching videos of old game
shows on YouTube. Actually to be specific, the show was Name
That Tune. The premise is simple: there are two contestants,
and throughout various rounds of the show they hear short clips of a song, or a few
notes played on the piano. And their job is to Name That Tune. See what they did there? So, Max was watching this old episode from
1984. The two contestants are Susan - a teacher,
and Jack - another teacher. Now, Jack wins the first round, Susan wins
the second, it’s neck and neck. Now, here’s where Max noticed something
weird while he was watching. In this next round, Jack is about to be played
the first four notes of a song, and he has to name what that song is. And, just listen. “Name that tune!” “Here are your four notes.” *musical notes* “Goodnight Ladies!” “No, I’m sorry, it’s Green Green!” Green Green? That sounds a heck of a lot more like a well
known Mario song! As both Alex and I immediately noticed, it
bears a stunning resemblance to the Overworld Theme from Super World on the SNES. So, I’ll do a proper comparison between
the two songs later, and you’ll hear just how similar they really are! But first, let me go back to Max's message. He says:
“I started Googling immediately, expecting to find literally anyone acknowledging that
it sounds exactly like the overworld theme from Super Mario World, but it seems nobody
has ever made this connection. I mean there's no way that's a coincidence,
right?? If anyone can uncover definitive proof that
Kondo was inspired by this track, I think it's you!” Thank you for the vote of confidence! So, these two songs certainly sound similar,
but it seems impossible that Mario’s composer Koji Kondo based his song on this old pop
song. Green Green is a song from 1963, by a group
called The New Christy Minstrels, who you’ve probably never heard of. And this song, well it was a hit in its time,
but nowadays it doesn’t even have a page on Wikipedia. Surely it’s impossible that Koji Kondo could
have ever heard it in Japan in the 1990s. Well to start with, there’s definitely precedent
for Koji Kondo taking inspiration from other pop songs. I’ve got a whole video on this, but part
of the original Zelda dungeon theme [...] sounds really similar to the song April by the rock
group Deep Purple, which he was a fan of at the time. [...] Or, how about the main theme from Super
Mario Brothers? [...] That sounds notably similar to the fusion
song Sister Marian by the band T-Square. [...] Interestingly Koji Kondo in his own
words said this: “The overworld theme in Mario might show some influence from the Japanese
fusion band T-Square”. In other words, this inspiration he took wasn’t
exactly a secret. He talked about it publicly! But what about Super Mario World’s Overworld
theme? Instead of a Japanese fusion song inspiring
this Japanese composer, it would have to have been an old American pop song influencing
all the way over in Japan. That just seems impossible. Except, it turns out... it’s not! So, we need to take a quick diversion to 1960s
Japan. Because THIS is the missing link, the decade
that connected these two songs together from opposite parts of the globe. A fairly well known Japanese children’s
author called Hikaru Kataoka spotted the American song Green Green, and decided to translate
it into Japanese. At the time, Kataoka worked for a TV programme
called Merry Go Round of Song (歌のメリーゴーラウンド), which was watched by millions of Japanese
children every week. It played songs for people to listen to, essentially... And, his Japanese translation of Green Green
was one evening performed on the show, which led to it becoming an instant hit across the
country! Sadly there’s no surviving footage of the
song being performed back then - in fact, as far as I can tell there’s no footage
remaining of Merry Go Round of Song whatsoever... But here's the thing: Hikaru Kataoka’s Japanese
lyrics weren’t actually a direct translation of the original song. They’re actually completely original, and
they're quite a bit darker, too. The first 3 verses start off ordinarily enough,
with a father talking to his son about the world. But as the song goes on, the father suddenly
and tragically exits his son’s life. “That morning, Papa left on a journey far
away I knew that [...] he'd never come back again” What happened to the father is never explicitly
stated in the lyrics, but many listeners inferred the answer to be war. Kataoka experienced war firsthand, and the
song was released while the Vietnam War was in full swing. "At that time, there were many children in
the world who lost their fathers due to war [...] Children of elementary school age are
more sensitive to "death" than adults think.” Now you might believe this serious subject
matter would harm the song’s chances of finding success, but that was not the case
at all. Green Green became a much bigger hit in Japan
than it ever was in America. In fact, it became ingrained in the country’s
musical culture. Here’s just one simple example: Green Green,
like I said, does not have an English Wikipedia page. But, it DOES have a Japanese Wikipedia page. And the song’s not even from Japan! Now, Green Green has endured the test of time
surprisingly well. Here it is performed by one of Japan’s biggest
poprock bands, Mrs. Green Apple. [...] Right, so finally back to Mario then. Koji Kondo was born in 1961. By the time he was 10 years old, Green Green
was a hit countrywide, and he would have heard it again and again and again growing up. When he came to write the music for Super
Mario World, the tune would have almost certainly been in his brain somewhere or other. And subconsciously, I think that it worked
its way into the Overworld Theme that he ended up writing. In an interview, Koji Kondo said this: “Compared
with Zelda, Mario has a much happier vibe, so I aim for music that is happy, rhythmical,
and with melodies that are easy to remember.” And there’s no melodies more memorable than
the ones from children’s songs. So, let’s do one last big comparison between
the two songs then. How closely do they really match up? First, here’s Green Green. [...] And then, here’s Super Mario World’s
Overworld theme. [...] They certainly sound very similar indeed. If we quickly pop over to the piano, the first
6 notes of each tune are a complete match - note for note - and most of the other notes
are shared across the two tunes, too. Plus, the chord sequence, while not particularly
unusual, is also the exactly the same in each song. So, I don’t think that Koji Kondo went out
of his way to write a song similar to Green Green. But I do think that he was heavily inspired
by the song, even if he himself wasn’t aware of that fact. So, I relayed all this information back to
Max, in case you’re wondering, and he was very nice, and quite pleased, I think, that
I managed to dig up an answer. To be honest, I was surprised as well!. Oh, and I told him I was gonna make this into
a video - so here it is. Maybe he’s watching this right now. Hi Max! And for all the people that are not Max, thank
you also for watching. There's another video like this coming next
week, so subscribe and turn on notifications if you wanna see it as soon as I've finished
making it! I’m looking forward to seeing you then. Not literally. I do not have access to your webcam. Yet.
It bugs me that it is notated incorrectly….
I wonder if the arrangers of the Mario is Missing! soundtrack knew they went full circle when they made this arrangement of the SMW overworld theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJ34PEv5A_s
Really needed 10 minutes of video for a comparison that takes a fraction of that.
Led Zeppelin is the king of stealing music. This sounds more like an influence at best.
There are a lot of songs in the Country/Folk genre that follow this general progression, many older than Green Green. Watch the first entry from this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COE-5aWqeDM