Cruise Elroy

Music carries with it immense power. Consider the desperation in “Dido’s Lament,” with which Purcell etches his heroine’s name into history through sheer force of will. Or consider the gravitas of “The Imperial March,” Darth Vader’s leitmotif from the Star Wars films: fear and respect in nine notes. Or, if you like, consider music theorist Nigel Tufnel’s infamous demonstration that simply playing classical music in the key of D minor is enough to make people weep.

There are few video game themes with such capacity, of course, and fewer still that achieved widespread popularity and cultural cachet. One in particular stands out, however — an emblem of the medium’s potential for musical expression, and a beacon to light the way towards its realization of that potential.

I am speaking, of course, of the Pony Friends theme.

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For all its adulations, there is surprisingly little to unpack here. The theme is thoroughly diatonic, excepting a brief implication of minor subdominant harmony in the penulimate bar. It is based almost entirely on I, IV, and V chords in C major — note the determined avoidance of Tufnel’s melancholy key — and has no rhythmic interest to speak of. And yet its appeal is immediately obvious upon first listen; its power lies in its simplicity. It is, perhaps, the perfect melody.

Here is another statement of the theme:

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Here the composer begins to play with expectations. The accompaniment is teasingly familiar — indeed, it maintains the key in addition to the harmonic language — but the melody is delayed by nearly forty seconds. The newly added percussion only heightens our suspense, and our eventual arrival at the melody is made all the more satisfying by the anticipation.

And finally, we have this:

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This is certainly the cruelest arrangement of the Pony Friends theme, if it can even be called that. The now-familiar harmony returns once again with its C major tonic. However, the theme itself has been wantonly excised. A new melody takes its place, but it is hardly adequate; it lacks the placidity and purity of its predecessor. I suspect there may even be a secret modulation to D minor somewhere, though I could find none in my analysis. This is a betrayal, pure and simple.

So it is that a simple melody can come to define a game even through its absence — and perhaps reflect an entire medium’s aspirations in the process. Would that all game music was at this level.