Frakona

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Hey, it’s me Rob T. from the Treehouse. So, you may have noticed that some guy (spoiler, it’s me) is singing a not-quite-right version of “Jump Up, Super Star!” in that audio there. Maybe you’re wondering why? Well, let me tell you…

Life in the Treehouse moves pretty fast, and it can be hard to remember when you did what, and sometimes even why, so I had to check my e-mail archives to figure out that we started working on the lyrics for the songs in Super Mario Odyssey back in January of this year. (…Unless it was earlier? Who knows, man.)

Faults in my memory aside, the prospect of working on some songs at work was an exciting one. As a former music and Japanese double major, the idea that I would be using BOTH my degrees at my actual job was amazing. Who does that? Besides, I mean, people who chose their majors for more practical reasons…

When I became involved, the song that would eventually become “Jump Up, Super Star!” was basically done, at least as far as the music was concerned. The song was already going to be a hit in my mind, no matter what the lyrics ended up being, and at that time, the first section already had Japanese lyrics, written by Nobuyoshi Suzuki at NCL. I translated them thusly:

The symbol of a voyage, let’s start to raise the sails A tailwind dances at our backs

Flip a coin, the goddess who’ll tell our fortune Blows a kiss

Let’s sing our love as brightly as All the lights in all the world Then jump! (JUMP SE) And grab! (COIN SE) Say yeah!!! (yeah!!!)

Let’s dream together Love together If we walk with our eyes to the sky Once all our tears have fallen We’ll get a 1UP

Let’s all Jump up high and high five Tap and dance

I’m a superstar lighting up the world Switching you on to happiness So, let’s dance the Odyssey!!!

(Chorus) Odyssey, ya see! etc.

Obviously, directly translating song lyrics leaves you with…well, something that won’t actually work as lyrics in the target language. But it’s clear that Suzuki-san and the team wanted something big and romantic. A love song of sorts.

I listened to the song a few more times and set about creating a first draft of the English lyrics, taking the ideas from the above and fleshing them out so there would be enough syllables to match the rhythm and melody of the song.

Mayor Pauline is a fantastic vocalist, so we had to make sure she had an equally fantastic song to sing.

Here’s what I ended up with:

Oh we’re ta- / -king a trip / Here we go it’s time to raise the sails The wind is dancing at our backs

Flip a coin / Make a wish / and the goddess might just blow a kiss Boy I’d say your fortune’s looking good

Le-et your love shine as bright as the lights in this whole wide wonderful world Jump with me / (grab) coins with me / Oh yeah!

Together we can live our dreams / This love is what it seems / So keep your chin up as you trek alone/ And when the tears they start to fall / There’ll be no need to fear ‘cause / I’ll be your 1UP girl

So let’s all jump up super high / and high five in the sky / There’s no power-up like da-a-ncing / You know that I’m the superstar / No one else can take you this far / I’m flipping the switch / are you ready for this / Oh, let’s do the Odyssey

Odyssey, ya see!

As you can see, a lot of that first draft did survive through to the final version of the lyrics.

At this point, Rob Heiret (main English writer on Super Mario Odyssey) and I passed the lyrics back and forth a few times, until we had the following:

This time we’re / off the rails / Here we go let’s raise our sails It’s freedom like you never knew

Grab a coin / Make a wish / and the goddess might just blow a kiss You could say my hat is off to you

We-e can zoom all the way to the moon from this great wide wacky world Jump with me / (grab) coins with me / Oh yeah!

Together we can live our dreams / This love is what it seems / So keep your chin up as you trek alone/ And when we’re underground in gloom, / Don’t fear, don’t shed a tear, 'cause /

I’ll be your 1UP shroom

So let’s all jump up super high / high up in the sky / There’s no power-up like da-a-ncing / You know that you’re my superstar / No one else can take me this far / I’m flipping the switch / are you ready for this / Oh, let’s do the Odyssey

Odyssey, ya see!

We now felt like what we had was worth sharing with the folks on the Japan side, so I went into my home studio (living room) and whipped up a demo version. I’m not sure if it is fortunate or embarrassing that I didn’t delete these demos once the project was done, but up top you can hear what that sounded like.

Too bad it couldn’t have been “Mayor Paul.” If you’re curious, I’m singing the song down a 6th in Eb because singing in the original key of C was not going to happen for me.

After we sent off the demo, the first round of feedback we got from NCL was really illuminating. They liked a lot of what we’d done, but also wanted a lot of it to change. For one thing, we’d leaned a little hard on the Mario references.

Through conversations with Suzuki-san, Naoto Kubo (the composer), and Shigetoshi Gohara (the overall sound producer), we learned more about their vision for the song: that it should be a fun, bombastic jazz number you could enjoy even if you had no connection or familiarity with Mario, but that would reward you even more, with little allusions to the Mario universe, if you were a Mario fan.

The same can be said of the musical that was produced to help promote the game as well—it’s fun to watch no matter who you are, but Mario fans will catch little details like Mario’s classic block-punch in the choreography.

The Mario references had to be at such a level that if you knew, then you knew, but if you didn’t, you wouldn’t really notice.

Another big goal from the dev team was to make the chorus as catchy as possible—simple and repetitive so even people who don’t speak English might be able to pick up on the lyrics and sing along.

So, we had our work cut out for us.

Over the next couple of months, I settled into a pattern of adjusting and rewriting the lyrics, sending those around internally at NOA for more feedback, recording a demo, sending that to NCL, getting more feedback, rewriting, and then doing all of that again.

More than a few times, we even had video conferences with Gohara-san, Kubo-san, and Suzuki-san at NCL headquarters, where we would come up with new ideas on the fly that I would sing back to them then and there. I wonder what that sounded like outside the room…

At the end of that long (but fun) process, we had the lyrics for the first verse nailed down and realized that we were going to need two more verses. Oh, and we realized we had to record the song in about three weeks’ time. So, yeah… Things were going to need to speed up.

And they did! Here’s the first draft of the second verse:

Spin the wheel / take a chance/ every journey starts a new romance A new world’s calling out to you

Take a turn / off the path / find a new addition to the cast You know that any captain needs a crew

You can play it in 3D or 8-bit they’re just different points of view Down the pipe / there’s an extra life / oh yeah!

(Come on and) Jump up in the air / Jump without a care Jump up ‘cause you know that I’ll be there And if you find you’re short on joy Don’t fret, just don’t forget that You’re still our 1UP boy

So go on straighten up your cap / let your toes begin to tap This rhythm is a power shroom / Don’t forget you’re the superstar / No one else could make it this far / Put a comb through that ‘stache / you’ve got panache

Oh, let’s do the Odyssey

Except for the “3D or 8-bit” line, and the “down the pipe” stuff, that’s pretty much what the final lyrics ended up being.

One thing Gohara-san and company really focused on was making sure that the lyrics felt good to sing, and that’s always been something I’ve really focused on in my own songwriting over the years as well. Aside from the actual meaning of the words, lyrics should have an intrinsic aesthetic appeal.

Gotta get those toes tapping, after all, right?

Which isn’t to say that meaning isn’t important, or wasn’t important when working on these lyrics. That said, I’ve found the various interpretations I’ve seen of our final lyrics to be way more thoughtful than my own.

A lot of people think there’s a deliberate “sails/sales” pun in the first line, as in: “Here we go, it’s time to raise our sales!” Sadly, I’m not that clever.

The best interpretation I’ve heard seems to have come out of Japan. I heard about it during the height of E3, when the song debuted. See, people read a lot into the idea that Pauline (in their eyes, Mario’s ex-girlfriend, though I’d never really thought of her that way) was singing a song to cheer him on as he undertakes an epic journey to rescue his current girlfriend (again, feels weird to type that out, but who am I to argue with other people’s headcanons?).

Kinda makes you think about Pauline differently, doesn’t it? Especially when you take a shot of her in Snapshot Mode and the moment you caught the fireworks almost makes them look like tears. I’m sorry, Pauline!

Viewed through that prism, the song becomes—while still joyful and upbeat—incredibly bittersweet at the same time. Again, I’d love to take credit for that, but I know I at least wasn’t cognizant of any of that stuff, really. I just wanted the song to feel good when you sing it.

And from the very humbling reception the song has gotten, it seems like it does! So thanks for listening, singing, and reading.

I’ve yet to see ONE graphic along these lines that actually include anything other than the chubby/skinny thing. Let’s see some fat, scarred and stretchmarked black trans women with prosthetic limbs or dwarfism or something, and hairy legs, maybe she’s got a shaped afro or something, natural black hair is looked down on by society.