A trend recently passed through a circle of friends asking, “What song had the greatest impact on your life?” The answers were intriguing and varied, yet I only saw a handful of responses that actually answered the fundamental question.
Not your favorite song. Not a song you listen to frequently. Not a song that represents you… The song that had the greatest impact on your life.
There are many songs that I associate with important moments, people, and experiences. Also, songs that hold deep nostalgia or personal meaning. However, I can think of but one song that would wholly influence the paths I would travel once having heard it.
My answer to the question delves back to 1990. I was only 10 years old, but the experiences of that year would prove to be, by any honest account, the most foundationally pivotal of my life. It wasn’t a particularly eventful year in history. There were no huge epiphanies revealed or singular dramatic experiences. Rather, several subtle influences that would define the course heading for decades to come to this very day.
Chiefly among those moments would be when I first heard the Opening Theme to the original Final Fantasy game, composed by 植松 伸夫 (Nobuo Uematsu).
I’ve occasionally reflected on the significant and life-long impact that Final Fantasy’s contemporary video game, Dragon Warrior (Dragon Quest), had upon me during that same era of my youth, yet it was this song that became a part of who I am. Where Dragon Quest introduced me to roleplaying games, Final Fantasy established how I felt them.
The song was indelibly ingrained in my mind the very first time that my television flashed to a second title screen mid-game, this epic song playing along with a written narration introducing the adventure as if the game had thus far been but a prologue. The sense of awe regarding the unexpected moment, the theme and motif, the feeling of accomplishment and immersion as I sat in my dark room that night all awoke something within me that would grow and flourish.
I write this as I look up from my desk towards a framed “Final Fantasy” poster (torn from one of my early issues of Nintendo Power magazine in 1990) — one of maybe three artifacts that somehow survived a sometimes tumultuous childhood. Its preservation wasn’t necessarily intentional, but I think perhaps over the decades—on a subconscious level—I must have assured its survival. I have often looked at it and heard the theme playing in my mind.
The song was truly the seeding of virtually every path I would eventually follow… and continue to follow. A love for fantasy fiction, a passion for RPGs, discovering Dungeons & Dragons, my earliest delves into programming, creating “door games” for BBSes, playing MUDs, a decades long career in programming, and eventually becoming a professional in the gaming industry.
Every program I ever wrote, every development project I was a part of, every game I designed, book I wrote, story I told, or world that I created all shared within their proverbial DNA the resonating notes of this one song.
Fun Fact: Final Fantasy and I share a birthday. The video game was released in Japan for the Nintendo Famicom on my 8th birthday: December 18, 1987.