Inspired just somewhat by BBC Radio 6 music I’ve decided to make this Bank Holiday (at the time and in the place of writing) a skank* holiday.
Michael Z. Land’s breezy reggae theme to LucasArts’ 1990 classic point-and-clicker The Secret of Monkey Island always transports me back to the heady time of my late teens and the happy day in 1991 when the game finally emerged on the Amiga.
In just over a minute and a half, I am always and forever inhabiting the scrawny mind and body of would-be pirate Guybrush Threepwood on the start of his hilarious, sweet and ultimately life-changing yarn of swashbuckling, treasure-plundering, governor-wooing and ghost-pirate grappling.
For the sake of gloriousness I’m featuring the re-recorded, real instruments version from the 2009 Special Edition, though committed nostalgics may well have fond memories of the midi PC original or perhaps Chris Hülsbeck’s Amiga interpretation.
Oh, and this is how it sounded if you played the game on a sound-cardless PC back in 1990. Even reduced to tinny, monophonic bleeps I still think it’s a great tune.
It almost goes without saying that there are countless, often brilliant, covers out there from acoustic to rock guitar, from piano to full orchestral. Have a delve through YouTube and see/hear for yourself.
*No, not that kind of skank.
