Meaning of music in Fallout

PipeSmoke · Post by **PipeSmoke** » Fri Apr 26, 2002 9:55 am

I wanted to comment a bit on this...

I hope to hear all your opinions on it too.

Just musing on the meaning of some of the music in Fallout 1 and 2, although 2 sucked for the most part... it wasn't a *complete* loss.

The opening piece, in the original Fallout... "Maybe" by the Inkspots.

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Maybe... you'll think of me... when you are all alone
Maybe the one who is waiting for you... will prove untrue
Then what will you do?
Maybe... you'll sit and sigh, wishing that I... were near.
Then... mayb -record skip repeat fade-

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Some thoughts I had on the meaning of this song, the choice of it:

1) Sometimes I imagine that this is being sung by... well, the SPIRIT of the pre-nuke world. The spirit of the old world, and it's singing TO the post-nuke world. That's one interpretation that I like... thinking about this sort of spirit, that encompasses the whole globe... created by all those deaths at once. A fog of spirit hanging over the entire planet, and perhaps only in really desolate places, like the shelled out city we see in the opening, is it strong enough to not just be ignored.

The inhabitants of the wasteland, in their day to day lives of struggling just to survive, have come to take this feeling of this spirit for granted, they don't even notice it. But in a place like this, it's clarity and presense are strong. It's appealing to the post-nuke world not to forget it. To remember it was there. And not just by salvaging what is left of it's achievements... for their own short term goals, but to actually remember it in spirit and to long for it, the same way it longs to be with the surviving humanity.

I dunno, maybe I got too literal or elaborate there, I myself don't believe in spirits or anything like that, I'm just trying to put it in terms, and in a game it's another matter... it really intrigues me and it's very sad to think about. For me anyway.

2) The simpler interpretation: this is just a song picked to illustrate how incredibly far from the bare survival mentality that the world has now come to, the old world eventually got... just how detached from their animal instincts humans were once able to get.

What better way to evoke this idea than to pick a song like this? it's an old style song... very old fashioned ideas about relationships, properness... are conveyed in the tone. And believe it or not that's a guy singing. Think about the guys we see in Fallout, they're usually pretty beefy guys... because they have to be, even the nerdier one sand such... well none of them can even begin to touch the heights or depths however you want to see it, that pre-war humans were able to achieve. There were so many of us, you could find someone who had any interest... and took it to any level. The song really evokes a sadness for all that specialization and perfection and experimentation that was all lost.

People spending thousands of years just figuring out what it is to be human, and it's almost all lost. Those kind of people, people who sing like this... for a living, people who think like they did... all gone. People who never had to fight in their entire life, gone. People who lived their entire life only thinking about things like love lost and the sadness involved in that... and not finding a gun and killing people... no longer a reality.

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The other song I'd like to comment on is Arroyo from Fallout 2. One of the few things I took out of that game that was worthwhile.

I only get one vibe off of this song and it's very clear.

Now of course a very tribal feel is evoked, but it's sadder... and it's mixed with some technological sounds and more modern sounds.

Why is the tribal sound sad? my thinking is that the whole... tribal spirit, of humanity... was sort of dormant, put to rest. I mean for the most part... for most of humanity, before the war. This tribal spirit of humanity had served it's purpose, it had been there for humanity when it was needed and it was natural that it be left behind. Now it finds itself needed again, brought back... to the present. It is sad because it realizes that it is needed again, that the human civilization that it helped start has floundered and dropped back to square one in many respects. The original run through of humanity, the tribal spirit was full of energy and newness. It was pumped... now it's going through the motions... it's sad for it's species. But it's there for them nonetheless.

Okay, so those are my stupid thoughts.

Comments welcome and more than that greatly desired. Even if it's just to tell me I'm a stupid fruit who is reading too much into something and such.

Condie · Post by **Condie** » Fri Apr 26, 2002 10:29 am

Was it neccesary to post this twice?
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MARIJUANA TRICHOMES

Slider · Post by **Slider** » Fri Apr 26, 2002 10:49 am

He must have been confused by the names of the forums....

Condie · Post by **Condie** » Fri Apr 26, 2002 10:56 am

Or have some kind of short-term memory deficiency ala Guy Pearce in the movie Memento.
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MERCEDES-BENZ W125 HISTORY

PipeSmoke · Post by **PipeSmoke** » Fri Apr 26, 2002 10:15 pm

Necessary to post it twice?

Well, I wanted to get some responses to it. Didn't know if the Fallout forum was dead, and the gen discussion one was the only lively one... but it certainly seemed to belong in Fallout so I put it here too.

One thing is certain, it wasn't necessary for you to respond to this one. If you want it to plumet into obscurity and bother your vision no further the best way to make that happen is to not bump it up with a response.

Slider · Post by **Slider** » Sat Apr 27, 2002 12:20 pm

If thats your reasoning you should have posted this in the FO2 forum also.

As for the music in Fallout and Fallout 2, I loved it in FO and in FO2 it was alright but they could have made new ones for all the locations instead of using the old sound bytes. After playing FO2 I went out and bought a Louis Armstrong CD.(happy now

)

Tank · Post by **Tank** » Mon Apr 29, 2002 3:30 am

Guys, get off his back! He posted it twice, so what?

Anyways, I like your ideas, and they may be correct. On the other hand, you/we may be over-interpriting them just like you do with all the books in english-classes. Well, it was nice to get thinking, I haven't been doing that for some time...

Condie · Post by **Condie** » Mon Apr 29, 2002 6:34 am

Hey, I'm just trying to be annoying.

Guess I succeeded

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Dirty · Post by **Dirty** » Tue May 28, 2002 4:11 am

the best part of FO2 was that Louis Armstrong was the opening song

PIPBoy2161 · Post by **PIPBoy2161** » Thu Jun 12, 2003 9:47 am

Dirty wrote:the best part of FO2 was that Louis Armstrong was the opening song

i'd have to agree with Dirty "A Kiss to Build a Dream On" by Luis Armstrong was a GREAT opening song for fallout.... its so moving... you know, since the vault dweller got kicked out... and then you like kinda starting over... as the "tribal dweller or whatever... well thats just my opinion on it....