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A post on the Nintendo Treehouse blog has outlined how the English lyrics for Super Mario Odyssey smash hit tune Jump Up, Super Star! were written. Y’know, this song.
After the music was more or less down and the Japanese lyrics were written, Nintendo Treehouse’s Rob Tunstall began work on localising what composer Nobuyoshi Suzuki’s had done this past January. The direct translation of the Japanese lyrics contains some absolute delights like ‘The symbol of a voyage, let’s start to raise the sails,’ and ‘If we walk with our eyes to the sky once our tears have fallen.’
Tunstall collaborated with English writer on the game Rob Heirut on creating a first draft of the song, which you can hear below.
Apparently those at NCL thought the above relied too heavily on Mario references and they wanted it to be enjoyable ‘even if you had no connection or familiarity with Mario, but that [it] would reward you even more, with little allusions to the Mario universe, if you were a Mario fan.’
It was important for everyone involved in the process to make sure the song was fun to sing, and that the chorus was ‘as catchy as possible.’
We ended up with the track below and I personally think they ticked pretty much all the boxes needed. For a few more interesting tidbits, check out the blog on Nintendo Treehouse. It’s an interesting read.
