Biweekly Music Wednesday! ~No. 29~ Great Fairy Fountain (The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker)

Origin: The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
Plays in: Fairy Fountains
Status: Arrangement
Arrangers: Kenta Nagata, Hajime Wakai, Toru Minegishi, Koji Kondo

Gueeeess who's attending the Master Quest tour for The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses this Friday? That's right, I'll heading down the Mann Center in Philly to have sweet, sweet orchestrated Zelda music grace my ears once more. I attended the first tour back some three years ago, so I figured it was about time to revisit.

So for today, I thought I'd share one of the songs that's scheduled to play: the Great Fairy's Fountain. Anyone who calls themselves a Zelda fan should be intimately familiar with this theme, as it not only signals the start of a magical new adventure via the file select, but it also plays within the mysterious fairy fountains hidden across Hyrule. However, this particular Fairy Fountain theme is located not within the hidden crevices of Hyrule, but in the blue expanses of The Wind Waker's Great Sea. It also happens to be my personal favorite.

And why's that? Just listen to that video! Look at that background! Wind Waker was in no short supply of gorgeous setpieces, and the Fairy Fountains were among the cream of the crop. Home of the spiral streamer-adorned Great Fairies, these interiors are decorated with an ethereal blue so stunning it never fails to take your breath away. And that choir! The choir! This is actually the one and only Fairy Fountain theme with vocals, whiiich is pretty much the main reason why it's my favorite. Can you believe how well it elevates those familiar harps?

The Wind Waker was the very first Zelda game to capture my imagination as a child, back in the later era of my prepubescent age. I'd played Zelda games before, but it was here where I first lost myself in the immersion of dungeons lost to time and abandoned treasures waiting to be discovered. It was the dawn of a new hidden reverie for me, one very different from the sugary sweetness of Kirby and the wistful nostalgia of EarthBound.

So often would I lose myself in the game's locales. I was no longer the player, but a lone explorer who seeped between dimensions. I inhaled the musty, ancient air of the Wind Temple. I crossed the holographic projections of the Tower of the Gods. I sunk deep, deep down into the forgotten realm of Hyrule.

I would stand in awe within the Fairy Fountains. I'd gaze up, the heavenly chorus filling my ears as the luminous lights lifted themselves higher and higher into a mystical abyss. Where did they lead? Why did they go? I didn't know, but I did know I was no longer the awkward 6th grader trying to fit into a scary new environment, or the one everyone thought was mentally retarded. I was the me I always dreamed of.

Will this version of Great Fairy Fountain be at Symphony of the Goddesses? No, but the non-vocal harps everyone knows will be there. And The Wind Waker suite will be there to greet me again, along with many other familiar faces. Just like how last year I was transported into the old shoes of a young Pokémon Trainer, I'll once again be the free adventure-seeking boy that linked me to paradise.

Final Thoughts: ...gotta say, though, I'm not sure why they have two separate Majora's Mask suites in the Master Quest set list. That they don't have the Link's Awakening suite (or at the very least, the brilliant Ballad of the Windfish arrangement) is a crying shame. Also not looking forward to the Skyward Sword suite, ick.