TWRM Radio: “Yonder”

Nostalgia in reverse, the longing for yet another strange land, grew especially strong in spring.
-Vladimir Nabokov, Mary

Who needs to take a musical appreciation lecture when you can just listen to great music and discover how to appreciate it? That’s what we’re going to attempt here! Music and video games collide all the time and TWRM Radio is about taking in all that majesty.

Friday’s here again and our mix for this week is “Yonder”, a collection of traveling and journeying themes for wanderlust. Tying the majority of these themes together is this sense of high adventure that I tried to listen for in each track that made the cut, taking also into consideration underlying sensations of the grandeur and occasionally intimidating scale of the world before us.

Actually, if you listen to this mix, you’ll find that I tried to tell a story. Of course we know that music is yet another expression of narrative stemming from our innate human desire to be storytellers. “Yonder” begins with this feeling that the journey is long and scary, that the wild is dark and deep, and then it turns into this great quest with direction and mission, a true adventure, and as you near the journey’s end there’s a dancing motif through the final songs that represents the joyous expectation of reaching our destination. The path is dangerous but you’ll come to embrace it and then comes the satisfaction of arrival. We do we travel on our vacations? For that very experience.

Or maybe it’s just about really cool video game music. I dunno.

I did find that world map themes fit really well into this category of music, which is appropriate considering “Yonder” comes on the heels of “Hearth”, which was about town/city music. You’ve left home to travel on the long road and this is your soundtrack. Got a trip to make this weekend or maybe some studying to do tonight?

Either way, please enjoy! If you do, please subscribe, like, and comment. I really appreciate it!

Special thanks again to Games with Coffee for coming up with this theme of traveling. It wasn’t one I would’ve thought of, which suggests that there’s so much to explore in the realms of game music. I’m open to suggestions on future themes and I’ll be sure to credit you in the video description if I pick your suggestion!

Also, don’t forget that you can suggest tracks for next week’s theme by commenting here or on YouTube. Who knows? Maybe your favorite video game music will appear on TWRM Radio.

What is next week’s theme, anyway? It’s bright and blooming Spring!

Play it with feeling,

-The Well-Red Mage

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