EarthBound Composer Hirokazu Tanaka Gathers Other Hirokazu Tanakas, Has Them Sing About Being Named Hirokazu Tanaka

EarthBound, the SNES game that brought us Super Smash Bros.‘ Ness, was one of the great console RPGs of the ’90s: it was funny, self-aware, and also had great gameplay. It also had a kickin’ soundtrack, composed by Hirokazu Tanaka, who also composed soundtracks for Mario, Donkey Kong, Metroid, and a number of other classic games. Tanaka even got a credit on Buckner & Garcia’s classic 1982 arcade game rock album Pac-Man Fever for providing some of the sounds behind “Do the Donkey Kong.”

Recently, Tanaka gathered together ten other random people also named Hirokazu Tanaka and had them sing a song of his composition called the “Hirokazu Tanaka Song” (“Tanaka Hirokazu no Uta”), the moral of which is that even though they didn’t choose to be called Hirokazu Tanaka, they’ve all come together for the sake of a name, and “there’s only one of me in the whole wide world.” Not only is it a strange novelty single, it’s also really, really catchy: