“The Ballad of the Wind Fish” is one of my favorite songs in the Zelda series. From the beginning, it’s so emotional because it carries Marin’s yearning for more to the sleeping ears of the Wind Fish. As players, it becomes even more meaningful as we complete the game. The waking of the dozing whale has eradicated Koholint Island and all the inhabitants we’ve come to love. Yet a seagull flying away in the distance promises that maybe the songstress’s wish was granted after all. Through their jazzy cover of this iconic song, Jazztick captures all of these emotions plus their love and their fans’ love of this track and Zelda in general.
The track starts with a few simple, yet memorable notes. These notes are so indelibly burned into the memories of Link’s Awakening fans that the crowd started cheering and screaming. A combination of keyboard and saxophone pushes the melody forward and hits like a punch to the gut.
The saxophone adds an intense soulfulness to the piece. Visions of Marin will immediately flood the listener’s minds. The fierce duality of her love for Koholint and its residents clashed with her desire to see what’s out beyond the horizon. She desperately wanted what Link and the players had: the ability to explore.
The keyboard adds to the desperate notes of the saxophone through its consistency. Its tinkling pattern of notes sound like the waves of the island lapping up on the shore over and over. While not as mournfully moving as the saxophone, the repetition of the piano notes calls to mind the consistency of Marin’s plea to the Wind Fish. Nearly every time the player visits her, she is singing to the marine mammal, praying that her wish will be heard and granted.
As the song continues, it gets more complex. More instruments are added, and the sound gets more full. It feels for a moment like Manbo and his aquatic friends must have heard Marin singing and decided that they just had to add their own spin to the funky beat.
The guitarist gets their moment to shine next as they have an amazing solo accompanied by the constant notes of the piano. The guitarist displays some amazing artistry in how fast but meaningfully they play their notes. It adds to the emotion of the piece by reminding me of how a person who is feeling intense stress can just unload a whole series of words in a whirlwind of emotion. The guitarist’s intense notes are like that to me: a flurry of emotion as Marin continues to wait for an answer.
After the guitarist, the pianist gets a solo that is very similar to the feel of the actual game itself. It’s the simplicity and the resonance of the solo that makes it so meaningful. The similarity to the game’s actual music both honors the original composition and lends a sense of purity to Marin’s prayer. The slight resonating sound of the notes in the piano adds a feeling of fullness as well. All of who Marin is, is in that song just as all of the emotions of the pianist are in their solo. The song ends with all of the instruments coming back together briefly before the last notes are played by the saxophone. As they all make their contribution to the song, their love of Link’s Awakening and this song in particular is clear. The ending wails of the saxophone extend out into the air like a prayer while simultaneously answering our own unknown prayers for an amazing rendition of this fan favorite song.
