Super Mario: 10 Great Songs That Defined The Franchise

By Raymond Keith Woods /

2. Super Mario 3: Water Land Theme

The people behind the Mario games seem to have a special talent for creating great water themes to the point where this whole list easily could have been comprised of aqua related Mario sound bytes. Alas, only two will make the final cut. The first was the effectively new age Dire Dire Docks Theme from Super Mario 64. The second is the more elevator music like Water Land Theme from Super Mario Bros. 3. I by no means intended for that to be insulting remark as comparisons to elevator music often can be, for in its pursuit to be unassuming and pleasant most elevator music comes across as mind numbing and grating. Such is not the case with the Water Land Theme; one of the most playful themes in the whole catalogue of Mario music. It accomplishes what every piece of elevator music had been trying to do up to that point: provide a pleasant joyous diversion between stops. In our case the stops would be levels. Although I have a suspicion that if the elevator music in the real world was as good as the Mario music, no one would ever want to get off.