Looking back at Ocarina of Time, which took over twice as long to make than Majora's Mask, the music is mostly grand, sweeping, heroic stuff very fitting for an epic adventure that's straight out of a fairytale, with good guys versus bad guys. If this song could tell you a story, it would be one of pushing on, taking that first step, and picking up the pieces, even if you don't want to. and yet, despite the misery of it, the harsh horns, and the uneasy strings, there's that delicate piano in the background, and the resolution of it almost sounds reassuring. It's the absolute nadir of the game's story, and it's easily the creepiest of all the songs as a result. Everything is broken, but you have all the pieces, and the only thing to do now is put them back together again.īut that nihilism and exhaustion is perfectly rendered in the Elegy of Emptiness. You know what you need to do - summon the four giants - but you've seen so much misery that it's hard to press on. You've witnessed loneliness, heartbreak, loss, and grief. When you learn the Elegy of Emptiness, everything is real sad. The text refers to the statues left behind as "shells" - as if Link himself is shedding his skin. He tells Link to believe in his friends, and forgive failure, and provides him with the Elegy in order to summon "a soldier who has no heart". It is taught to you by a boss who turns out to not be evil at all - just cursed. The Elegy of Emptiness is a funereal song, which is fitting for a tune that allows Link to create lifeless statues of those who have died to help him. Termina needs saving, but many of its issues existed long before the moon began to crash down, and it's Link's job to fix those cracks before he can even think about saving them from the much larger threat. The Majora's Mask soundtrack reminds me of the Japanese art of kintsugi, which is all about fixing broken pottery with gold, thereby making the "broken" piece even more beautiful than before by highlighting its flaws and its history. Healing is not making the hurt go away, but learning to live on, with hurt in your heart. The Song of Healing tells us this with its sorrowful, bittersweet sound: it's a song of accepting that change is heartbreaking, but necessary. The Song of Healing is incredibly melancholy, because the game is, too: even in its brighter moments, the message is still one of finding the strength to move on. It's the knot that keeps Majora's Mask together: Link plays it to fix a lot of things, but largely he uses it to make people know that it's okay that everything is a little broken, too. This unnerving music is, of course, balanced by the Song of Healing, a gentle melody that acts as a balm for your ears, just as it's supposed to.
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