art by Jeffrey Kan

This week, both The Overmare Studios and Stable-Tec Studios put out their theme music for their respective Fallout: Equestria projects!

I thought we could celebrate with a blog about the music of the Equestrian Wasteland. As we all know, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is very often a musical. Characters burst into song in random places at the drop of a hat, and we love it! In the first season, many of the songs were beautifully reworked versions of existing songs, usually from musicals. (My favorite was "The Art of the Dress".) In creating Fallout: Equestria, I wanted to pay homage to that, if not capture it as best I could in writing.

art by icekatze

All the songs in Fallout: Equestria, whether they have lyrics in the story or are merely mentioned, are based on real songs. Some should be easily recognizable (such as "Mad World") while for others I kept only one or two elements (such as "Raise Your Glass", for which I kept the song's theme, but radically restructured the rhythm and lyrical structure).

Music has always been a major source of inspiration for me, and there were quite a variety of songs that I would turn to while brainstorming or while writing. I built a playlist on YouTube, the Fallout: Equestria Inspirational playlist, to listen to while writing. I soon expanded the playlist to include four kinds of music: A) music that I listened to while writing, B) music that I listened to while brainstorming or that were sources of inspiration, C) songs that were the real-world basis for a song within Fallout: Equestria, and D) songs and other music created by fans who were inspired by Fallout: Equestria.

Particularly because of that last category, the playlist quickly became huge. At this point, the playlist is sorely outdated in that regard. There has been an absolutely amazing amount of wonderful Equestrian Wasteland music put out by brony composers and musicians! And the playlist has only a relatively small selection of them. I'll admit, I stopped building the playlist after large swaths of the playlist got deleted. A small number of the deletions were from brony musicians who left the fandom (or, in one case, was pressured to remove all music created by his band after they broke up over irreconcilable differences); but the vast majority of the missing videos are because the "songs I listened to while writing" category included a large selection of music from the various Fallout game soundtracks, and the accounts hosting them fell prey to YouTube's copyright policies.

I still find myself listening to songs and daydreaming Fo:E-based PMVs in my head. The image above was a gift by the very talented Icekatze, who was inspired to draw it after I mentioned in a chat how I'd been envisioning the song "The Scientist" performed by the cast of Fallout: Equestria. (For those who don't recognize him, that's Life Bloom at the piano ...and FIMfiction needs an Octavia smilie for right here.)

BTW: if you are wondering why I used a link to the Glee version up there when the song is by Coldplay -- or, for that matter, why many of the songs on the Fallout: Equestria Inspirational playlist used Glee versions -- the answer is because the songs are ensemble versions. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is an ensemble cast show, and the first two Fallout games were games about finding friends and building a party to take on the wasteland. These are stories about friendships. Ensemble music just feels so much more appropriate to the Equestrian Wasteland. (At least to me.)

art by Maniakmonkey

Naturally, there is a lot of great Equestrian Wasteland music that I've missed. What are your favorite songs inspired by the universe of Fallout: Equestria? What songs have inspired you in the creation of your own Fo:E works? Which songs do you listen to when you want to daydream about the Equestrian Wasteland?

(As you'll not above, I have linked rather than embedded most of the music that I have mentioned in this blog. This is to try to keep this blog from being exceptionally taxing for some readers to load. As a courtesy, please give links rather than embedding YouTube videos in your comments. Thank you.)

“If we are fighting, then I will fight,” Gloom answered gravely. “With blade and poison, and with my life until they kill me. Then probably rise up as a vengeful spirit and haunt whoever’s left.”

To round this out, I'll leave you with another "Song of Gloom". As mentioned in my Thank You, Plus Pony Music blog, Gloom was a very minor character in Fallout: Equestria. The first Fo:E roleplaying game that I participated in was set years before Littlepip emerged from Stable 2, and so I decided to play a filly version of Gloom as my first character. The little zebra had the Random trait and would regularly break into song. Each of her songs was based on one from the real world which I had hastily re-written, filk-style, between my character actions. The song below was one of her first, a song about a zebra from Froggy Bottom Bog.

"The Wicked"

by Little Gloom

to the tune of "Lucinda" by Tom Waits

"They call me Qleasr the Wicked.

I sold poultices, Mint-als and lead.

Now my fate's in the hooves of these ponies.

When night swallows this town I'll be dead." "My coat is black as the bayou.

My stwipes white as sea serpent's bones.

I left Lookout to follow ol' Luna.

Now I'll never be welcomed back home." "Pledged my soul to a sliver of moonlight --

A sly gwin 'neath a blanket of stars.

And I speak with souls of the elders,

Which I keep in the basement in jars." "Now the sentence is passed and I'm walking,

To the 'tine at the top of the hill.

My accusers are waiting and watching,

Just to see if my body lies still." "And as the blade slides down upon me,

As my head rolls on down to the crowd,

I search every face for ol' Luna...

To carry me up past the clouds." "They called me Qleasr the Wicked.

I sold poultices, Mint-als and lead.

Now my soul’s been consumed by the starlight,

And my body decays in its bed."