Lemmings music: identifying the songs they are based on

[DragonsLover]

I can assure you that I haven't been messing with anyone's posts. Will get the server guys to look into it.

Well, I was pretty sure I posted something about the Holiday Lemmings musics, perhaps I clicked on the wrong button? Damn, I'm confused now.

[Minim]

Speaking of Holiday music, I'm interested to see how many songs there are in the Holiday version of Lemmings. I wonder if they have such songs like "Jingle Bells", "Good King Wenceslas" and "O Littler Town of Bethlehem" like they did in the Xmas '91 demo version (Which was as far as I know the only DOS Xmas lemmings game I played).

[namida]

As far as I'm aware, all versions have only the 3 tracks.

[ccexplore]

Speaking of Holiday music, I'm interested to see how many songs there are in the Holiday version of Lemmings. I wonder if they have such songs like "Jingle Bells", "Good King Wenceslas" and "O Littler Town of Bethlehem" like they did in the Xmas '91 demo version (Which was as far as I know the only DOS Xmas lemmings game I played).

91-93 all uses the same 3 tracks you noted.  For 94 however they got really lazy, and just threw in the first 3 tracks from DOS ONML and call it a (holi)day.

[finlay]

The Mac version of 94 has the six tracks of ONML. I haven't played 91 or 93 (not even sure they exist), but 92, IIRC, has Jingle Bells, Frosty the Snowman, and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

[DragonsLover]

Strange, for the Dos version of Holiday Lemmings 1994, I have the correct holiday musics like the previous ones. Maybe I previously copy/pasted the music. Anyway, that's what I recommend since I think this is what it was intended to be.

But you sure the third song is "O Little Town of Bethlehem"? It really doesn't sound like that.

[ccexplore]

But you sure the third song is "O Little Town of Bethlehem"? It really doesn't sound like that.

It's a repeat of one of the tracks in Lemmings, specifically this one:

17. Tim10, Forest Green = Oh little town of Bethlehem, and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

I'll have to hunt down renditions of "Oh little town..." tonight to see how similar or dissimilar it is to Tim10.  It could well be the same deal as someone on the Internet making the tenuous connection between Lemmings1 and Pachelbel, I don't know yet.

[finlay]

It's not a tenuous connection, trust me.

O Little Town of Bethlehem

It's just that the hymn is sung with a different tune in North America.

Here's the Lemmings tune for comparison. Obviously game music sounds different from hymnal music but the connection is right there.

Lemmings Music Comparison - Tim 10

(You've even got Tim Wright - who is coldstorage on youtube - remarking that the tune caused a minor headache because it was still just in copyright to Ralph Vaughan-Williams' estate.)

[DoubleU]

The DOS version plays the tracks in the following order:

[snip]
12. Tim5, original composition
13. Tim6, original compotision (I think) Dance of the Reed Flutes
[snip]

Lemmings is the real life.

-- Simon

Tim5 = "Dance of the Little Swans" (from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake), and Reed Flutes is from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite - or is that the other way around?  There should be YouTube videos to check this.

[finlay]

Tim 8 is from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake (although it's not as obvious on the Amiga/Mac versions' music); Tim 5 is original. This is the problem with naming them by number and not having the number correspond to the order in which they play in the game on many versions of the game. The series of videos that I've linked to is great for finding out/checking which of these songs is which, though, and obviously it's good for comparing different versions.

(It's worth noting that the versions I've played don't tend to be on it properly, although the Mac is almost identical to the Amiga for L1, and the PS1 music is derived from the Windows version but rendered at higher quality for the CD. The music that I've heard played when I've played Lemmings on DOSBox – what's that??)

[DoubleU]

(It's worth noting that the versions I've played don't tend to be on it properly, although the Mac is almost identical to the Amiga for L1, and the PS1 music is derived from the Windows version but rendered at higher quality for the CD. The music that I've heard played when I've played Lemmings on DOSBox – what's that??)

"What's that"?  What do you mean?  It's the same thing.  I had the hardest time recognizing Lemming1, but they're all the same as from the other versions.

[finlay]

I mean... not sure anymore. I think I mean what version of music is that? Often I see things denoted as the "PC music" when it doesn't sound like it does on DOSBox. (although the "Lemming 1" tune does sound more like Pachelbel's Canon on the DOS version, I'll grant it that)

Never mind, i'm just rambling.

[ccexplore]

Often I see things denoted as the "PC music" when it doesn't sound like it does on DOSBox.

It's a little tricky on the PC because you have at least two OS's (DOS and Windows), and the DOS version supports at least two different audio technologies, Adlib and Tandy (the former is more common in most PCs at the time however).  (Supposedly some version even has CD audio tracks on a CD-ROM, but so far I haven't been able to track down and verify such a claim.)  Plus if you're talking about Youtube, I don't know how accurately people label things anyway.   For all I know even a remix can be labeled as "PC music" on Youtube, if someone took a remix from somewhere and then mislabeled it as PC music.

If it sounds MIDI-like then it's probably the Windows version, I guess?  If you have the Youtube link I can have a listen and see if I can identify.

[edit: also, if it's the MIDI on Windows, technically it can sound different on different hardware, depending on the instrument samples the sound card uses for MIDI.  Though any MIDI played back on modern PCs will typically sound the same, because modern sound cards no longer directly support MIDI, it's actually emulated in Windows nowadays]

[finlay]

Not MIDI-like, I think it's the Adlib/Tandy difference, whatever those words mean.

It's more of something general rather than a specific Youtube video...

[Nortaneous]

The intro music (not in the DOS version, but most of the others have it, including the DOS (or Windows?) CD) is March of the Mods:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPkKgrmgFTw

Supposedly some version even has CD audio tracks on a CD-ROM, but so far I haven't been able to track down and verify such a claim.

There was one. I used to have it somewhere. None of the things on Youtube claiming to be from the CD version sound right to me, but it's probably been eight years since I last heard it so I can't say for sure. If there's a complete set going around anywhere, it should have two versions of the intro music: one with sound effects (Track 3) and one without (Track 2, or the first audio track).