I can’t think of a better track to celebrate National Video Game Day. The story behind this track is pretty interesting.

It’s hard to track down the original recording of this song because it’s been redone a number of times and the original was released only in Japan.

In 1986, a Japanese talk show called All Night Nippon held a contest that asked fans to mail-in their own lyrics written to the tune of the Super Mario theme song. A winner was selected and singer Hiroko Taniyama is thought to have recorded the vocals but the performance was credited to Princess Peach, a character in the game.

The single was then produced and released on 7inch vinyl and cassette. The original title was “Mario No Daibouken: or “Mario’s Big Adventure”.

The single made it to the top 40 in Japan and was re-recorded in other languages as well but it never quite made it to the English-speaking world.