While clearing out my server during the Great Shift to WordPress, I found a folder containing a load of MIDI files. I present them here.
They’re divided up into various groups and themes. I gathered them over the years from various places for various purposes. If anyone has a problem with any of these being here, please let me know and I’ll take them down.
If you click on one of these files, your computer will probably open it in a music player of some kind, and you will be serenaded with a cheesy plinky-plonky version of the song, depending on your computer setup.
Various Pop Tunes
- ace_of_spades.mid – Motörhead.
- a_little_help_from_my_friends.mid – The Beatles. Used to rehearse for a solo intro number.
- black_hole_sun.mid – Soundgarden. Soundtrack to a summer in the Aquascutum warehouse.
- genius_of_love.mid – Tom Tom Club. “James Broooooooowwwn!”
- new_frontier.mid – Donald Fagen. “I hear you’re mad about Brubeck?”
- dont_go_breakin_my_heart.mid – Elton John and Kiki Dee. Used to rehearse for an ill-advised duet in a show (I sang Elton John, in case you wondered).
- how_soon_is_now.mid – The Smiths feat. Johnny Marr and his Wah-Wah Guitar.
- parklife.mid – “Who’s that gutlord marching?”
- tainted_love.mid – by Ed Cobb, Soft Cell version.
- your_song.mid – More Elton. Used to rehearse for a solo intro number, which went down very well indeed if memory serves.
Beach Boys
Orbital
- chime.mid – ding ding di-ding ding ding di-di-di-ding!
- lush.mid – pl-pl-plink pl-pl-pl-plink pl-pl-pl-pl-plink!
- forever.mid – “We waste! We destroy! And we cling like savages to our superstitions!”
Xmas Tunes
- ding_dong_merrily_on_high.mid – Background to a page, probably.
- i_believe_in_father_christmas.mid – My favourite Xmas tune, apart from “Christmas Wrapping”
Elvis Costello
TV & Movie Themes
- bugs_bunny_theme.mid – I don’t recognise this. Did he have a theme?
- halloween_theme.mid – He’s behind you! Oh shit where’s he gone?
- er_theme.mid – Bounding Dogs! (in-joke)
- exorcist_tubular_bells_theme.mid – “Merrrrinnn!!!”
- last_of_the_summer_wine.mid – Soundtrack to a million grim Sunday evenings dreading school the next day.
- psycho_theme.mid – Deet deet deet deet deet deet!
- superman_theme.mid – Good to work to.
- twilight_zone_theme.mid – And that’s that.
Another pointless blog post, entered in a ledger that covers all the transactions of the universe, a bill stamped ‘paid in full,’ and to be found, on file, behind a green door in the last house on the left… in the Twilight Zone.
4 responses to “MIDI Files I Have Known And Loved”
I must stop replying to your posts like I’m waiting sadly by the keyboard… but this version of ‘Chime’ makes me feel like my teeth are growing fur
Newsfeeds have that effect. My favourite is ‘How Soon Is Now’, which sounds like a complaining cat.
“Meeeooooow…. I am the son… and the heir…. Meeeeeoooooow…”
Thanks for this – a great nostalgia trip. I remember fiddling with complicated settings and even downloading, (if there was downloading in those days – more likely it was copying stuff off a floppy disc taped to the front of a magazine) stuff to make my midi files sound better, under the impression that this was the way of the future, or something. Nothing actually made much difference, if I remember correctly.
Some of those tracks don’t actually suffer all that much – obviously Tubular Bells sounds like it was written in midi files, but even the Beach Boys, say, don’t sound that inauthentic to me (apart from the obvious lack of falsetto vocals).
Oh, and the Bugs Bunny thing: I think it’s a piece of popular classical music which I can’t quite remember the name of: not his theme, but I think there was a particular cartoon where he was conducting the orchestra while being hunted by Elmer Fudd or something “with hilarious results”…?