The Super Mario Bros. theme song actually has lyrics, and they’re delightfully insane

Well here’s some mind blowing trivia for your Saturday morning; the Mario Bros. theme song has lyrics. Yep, I know. Take a minute if you need to.

If you’re like me and spent countless hours sitting on the couch in your playroom playing Super Mario Bros. until your eyes crossed, this is huge news. I just wish I would have known the lyrics 30 years ago so my brain could have sang along to something other than “dun dun dun dun dunduhdun dun dun dun doop de doop boop dooby doop”. Or at least that’s how it went in my mind.

But there’s a slight catch — the lyrics are in Japanese, so singing along as an American child probably would have been difficult. The official lyrics were written in 1985 when the game was first released. A Japanese radio station held a contest, encouraging fans of the game to send in their own lyrics. One particular set of lyrics caught the attention of Nintendo and were made the official lyrics of the Super Mario Bros. theme song.

Here are the lyrics, in English. While kind of the weirdest thing ever, they happen to also be very informative:

This next part is spoken:

Now, back to singing:

The lyrics are basically an explanation of how to play the game, which probably would have come in handy circa 1985.

Ready to hear them in Japanese?

And here’s a live version of the song performed in Tokyo in 2003 by the Mario & Zelda Big Band. And yes, it’s as weird as you think it’s going to be.

The lyrics aren’t exactly what I always imaged them to be, especially considering I thought the lyrics from The Super Mario Bros. Super Show theme song were the official lyrics. Here’s that song for old time’s sake.

(Featured image via Twitter)