I have a song stuck in my head that I have known for years. I have the
entire song memorized, yet I do not remember the composer's name or
the title of the song.

The two things I do remember, however, is that this song appears in
two games for the Commodore 64. It was used in the in-game music
rotation in the game "Friday the 13th", and it is also one of the
tunes played on the piano by the "Little Computer People".

If it is helpful, I do have a sound sample of the song in .wav format
saved on my website, taken from "Friday the 13th" for the C64. I'd
rather not post the URL publicly, as it would kill my bandwidth.
Please e-mail me if this would assist in finding this information.

Hi,

What a fun question to research! I've been up and down several blind
alleys, ended up singing the tune down the phone to various relatives
and listening to *endless* midi files.

The piece is by Johann Sebastian Bach. In German it's called 'Wachet
auf, ruft uns die Stimme', but in English is generally known as
'Sleepers Awake!' or 'Wake, Arise, the Voices Call Us!'. It's a
popular organ favourite, especially at weddings.

Here's a page with links to all recordings of this piece (strangely,
it doesn't mention 'Friday the 13th' or 'Little Computer People').
http://www.jsbach.org/bwv140.html

The Swingle Singers also recorded an a capella version:
http://www.jsbach.org/jazzsebastian.html


And here are a couple of .wav versions for you.

http://www.sonymusic.com/clips/selection/30/066511/066511_01_01_30.wav
http://www.thebridalbook.com/music/sleeper.wav

Strangely, I seem to remember the tune from the Chapel in Jet Set
Willy II - can this be the most popular music among 1980s game
programmers?

thanks,

grimace

---

Clarification of Answer by grimace-ga on 19 Jun 2002 14:39 PDT

By the way: my search strategy -

phone calls to various friends and relatives, then googling:

"js bach" +organ +wav
"wachet auf" +wav 

P.S. I was wrong about Jet Set Willy. Strange how the memory plays
tricks! However, you may be interested to know that the Spectrum's
'Antics' featured Bach's Toccata & Fugue in D [
http://www.mjwilson.demon.co.uk/crash/06/antics.htm ], while Bach's
Two Part Invention No. 13 was used in television adverts for the C64 [
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~craigch/sidplayer/artists/chamberlain.htm
].

Here's a page of some poor soul who devoted his days programming Bach
music onto a C64:

VMBear's Cave
http://www.vmbear.com/commodore.html

His version of 'Wachet Auf..." is here:
http://www.vmbear.com/sounds/bach_wachet_auf.mp3

Let me know if there's anything else you'd like to know,

grimace

You have saved my sanity. Thank you very much, this is extremely
helpful. (Now to find a decent rendition in mp3!)

Good job. . .I also searched. . .I was able to find a site that was
dedicated to C-64 music files. . .You can download the .SID files and
the player. . .The Friday the 13th had seven tracks. . .The one I knew
was J.S. Bach's "Toccata and Fuge" in D minor (MP3 at
http://www.seangallagher.net/Music/tofuge.mp3)

Found one, and it's fantastic. Thank you again so very much!!