Tetris: A History In Song

Channel:

Jonathan Mann

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74,400

Published on March 7, 2009 8:38:55 AM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34bYJDNS6Zo

Duration: 3:57

20,473 views

188

Hello, my name is Alexey Pajitnov
I like to play games
Oh it really gets me off
But where I live they don’t like let you play
I’m a computer engineer
I just sit and work all day
One day while I was working an idea struck me there
I saw those shapes a’fallin made up of four squares
Aha! I know what joy that brought me
I programmed it right onto my electronica 60
Well a friend imports the game to his IBM PC
It started to spread around most unbeknownst to me
It made its way to Budapest via commodore 64
And that’s when the problems start ah borshamore

First there’s Robert Maxwell who’s working with Robert Stein
They represent several companies and they want what is mine
They get the computer rights but then I don’t see a dime
They come back for the arcade rights and I say, “Not this time!”
Meanwhile Maxwell’s companies are going Tetris wild
To Japan and North America, they spread the rights with guile
But soon they made mistakes, granting overlapping rights
The game is in the middle of an international fight
Meanwhile, Nintendo’s making Gameboy and they need that killer app
So Henk Rogers contacts Stein, but Stein don’t give a crap
So Henk flies to Moscow to get the handheld rights himself
And then Stein hears about it and heads over there as well

Well Rogers sees me first, I like him right away
I grant him the handheld rights, but he has more to say
He shows me the game on Nintendo’s Famicon
Which is being sold by Tengen, a clear violation
Well Rogers is shock
He got the rights from Stein
Stein was being shady, and it wasn’t his first try
Rogers writes a check for every copy sold
He proved to Mother Russia that he had a heart of gold
At this point in the story, well the rest of you can guess
Gameboy is released to unparalleled success
Thanks in no small part to a game that we all love
That game of course is Tetris, by me, Alexey Pajitnov