Halo’s theme is built upon gothic monk chants and orchestral swells, but its inspiration has roots in an unlikely source.

Loading

Loading

During an interview on IGN Unfiltered airing later this week, Halo composer Marty O’Donnell shared the origins of the Halo theme and how The Beatles were partially responsible for its inception.Around the time of MacWorld 1999, O’Donnell remembers the development team at Bungie creating a demo to be shared onstage. Despite the rapid progress they made, the demo still lacked the music it would need to help make a good impression.Sensing the urgency, O’Donnell offered to create a theme for the demo, making a deal allowing him to retain the rights to the composition and license its use for an estimated $3,500.According to O’Donnell, he was given the direction to make the theme feel “ancient, mysterious, and epic.” While driving to his co-writer’s home studio, O’Donnell remembers brainstorming.“[A]s I was driving, I thought ‘Okay, ancient...you know, monks are ancient, so I'm going to start with some sort of monk chant, and it's got to be hook-y, it's got to stick in people's heads and then we'll go on to something sort of epic and pounding; cellos and drums, and stuff.’”It wasn’t until he began singing The Beatles’ song ‘Yesterday’ that the theme started to take form."I've always analyzed [Yesterday’s] melody; it's got one high point, it's got one low point, it's got four sort of irregular phrases,” he said.“So, [the Halo theme is]...not a copy of the Yesterday melody, but the Yesterday melody inspired me to put that together, because I thought, 'Well, if I have one high point, one low point, to four irregular phrases but still do a legitimate monk chant melody...it may be able to have legs.’"The song eventually became a fully-worked composition, with the monk chants being performed by three jingle singers, O’Donnell, and his co-writer Michael Salvatori.While discussing the origins for the theme, O’Donnell affectionately recalls the car being one of his brainstorming sanctuaries.“The majority of the stuff I've written – that people like – pretty much, I'm sitting at the keyboard,” he says. “But, it's funny to me that the two most memorable or successful individual melodies I wrote in the car."For more on Halo, Bungie, and O’Donnell’s career, check out the latest episode of IGN Unfiltered , airing later this week. And don't miss our month-long coverage of O'Donnell's new game, Golem.

Cassidee is a freelance writer and the co-host of a freelancing podcast and a geek culture podcast . You can chat with her about comics, video games, and Corgis on Twitter