User:AtlyxMusic/Tracknames

A note on some Halo tracknames

In the interest of correct information being out there, I wanted to write this down somewhere.

There are two pieces from Halo: Combat Evolved that many people call by two different names. The two pieces are:

• Old Stuff/"Shreddin"
• The Lost Song/"The Lost Muse"

These pieces, along with a few others, were originally released as bonus song downloads on Bungie.net in 2002. You can find a Wayback of the original page here. You will notice that this page, as set up by composer Martin O'Donnell and webmaster Matt Soell, only list one name per each of these tracks. The original names for these two pieces, as given by Marty, are officially "Old Stuff" and "The Lost Song."

So where did "Shreddin" and "The Lost Muse" come from? Well, in 2007, Microsoft introduced a website tool called "Silverlight" which was similar to Adobe Flash. Someone at Bungie or Microsoft decided to use it and build a music player application directly into Bungie.net. This music player featured (in my opinion, sometimes terrible) new names for the tracks released in 2003, such as "We Gonna Watch Tron Tonight" or "Clap Your Hands and Say Eh." It is not known who at Bungie (or Microsoft?) created this application or gave the tracks these names.

The common citation used to show that these alternate track names existed is an XML file that was in Bungie.net. If you click this link, you can notice that there is not a version of this page from before 2008 archived, and the URL mentions "silverlight" directly in it. Ergo, this XML file cited gave these pieces these names retroactively, as the pieces were released in 2002, but these names were made for a Silverlight application. Silverlight, of course, did not exist until 2007, 4+ years after the pieces were released.

Additionally, if you went to the last archived link at Halo.Bungie.net over the last many years before Halo.Bungie.net was taken down, you'll find the final/"current" page listed them as Old Stuff and The Lost Song.

That's not to say that you're "wrong" for saying Lost Muse or Shreddin', but rather, I just think it's important to note that these are not the original names and are not the names the original composer(s) gave these pieces.

Thank you for indulging me on this!