byu's dovahkiin

The BYU Men's Chorus collaborated with a few dudes to make a YouTube video.  For those uneducated about current pop culture in the geek world, there is a hot, new game that came out a few months ago called The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. It's a game about a character (you!) who is dragonborn, meaning the character was born with the soul and blood of a dragon but has a mortal body. S/he has the name Dovahkiin, which means "dragonborn" in the dragon's language. This character can instantly learn the dragon language by reading it, and also absorb dragon souls to gain that dragon's knowledge and power to be even more awesome. There is one power called the dragon shout, and by saying the words "fus ro dah," the character can create a wave of magic that blows stuff over, or pushes something with incredible strength (Just don't kill the chickens). This character then runs around and does quests and stuff. I've heard it's a pretty rad game, although I have not played it myself yet. But, when I do, I can pick to be a person who looks like a cat, and that's pretty cool.

 So these dudes and the choir, along with a bunch of other musicians, created a modern-day version of Dovahkiin and the song "Sons of Skyrim." The final video is pretty awesome, but my favorite part is definitely the song with the choir. It's hard to believe that they shot all of the video in Provo, and that I've been to all of those places before!



Listen to and download a better version of the song here.

And here is an original version of the song.

Here is a behind the scenes look (where you can see me in the background with my pink sweatshirt and hat at 3:48!)



I know the men loved doing the recording for the video, and it has had quite a few hits already. It's even been mentioned on Bethesda's blog (they are the company that created the game). John called and emailed Bethesda asking for permission to sing "Sons of Skyrim" at their next concert in March. They already gave consent to record the song and put it on YouTube, so I don't see why they wouldn't allow it. BYU won't allow the choir to "steal" the song, even if it is ridiculously easy to steal in Skyrim, so I hope they say yes!