I don’t know what it is, but “Far Horizons” just calms me down instantly and puts me in a better mood. And the feeling isn’t exclusive to that one track that’s been sitting at the top of my Most Played for more than five years now. I have a playlist called “Calm Skyrim” that holds every peaceful piece in the game. I should probably make one called “Rough Skyrim” too, and put everything else in there for, say, when I’m running. Or fighting a dragon. You know, everyday errands.
The point is that I’ve played the game on and off since 2011, but the music has been a consistent, inseparable part of my life the whole way through. What follows are some thoughts about why that is, my ten favorite tracks, and some memorable adaptations. But before we dive in, let’s address the elephant in the room.
About Jeremy Soule
The Skyrim score was composed by Jeremy Soule, and it’s hard to write about this music without acknowledging what happened to his career. In 2019, several women in and around the games industry made public accusations against him; game developer Nathalie Lawhead accused him of sexual assault, and vocalist Aeralie Brighton made allegations of misconduct as well. Soule denied wrongdoing.
To my knowledge, the accusations never went to court, no charges were filed, and nothing was ever proven or disproven publicly. What did happen is that Soule effectively disappeared from the industry. I don’t know Soule or any of the people involved, I wasn’t there for any of it, and I’m in no position to judge what happened. I don’t condone abuse of any sort, full stop.
So, I’m sidestepping the whole thing because pretending the elephant isn’t in the room felt worse than pointing at it. What I can honestly write about is the music itself and what it has meant to me for fourteen years.
Let’s move on to more pleasant landscapes!
Hours Behind the Feeling
If you’ve played Skyrim for more than two hours, you know how easily you can get lost in it. Doesn’t matter in the what of it! On the map, in a quest, in the big choices, in the dungeons of Castle Volkihar, or in this, the music.
The game is so immersive and so popular that it’s been ported to every platform imaginable. (Amazon Alexa included! Remember that one?) And I can imagine gamers on every one of those platforms (maybe except Alexa) each sinking countless hours into leveling up, getting stuck in quests (No One Escapes Cidhna Mine, not until we give it eleven more updates), or just wandering around taking in the scenery. Ah, the wandering around.
Here’s the thing about all those hours: the music never let up. Whether I was crossing the tundra at 3 AM with a fever of quests in my journal, or standing on the Throat of the World doing absolutely nothing, it was always there.
Psychologists have a name for part of this: it’s called the mere-exposure effect, our tendency to grow fond of things simply because we’ve encountered them repeatedly. But I think it’s more than repetition. This music scored hundreds of hours of my choices, my near-deaths, my sunrises over Whiterun. Somewhere along the way, I honestly couldn’t tell you when, I was no longer me. I was the Dragonborn of legend.
And when a piece of music has been the backdrop to that many hours of your life, it stops being a soundtrack. It becomes a place. Pressing play is going home.
My 10 Favorite Pieces
Fair warning: picking ten from a score this size borders on cruelty. Still, these are the first pieces that come to my mind.
Far Horizons
My most played song for over five years, and the reason this article exists. A soft bed of strings, a horn line that seems to look at something very far away, and no hurry whatsoever.
For me this piece is about infinite possibilities: the feel of the open road, and the knowledge that everything stems from right here, right now. It’s the sound of cresting a hill and seeing the whole land laid out before you, owing you nothing and offering everything. I’d love it if I lived my whole life like that.
Forgotten Vale
Dawnguard may have come later, but it’s an inseparable part of Skyrim for me. This is the theme for the hidden glacial valley after all that winding and twisting in the dark, fearing for your life.
It may just be the closest this score comes to holding its breath. Icy, shimmering, almost weightless. It sounds like a place no one has spoken in for a thousand years, because that’s exactly what the Forgotten Vale is. I put this on when I need the world to be quiet for a while.
Sadly, it was never officially released. You can listen to it below.
Wind Guide You
The farewell of the album, and it knows it. It drifts through fragments of the game’s themes like someone walking slowly through a house they’re about to leave, touching the walls. Nine-ish minutes that feel like a long exhale. The title is what the Greybeards say when you part ways, and the piece means it.
The Gathering Storm
Officially, this is exploration music with weather in it. The strings churn, the brass rolls in like clouds over the Sea of Ghosts, and you can practically feel the temperature drop.
For me, this takes me back to when we, Imperial soldiers, were about to ambush the Stormcloaks in their search for the Jagged Crown. It’s not combat music, the fight hasn’t even started, but it reminds you that you could easily die in the next hour.
Imperial Throne
Stately, formal, a little bit sad. This is the sound of power that knows its best days are behind it: very fitting for the Empire you meet in the game. I love it because it does politics with nothing but chords: dignity in the melody, doubt underneath.
Awake
Possibly the gentlest track on the album, and literally the first piece you hear when you hit “New game,” before you realize you’re headed for the death row. It sounds like the first minutes of a morning before you remember your obligations: thin light, cold air, sky above, voice within.
Solitude
The theme of the capital city, wistful and proud at the same time. There’s a melody in here that feels like looking at the arch of the city from below and thinking about everyone who walked through it before you.
City themes usually just say “you are safe now.” This one says “you are somewhere old.” I also side with the Empire every time, so it holds an extra bit of pride for me as well.
Dragonborn
The main theme, and one of the most recognizable pieces in video game history. A thirty-odd-voice choir bellowing in Dovah over that ancient Elder Scrolls melody.
It shouldn’t work as something you listen to on a Tuesday commute, and yet it does. It’s pure adrenaline and prophecy. (And obviously, this would be the crown jewel of the future “Rough Skyrim” playlist.)
Ancient Stones
The quiet counterpart to “Dragonborn,” and maybe the most beloved calm track in the whole score. A simple, patient melody passed between piano and strings, like something remembered rather than composed. It plays while you wander, and it makes wandering feel like the entire point of the game. Honestly, it might be.
The City Gates
The sound of arriving somewhere. Warm, a little rustic, with that tavern-adjacent cheer to it: mead and firewood in musical form. After hours in the wilderness, this piece is the relief of walls and roofs and other people. Few tracks capture “you made it” so well, in any game.
Adaptations
As with every successful album ever, Skyrim has its variations and adaptations. I’ve listened to a lot of them, as I do with every album I love. (I actually did a piece on different orchestrations of The Lord of the Rings a while back!) And as with all albums I love, I hold some strong opinions. With that said, here are a couple of adaptations you may enjoy alongside the original.
Honorable Mention: The Skyrim 10th Anniversary Concert
I’ll come out and say it: I didn’t love this one! It was an official Bethesda production for the game’s tenth birthday in 2021, with some cherry-picked and rearranged. On paper that should have been my favorite thing in the world.
But the cherry-picking is the main problem. Like I said, picking tracks from the score borders on cruelty and the pieces don’t flow into each other. To make things worse, the tracks somehow feel hurried and not as elegant.
With that said, the anniversary tracks are impressively performed and beautifully recorded. If you want a one-sitting tour of the score’s greatest hits, it does the job. It just sounds like Skyrim in a concert hall, when the whole point of this music is that it sounds like Skyrim in the whole wide world. It’s worth one listen but it didn’t survive my playlist purge. You can find it on Deezer or Spotify.
Malukah: Skyrim in Singing
Chief among the adaptations are the works of Malukah. In fact, this Mexican singer-songwriter got famous because of Skyrim: she uploaded a hauntingly beautiful, self-harmonized version of “The Dragonborn Comes” to YouTube back in 2011, watched it rack up millions of views, and then capitalized on her voice and her genuine love for the game to record a bunch of other songs as well. To this day, I still listen to “The Age of Aggression” and her re-recorded, more dramatic version of “The Dragonborn Comes.”
But getting into individual gamers’ playlists wasn’t Malukah’s only victory. Seeing how much fans loved her, Bethesda made the wise call to bring her aboard The Elder Scrolls Online, which gave us “The Beauty of Dawn.” That one’s also still on my lists today. There’s something poetic about it: a fan sang the game’s song so well that the game sang back.
Shoutout to The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra
Now that I’ve sang Malukah’s praises, I can say that hers isn’t my favorite “The Dragonborn Comes.” That one goes to the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra with their live performance called “Score – Videogame music” in 2016, which featured “The Dragonborn Comes” from Skyrim.
I can’t quite describe why I love this one more. The arrangement is Malukah’s, but there’s a patience, a lasting flicker of hope in both how the orchestra plays the piece and how Sabina Zweiacker sings. She says the words slightly more slowly than we’re used to, but with a palpable confidence. She then ascends into Dovah, the orchestra explodes with the game’s theme, and we land softly back on “Our hero, our hero, claims a warrior’s heart.”
London Philharmonic: Far Horizons
The London Philharmonic Orchestra has two albums titled “The Greatest Video Game Music.” And you know what? They really are. On the second album, there’s a hauntingly beautiful rendition of “Far Horizons.” The piece is so well done that it’s my sixth most-played song, with the original topping that same playlist, mind you.
The London Philharmonic first plays an orchestral version of most of the song, and then everything goes quiet, and it all falls down to a single piano. It caught me completely off guard the first time, as if the whole world stopped and you turned your gaze inward, into everything you’ve lived through. I could never count the times I’ve shed tears with this.
And after the piano has carried the melody through that stillness, the orchestra rises again. This time, it’s stronger. Like you. Like myself.
Video Games Live & Song Cycle
Let’s wrap up on a more cheerful note! Video Games Live, the touring concert series that’s been performing game music with full orchestras since the mid-2000s, has several explosive live versions of “Dragonborn,” the game’s main theme. Complete with roaring crowds, which is honestly the correct audience response to that choir. I don’t listen to it often, but it’s great when you’re commanding a dragon through the sky. (Or merging onto a highway. Same energy.)
And as a bonus track: there’s “The Dark Path” on the album Song Cycle: The History of Video Games. As the name suggests, the album walks through highlights of video game music history, and of course Skyrim made the cut. What makes this piece unique is Laura Intravia’s full soprano mode and lyrics describing a path that many of us have taken before. It’s a lovely way to treat this music: not as a soundtrack to a product, but as a chapter in a shared history.
Final Word
I sometimes wonder if I love this music because it’s objectively great or because it’s welded to a decade of my own memories. Then I remember I don’t actually have to choose. The score is beautiful and it’s mine: the way a childhood home is both a building and something no architect could reproduce.
If you’ve never played the game, start with “Ancient Stones” and go for a walk. And if you have played it, well, you already know. Wind guide you.