“Peaches” by Jack Black

For readers who may not know, Jack Black is first and foremost a comedy actor, one who has been in the game for over three decades as of the writing of this post and concurrently can be considered a Hollywood A-lister. Furthermore, throughout the years he’s been part of a comedic, albeit serious rock duo known as Tenacious D, who even won a Grammy Award back in 2015.

Meanwhile this song (“Peaches”), which came out on 7 April 2023, is part of the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack to The Super Mario Bros. Movie. Said film is an animated affair, with Jack Black voicing the character of “Bowser”, the main antagonist.

This track was put out through Universal Studios, Back Lot Music and Nintendo. The latter of course is a videogame company, i.e. the one exclusively responsible for the perennially-successful “Mario Bros.” franchise. So with Jack Black voicing Bowser and this song being titled “Peaches”, fans of the series already have an idea where these lyrics are going.

BOWSER’S ODE TO PEACHES

The Super Mario Bros. franchise has been around pretty much since the advent of home videogame systems and, ranking amongst the most-successful franchises of all time, has millions of fans. Those of us familiar with its main storyline know that it revolves around the hero, Mario, saving his sweetheart, Princess Toadstool, aka Peaches, from the big bad Bowser. 

In other words, Bowser has a crush on Peaches and does what he has to do, i.e. kidnapping the Princess, in the name of locking her down.

And so it is with the lyrics of this song more or less. Jack Black, taking on the role of Bowser, starts off by letting Peaches know that she is his “one and only true love” and proceeds for the most part to gush over her accordingly. 

In the process, he also lets it be known that the likes of Mario, Luigi and… Donkey Kong”, i.e. the heroes of the Super Mario Bros. world, as well as “a thousand” of his own Koopa Troopers cannot prevent him from being with her. 

Or put otherwise, Bowser is smitten. And being that he is indeed a villain, what’s being implied here is not only his unwillingness to take no for an answer but also being prepared to fight anyone who prevents him from taking Peaches’ hand.

“Peaches, Peaches, Peaches, Peaches, Peaches
I love you, oh”

THE COME-UP OF “PEACHES”

The Super Mario Bros. Movie just hit theaters about a week ago, on April 5^th, and with a budget of $100,000,000 has already proven a box office success, raking in nearly half a billion dollars so far. 

As Jack Black tells it he – alongside co-writers Michael Jelenic, Eric Osmond, Aaron Horvath and John Spiker, who also produced the track – laid this song down as sort of impromptu comic relief, not really expecting it to make the final cut. 

So when it did pop up in the film he was “really stoked for people to see this new, sensitive side of Bowser”. And as fate would have it this song, as featured in the movie, went viral to the point of even garnering its own independent music video – starring Jack Black and helmed by well-known director Cole Bennett – and has even been mentioned by some as a potential Oscar contender.

NOTE:

Just few weeks after the release of “Peaches”, Jack Black teamed up with Kyle Gass, his bandmate from Tenacious D to release another video game inspired song titled “Video Games“.