Otakon 2009: Mary Elizabeth McGlynn: Jill Of All Trades

Silent Hil fans also got another major boost: “I got to be a codirector on the next Silent Hill game. For the Wii, no less. It’s really gonna rock. I’ve been doing the songs for the series (there’s four more in the next game!) and you might want to preorder that one ‘cos there’s going to be some one of a kind bonus stuff I can’t tell you about.” (Anime fans quickly grow inured to, and twice as quickly learn to tell the difference between, “I can’t tell you” and “We have no plans at this time”.) “We’ll be recording it all in just a couple of weeks, and this is the first time we’ve done anything like this.

Now that we know the bonus is a soundtrack cd I’m wondering if some older Silent Hill tunes were re recorded?

Based on a quick show of hands, there were at least as many Silent Hill fans as there were GITS fans, so it came as little surprise that many questions revolved around everyone’s favorite Pyramid Head Franchise. One question — what were her favorite songs from the games? — evoked an interesting response: “We actually don’t know what the song titles are when we do them! But my favorite of the bunch — well, without knowing the title, it’s the one that goes ‘Here’s a lullaby to close your eyes –” and with that a good chunk of the (female) audience sang right along to great applause. Ditto when she crooned “Stare at the walls, they make fun of me”. (MEMO TO FUTURE CONVENTION ORGANIZERS: A panel of nothing but Mrs. McGlynn doing karaoke sing-offs of Silent Hill tunes would be a sell-out.)

As enthusiastic as she is about music — she was, by her own admission, a Band Brat in high school — she doesn’t do as much singing as you might imagine. There was talk of recording her own album but it never materialized, but: “What I’d live to do is talk to Akira [Yamaoka, the composer[ and release the best of the songs from that game, enough for a full album. It’s weird because right after I did the Silent Hill stuff I did a demo for a children’s audio book named ‘My Little Tree Frog’ and I kept thinking about that stuff done in the SH manner. ‘IT’S A TREEE FROOOOG!!'” (Cue audience convulsions.)”