The Last of Us Main Theme

A single guitar, nylon-stringed and intimate, played with the kind of restraint that feels earned rather than minimal. Gustavo Santaolalla's touch is unmistakable here even before you know his name — there's a South American lyricism to the melodic phrasing, a folk memory that somehow doesn't feel out of place scoring American apocalypse. The melody itself is almost unbearably tender, a simple progression that loops with slight variations, each pass wearing a little more sorrow into the wood of it. This is grief music, but grief that has had twenty years to settle into something quieter than acute pain — it's the grief of remembering someone's face and not being sure anymore if the memory is the person or just the memory. The HBO adaptation introduced this piece to an enormous audience, but Santaolalla composed the original for Naughty Dog's game years earlier, and its longevity is evidence of how completely it captures the emotional core of the material: love persisting past all rational reason in a world that no longer supports it. No percussion, no swell, nothing to hide behind. You would reach for this during the particular kind of sadness that feels private and unnameable — grief for something not yet lost, or love that cost too much.