This remake of the 1959 track Firecracker by Martin Denny was utterly amazing, given new life by the pioneering electronic Japanese band Yellow Magic Orchestra. The USA and the UK singles both used the title Computer Game, but Theme from The Circus was used for the USA single, while Theme from The Invaders was used for the UK single. Both singles also had different mixes, with the UK single having the samples of the video game Space Invaders during the intro and the firecracker explosion at the end, while the USA single starts right off with Firecracker and fades out slowly at the end.
I was a kid when this was first released, and was just getting into video games, so this song was just mesmerizing for me--the combination of synthesizers and lovely electronic sounds with that distinctive Asian melody was pure awesomeness; I really loved it a lot, and ended up buying the album, which had a slightly different mix than the original Japanese release. Computer Game peaked at #17 on the UK pop charts and at #60 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart in 1980; for me though, it deserved to be a much bigger hit.
