You know the one. That innocent little recorder melody that opens Squid Game — the sound of a children's playground about ten seconds before everything goes catastrophically wrong. It burrowed into my skull, set up camp, and refused to leave. So I did the only reasonable thing a guitarist can do: I plugged in, cranked the gain, and turned "Way Back Then" into something that sounds like it wants to vote you off the island.
This is my metal guitar cover of "Way Back Then," the main theme from Squid Game (as covered by RDRband). Same haunting tune you've been humming, now with distortion, palm mutes, and roughly 400% more menace. If you came looking for the Squid Game theme on guitar, welcome — pull up a chair, mind the tripwire.
How to turn a spooky OST melody into metal
The trick to metal-ifying a theme like this isn't just slapping distortion on it and hoping — it's about register and attitude. "Way Back Then" lives in E minor, and that ominous flavour comes from leaning on the raised seventh (that D♯ against the E), which is pure harmonic minor territory. Step one: take the original melody and drop it down an octave or two onto your low strings — a bit of octave displacement instantly makes a nursery tune sound like a war crime. Step two: chug the long notes with tight palm mutes so the melody rides on top of a percussive, gated pulse instead of a limp sustained note.
The concrete takeaway: keep the melody notes ringing clearly on the higher strings, but reharmonize the space underneath with dark, rootless power chords that follow the harmonic-minor gravity. Same notes the recorder plays — just wearing steel-toed boots. It's honestly a fantastic little study in how arrangement, not shredding, does most of the heavy lifting.
If your favourite children's-game show has taught you anything, it's that the real prize is knowing your intervals well enough to survive round two. Want the tab, the GuitarPro file, and my full descent into OST madness? It's all waiting on my Patreon — no elimination required, I promise.