I listen to music while I work. That’s not strange, of course, I’d guess that most people would say that. I tend to listen to music without lyrics, though, as I find singing actually makes it harder for me to write.

That means I often turn to orchestral video game music. One of the this year’s releases that’s gotten a lot of playtime for me is the soundtrack to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. That includes all the trailers, which means I’ve turned to plenty of YouTube videos to get my fill.

Now, if you’ve listened to the main theme from this clip before, you’ve likely heard the jarring rest that feels wildly out of place.

Here’s the song. The rest happens just after the 1:00 mark, so I’d move it to 0:50 and listen from there.

That pause? That’s not some error that slipped into early versions of the song and somehow made it to a wide release. No, that was totally on purpose.

Nintendo of Japan published another entry in its blog on the development of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. As reported by Perectly Nintendo, this post focused on music and was written by the developer in charge of the tunes, Manaka Kataoka.

Kataoka indicated that the odd pause in that theme is actually her nod to Link waking up after 100 years of stasis and catching his breath. I get it, but the result is super weird.

For some reason, reading that this was done on purpose has put to ease a lot of the anxiety that the effect produces. I may not like the result, but I get it now, and that’s somehow enough for my brain as I listen to this music while working.