Zelda Ocarina of Time Song of Storms Is a Closed Time Loop and the Remake Makes You Walk It
The remake landed today on Switch 2, and of its twelve melodies this is the strange one. L, R, X, L, R, X. Three buttons, played twice, in a rocking rhythm. That is the Zelda Ocarina of Time Song of Storms. But the notes are the least interesting thing about it, because the Song of Storms is the only melody in the game that has no origin. Adult Link learns it from an angry man in the Kakariko windmill who is still furious about a child who wrecked his machinery with that exact tune seven years earlier. Link then travels back seven years, walks into the windmill as a child, plays it, and wrecks the machinery.
Link learns the song from the man. The man learned it from Link. Nobody wrote it.
So this guide is arranged as the loop rather than as a checklist – in the order you actually close it, which is also the order that stops you wasting an hour standing in the wrong windmill in the wrong body. Then everything else the song does, and what the remake changes about playing it.
| Version | Inputs |
|---|---|
| Switch 2 remake (2026) | L, R, X, L, R, X |
| Nintendo 3DS (2011) | L, R, A, L, R, A |
| Nintendo 64 (1998) | A, C-Down, C-Up, A, C-Down, C-Up |
| A real ocarina | D, F, high D – twice, quickly |
The pattern has never changed across three decades: three notes, rising then settling, repeated. Only the buttons move.
Step One: Learn It From the Man You Are About to Annoy
The song is not available early. You need the Master Sword first, which means you need all three Spiritual Stones and the Song of Time, which means this is a second-half acquisition.
Go to Kakariko Village as Adult Link and enter the windmill. Inside, a man is turning a music box handle. Take out your ocarina and play for him.
He will complain about a kid who turned up seven years ago and played a song that sent his windmill into chaos. Then, bitterly, he plays it back to you – and that teaches it to you. Follow the on-screen notes.
Two things that trip people up:
- Entering the windmill as Child Link first does not teach you the song. The man has to have his grievance before he can hand you the cause of it. Child Link gets nothing from him.
- Knowing the inputs does not let you skip the lesson. You can hum or press L, R, X, L, R, X perfectly, and the game will not count the song as learned until the musician has taught it. The ocarina menu is the gate, not your memory.
Once learned, it is playable as either Adult or Child Link.
Zelda Ocarina of Time Song of Storms and the Well You Have to Drain
Now the loop closes, and this is the single most important application of the song because it gates a required item.
The steps, in order:
- Learn the Song of Storms as Adult Link in the Kakariko windmill.
- Return to the Temple of Time and put the Master Sword back to become a child again.
- Walk to Kakariko Village as Child Link and enter the windmill.
- Play the Song of Storms in front of the musician.
- Leave the windmill and climb down the now-empty well.
What happens on step four is the whole point. The windmill spins violently faster, and the water it was holding drains out of the well outside. That opens the Bottom of the Well, which contains the Lens of Truth – the item you need for the Shadow Temple and for seeing through a great deal of the game’s later trickery.
And on the way out, notice what you have just done. The furious man in the windmill, seven years from now, is furious about you. You did not break his windmill because the song told you to; he taught you the song because you broke his windmill. The causality has no beginning.
The most common mistake here is playing it in the windmill as Adult Link. Nothing happens. The well is already drained in that timeline – or rather, it will have been, by the child version of you who has not done it yet. The drain only works from the past.
The Four Other Things It Does
The well is the required one. These are the four optional applications, and two of them pay out permanent rewards.
The frogs at Zora’s River. As Child Link, go to the log platform in Zora’s River where the frog choir sits. Play the Song of Storms in Zelda Ocarina of Time Remake to them, and you are given a Piece of Heart. This is part of the frog minigame that runs across several songs, and Storms is one of the entries.
The hidden grotto on the Hyrule Castle grounds. As Child Link, standing in the correct spot on the castle grounds, playing the song opens a concealed grotto holding a Gold Skulltula. Worth knowing for anyone going after the full hundred.
Gossip Stones. Play the song beside any Gossip Stone and a fairy appears, which can be caught in a bottle. That turns every Gossip Stone in Hyrule into a free healing item on demand, which is quietly one of the most practical things in the game and almost nobody does it.
Rain, anywhere outdoors. The song summons rainfall. Mostly atmospheric, occasionally handy, and genuinely lovely in a remake where weather and lighting have been rebuilt.
| What You Want | Form | Where | Reward |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drain the Kakariko well | Child Link | Inside the windmill | Access to the Bottom of the Well and the Lens of Truth |
| A Piece of Heart | Child Link | The log at Zora’s River, to the frogs | Piece of Heart |
| A Gold Skulltula | Child Link | The correct spot on the Hyrule Castle grounds | Hidden grotto with a Gold Skulltula |
| A free fairy | Either | Beside any Gossip Stone | A fairy you can bottle |
| Rain | Either | Outdoors | Weather |
Notice the pattern in that table. Three of the five require Child Link, which makes the Song of Storms the most childhood-dependent melody in the game. If you learn it as an adult and then press on through the Water and Shadow Temples without going back, you will walk past all three.
What the Remake Changes About Playing It
The song itself is untouched. How you perform it is not.
You can hum it. The remake lets you optionally perform melodies into the Switch 2 microphone to trigger ocarina songs rather than pressing buttons. For the Song of Storms specifically – three notes, up and settle, twice – that is about as forgiving a melody as the game offers, which makes it a good one to try the feature on before attempting something longer.
Zelda Notes, through the Nintendo Switch App, includes an ocarina of its own plus an interactive map, progress tracking and quiz questions. Guide coverage describes a melody player in the app that can be played into the Switch 2 microphone to trigger songs in-game, which is a strange and slightly wonderful loop of its own – your phone playing your console a song.
Item scrolling replaces the old menu-driven equipment handling, in the style of Breath of the Wild, so getting the ocarina out in front of the windmill man is faster than it was in 1998.
The Threads of Time log tracks the main story and objectives. Useful context for this particular song, since the well-draining sequence is exactly the sort of two-timeline errand the original expected you to hold in your head.
Time now passes continuously everywhere, including indoors and in towns, which the original did not do. Standing in the windmill watching the sails while the light shifts outside is a small new pleasure.
Hyrule Castle Town is fully explorable, rather than the pre-rendered fixed-camera area it was. Relevant here because the Castle grounds grotto sits in territory that has been genuinely rebuilt – so if you remember the old spot by muscle memory, expect the surrounding geometry to look different.
Zelda Ocarina of Time Song of Storms Mistakes to Avoid
Short, because they are all the same mistake wearing different clothes.
- Visiting the windmill as a child before you have the song. Nothing happens. You cannot shortcut the loop from the wrong end.
- Playing it in the windmill as an adult and expecting the well to drain. It will not. The well has to be drained from the past.
- Learning the song and immediately continuing the adult campaign. Three of its five effects need Child Link, including the Lens of Truth. Budget a trip back.
- Assuming you can skip the musician because you know the notes. The song has to be taught, in person, with your ocarina out.
- Trusting old geometry. Castle Town and its surroundings have been substantially rebuilt, and preview coverage already confirmed at least one classic trick – running up the drawbridge chains for a hidden rupee – no longer works. Treat decades-old routing knowledge as a hint rather than a map.
That last point is worth sitting with for anyone replaying from memory. This is a thorough remake, not a port, and incidental exploits that lived in the seams of 1998 geometry do not necessarily survive new geometry.
Why This Song Is the Game’s Whole Thesis
Of the twelve melodies, eleven have a function. This one argues.
Six of the songs are warps. Zelda’s Lullaby opens royal doors. The Sun’s Song flips day and night and freezes ReDeads. Epona’s Song calls a horse. The Song of Time opens the Door of Time. All of them are tools – the game hands you a key and a lock.
The Song of Storms is a tool that also happens to be a paradox, and the remake’s new presentation makes it land harder than before. The windmill man is now fully voiced, which means his grievance about the child who ruined everything is delivered as actual bitterness by an actual performance, to the face of the person who is about to do it.
That is the thesis of Ocarina of Time stated in one room. A game where the past and the future are both editable, where you are the cause of things that have already happened to you, and where the central instrument does not distinguish between remembering a song and creating it.
Nintendo could have cut the loop, and nobody would have complained. Instead, they voiced it.
FAQ
What are the Song of Storms notes in the remake?
L, R, X, L, R, X on Switch 2 – three buttons played twice. On 3DS it was L, R, A twice, and on N64 it was A, C-Down, C-Up twice.
Where do you learn the Song of Storms?
Inside the windmill in Kakariko Village, as Adult Link. Take out your ocarina and play for the man turning the music box, and he will teach it to you after complaining about a child who disrupted his windmill seven years earlier.
Can Child Link learn it?
No. You must learn it as Adult Link, after obtaining the Master Sword. Once learned, it can be played as either form.
How do you drain the Kakariko well?
Learn the song as Adult Link, return to childhood through the Temple of Time, go into the Kakariko windmill as Child Link and play it there. The windmill speeds up and the well outside empties, opening the Bottom of the Well and the Lens of Truth.
What else does the Song of Storms do?
It earns a Piece of Heart from the frogs on the log at Zora’s River, opens a grotto with a Gold Skulltula on the Hyrule Castle grounds, summons a bottleable fairy beside any Gossip Stone, and makes it rain outdoors.
Can you hum the Song of Storms instead of pressing buttons?
Yes. The remake optionally lets you perform melodies into the Switch 2 microphone, and its three-note pattern makes it one of the easier songs to try that with.
Why is the Song of Storms a time paradox?
The windmill musician teaches it to Adult Link while complaining about a child who played it seven years ago. Link then travels back and becomes that child. Neither party composed it – the song exists only because each taught it to the other.
Three Notes, Twice, Forever
The Zelda Ocarina of Time Song of Storms is a small thing. Three buttons, a bit of weather, a well that empties, a frog choir, a fairy by a rock.
It is also the moment Ocarina of Time stops being a game about travelling through time and becomes a game about being inside time. Every other melody acts on the world. This one acts on itself. You walk into a room, meet a man nursing a decades-old grudge, accept the song he is complaining about, and then go and earn the grudge.
The remake’s additions sharpen that rather than softening it. A voiced performance gives the musician real resentment. Continuous time passing indoors means the windmill is genuinely turning while you stand there. And the microphone option means that if you want, you can hum the song that nobody wrote into a console, and watch a well empty seven years ago.
Learn it as an adult. Play it as a child. Fetch the Lens of Truth, pick up the heart piece from the frogs, and spare a thought for the man whose afternoon you are about to ruin on purpose.
He will get over it. He has already had seven years.
Closed the loop yet? Share this, bookmark it, and go hum three notes at a Gossip Stone like a lunatic – it works. If creative or commercial collaboration brought you here, the YaninaGames team is one message away.
