When the orchestral main theme got a vocal rock ballad version
A small little diatribe in between the actual research and analysis work that I’d normally put into this blog, but there’s one particular ‘trope’ of sorts that’s not all too common (but not exactly rare either) in game and anime soundtracks sometimes pops up from time to time. Namely, it's the inclusion of vocal songs in the soundtrack that are direct arrangements or versions of important musical themes present in the story.
One of the earliest well-known examples of this I can think of is in Final Fantasy VIII. To avoid mentioning any spoilers for the game’s story, I’ll keep the descriptions here fairly brief and general.
Love Grows is what you’d consider the ‘love theme’ between protagonists Squall and Rinoa. It’s an arrangement of a particular love song that exists diegetically in the universe of the game itself, and so it underscores various scenes throughout the game between them and follows them throughout the game. It then makes the most sense that a vocal version of this theme, Eyes On Me, would be used in a pivotal moment of the game’s story involving the two sharing an intimate moment. Finally, the ‘love theme’ of the game is allowed to truly take flight as its iconic melody is set to lyrics, whose words so closely parallel the relationship between the two leads.
One particular composer who does a lot of these is Hiroyuki Sawano (go figure considering whose blog this is LOL). Given a good chunk of his scores include a number of vocal insert songs, sharing themes and motifs between them ends up being a fairly common thing in his work. I’ll keep it within the topic of video games since that’s where all of the other examples being covered in this post are from.
Imagine having this absolute beast of a theme be the main musical representation of your game. I’ve gushed about THEMEX so many times before, just listen to it man, what a phenomenal piece of music. Just a perfect musical representation of the narrative stakes and also just the sheer scale of this game as an experience. Sawano’s huge, bombastic orchestral sound just feels perfect for the kind of RPG that MONOLITHSOFT had set out to make with Xenoblade X.
But throughout the game, as you slowly uncover more and more of the planet Mira and you forge new connections with both fellow humans and xenoform, the game presents you with a good chunk of downtime; quiet moments without much action at all, instead spent in deep conversation or reminiscence. Sawano isn’t a one-trick pony (or at least… he wasn’t with this game), so he composed a large variety of music in all sorts of styles and genres for this game besides bombastic orchestral tracks, including a decent amount of vocal songs.
The way is one of the many accompanying cutscene songs that play at various points throughout the game, usually in more melancholic moments and heart-to-hearts throughout the various questlines in the game. You would never expect something as huge as THEMEX to work in this kind of musical context, stripped down to a simple rock band arrangement with no more than 6 players; vocals, piano, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, bass, and drums, but it just shows you how utterly skilled he is at writing a memorable melody. It’s almost hard to tell whether this theme started as a vocal song or as an orchestral one, because it just sounds so natural both ways. In a game whose core theme is so deeply rooted in being human, I think having a soundtrack filled with vocal songs like these just makes so much sense. It really feels like songs like this could be playing on the NLA radio while they’re all living their lives, watching days pass, unsure of what’s to come.
Why do these work so well? In my opinion, a lot of it has to do with the idea of recontextualization - specifically, it is taking musical material that you’ve already heard throughout the story and built your own associations with, and expressing that in a brand new way that you never would have expected. Melodies that you’ve grown to love and find so memorable from having heard throughout are now being expressed, not just through the music itself, but through the lyrics that have now been set to it. The combination of familiar melodies and brand new words set on to them, at least to me, creates such an immensely powerful emotional connection with the song.
One of the ways that the mainline Xenoblade games continued to work with this idea (with the second game onwards) is by having one ‘musical theme’ underscore the beginning and the end of the journey, but expressed in completely different ways. In Xenoblade 2: Torna ~ The Golden Country, the literal first piece of music you hear on the title screen is this short piano solo piece.
Listening to the piece as a whole, you hear a bit of everything; from the brighter, happier opening notes, the more mellow B section, to the quiet, somber climax. However, you know you’re not getting the full story because there’s only so much a single piano can say musically, so this one piece merely acts as a prelude to what’s to come when you decide to press start.
Spoilers for Xenoblade 2: Torna ~ The Golden Country below because it’s a lot harder to write around the effectiveness of this song in general statements (if you’ve been planning on playing this series please do NOT LISTEN TO THIS SONG and probably do not read the following paragraph.)
The ending theme of Torna ~ The Golden Country is a fully arranged orchestral ballad version of the same theme you heard at the very beginning, now with lyrics and vocals performed by Jen Bird. It follows the exact same structure of the original piece and by all means acts as a ‘fully realized’ version of it. With this song playing mere minutes after one of the most tragic climaxes in the Xenoblade series, the melodies that the player merely got a glimpse of at the start of the game are now set to some absolutely heartwrenching lyrics and underscored by a small but powerful orchestra. The bridge section with its quaint little acoustic guitar solo adds a touch of brightness to an otherwise mellow song… only to be swept away by that soul-crushing last chorus. I genuinely cannot listen to the latter half of this song without tearing up both because of how effectively it ties itself to the game’s narrative and also because it is just a genuinely really well-written song in its own right.
What are your favourite vocal versions of instrumental themes? I’d be curious if there are any that particularly stick in your head the same way a lot of these songs did for me.