Also known as Next Era things that never came to fruition, part one.

It should be no secret nor come as a surprise to anyone that I consider myself a musically inclined person. From participating in miming performances in school, to being in the school choir, to having had a period in my life where I played drums, to these days having karaoke as one of my primary hobbies. I listen to music pretty much all the time too.

So it should come as no real surprise that I have, at times, applied music to Next Era. Even if none of that ever actually became visible in the writings.

At the bottom of the Symphony document, you can see that I had started considering a “soundtrack” for it. It had 12 spots, because at the time, there was a website called Muxtape where you could make a mixtape with 12 songs (and now I find that someone has made an open source package for doing a similar thing on your own website. I have downloaded this and will look into it). I was planning on making one and linking to it when the story was posted. Each track would pertain to a specific scene, or collection of scenes, in the story. And get its own title. So let’s start there. I only wrote down four, though.

First, Unseen bonds – the decisive battles of three comrades. This was, I’m pretty sure, going to be for Silver’s, Shiva’s and 666’s fights, as I think they’re kind of done at the same time in the story. The song is Brave Heart by Megumi Hayashibara, from Shaman King. It fits for cutting between three frantic battle scenes, I guess? Even if the story, as written, doesn’t have those cuts. I probably tended to think more “cinematically” for what the soundtrack would be.

True colours – a fearless sacrifice is… well, I’m fairly certain it was for when Kay sacrificed herself to take down Lumine, since “true colours” refers to that also being the major scene where Lumine is revealed as the villain of the piece. Problem with that is that the reveal and the sacrifice were to be in two different scenes. Thing is? I have no idea what song was meant for this. I probably never thought of one.

The sisters’ requiem – let’s meet again in the afterlife is, well, when Jay is being a bit sad about Kay’s death. Atos cheers her up, he can probably relate since he’s effectively lost his dad. The song is Over the Distance by Hitomi Yaida, made famous (and introduced to me) through manly DS rhythm game Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan.

That which was lost – turning eyes toward tomorrow would have been the finale. When all the enemies have been defeated, when the attack on the HQ has been stopped. When there’s actually time to mourn all the lives that were lost in the attack and start taking the next step… rebuilding. It’s actually two songs – This Land and King of Pride Rock, both from the best Disney movie ever, and I shouldn’t even have to say the name. The songs are fantastic mixes of melancholy and triumph. The segment of Circle of Life at the end of the latter one isn’t quite fitting, but…

I’m not actually sure if I had any more songs actually figured out for that, but that’s four out of 12… there would have been 8 more. I guess these would have been, in some kind of order, the introduction, the start of the attack, 666 and Shiva’s reappearance, Vile vs. Pandamonium, Metro vs. Man-o-war, Silver (and Pallette) reconnecting with Shiva, Blues dying and 666 fighting Hailius. Actually, no, scratch that, that would be a bonus track since it takes place three days later, after the “finale”. I guess that would be the “stinger” that plays after the credits. So the 12th scene with a track would be… either the one where 666 meets up with Snex, or giving Kay another track – one for the Lumine battle, and one for the sacrifice. W/e.

But that obviously wasn’t all. I had some ideas for other songs going, at one point I had an idea to give each character a soundtrack, and well… I remember, hilariously enough, that the track for 666 getting together with Razie was going to be, of all things, Strangers in the Night. Bascially, if you take the “dance” part of the lyrics and interpret it as “fight” (because that’s what they actually DID the night of the first day they met), it’s actually pretty fitting. “Love was just a glance away, a warm embracing dance away.” Followed by “in love forever”. It makes sense in fairly silly ways. I also knew I wanted to use, for obvious reasons, Get up 2 the Track (666 is back) for something. I think “comeback” was the only idea there, but it wouldn’t have fit for when he returned in Symphony, really… and sadly, I don’t remember any more songs planned for any characters.

Which brings me to my third and final part of this… Next Era-specific songs. Rather than take an already existing song and apply it to Next Era, get some actual Next Era songs. Partly, at least. Inspired by writing translations or parodies in Swedish of various songs, mostly Japanese (bunch of my work can be found here), I started thinking of Next Era songs. Which didn’t really get that far either. Two ideas were had – a Next Era “intro song” (I often thought of NE in terms of being a kind of animated series), which would be English lyrics using the music of Yeah! Break! Care! Break! from Dragon Ball Kai, and a sad song that would be sung by/from the perspective of Shiva (image song!) about how she’s had kind of a fucked up life but have to go on anyway, to the music of Naraku no Hana from When They Cry.

I think that’s all I have to say about that. If I randomly remember more things, there might be more posts in the future.