I've opined elsewhere that the Guilty Gear Strive soundtrack is really really good (and also really queer, if you look at it from a certain angle, and no I don't just mean The Town Inside Me and Like A Weed, Naturally, As A Matter Of Course, but that's another topic for another chost) and it's been my background music for the last totally normal little while, as one does, in a totally normal hyperfixation model, but something keeps coming up when I try to talk about it, particularly the opening theme. Speaking of the opening theme, here it is - this is Smell Of The Game. You may already know it, or you may just know the now-iconic "that is bullshit blazing" riff, or you may never have heard it. In any case, here it is, as a link because I still haven't figured out if I can just inline embed youtube videos here: https://youtu.be/2GcKrCnDBf4
Go listen, it's worth it. I promise.
Welcome back! So, here are the lyrics to the opening verse and chorus, presented as they are in both the video description and generally accepted format:
I know who I am
The moonlit lake told me
"This is who you are"
My fangs are so long
My nails are sharper than ice
That is me
I wonder what that will prove?
That is bullshit! Blazing!
Still my heart is blazing!
If the words kill me
I don't need a new world order
You... Soon you will know
We already know the smell of the game
It's been described as "the most inspirational word salad I've ever heard" by some folks, but that's ALSO not what I'm here to talk about, specifically. I mean I DO think it's inspirational, really inspirational, but that's not the point. The point that kicked off this line of thinking is embodied by the top YouTube comment at time of writing (approx. 1900 CDT, Aug 15 2023):
The way he rhymed "blazing" with "blazing". F'n genius.
The comment thread continues with some people arguing "yeah but for real it's good though" and others arguing "yeah it would have been better with other words like maybe still my heart is racing instead" but it's something that I've seen pop up all over the place, not just in this youtube section, and I wanna talk about this, because Daisuke Ishiwatari both did and did not rhyme blazing with itself. He's really good at music and poetry, y'all.
Let's get the elephant out of the way, first:
While your English teacher may have told you that it's bad form to rhyme a word with itself, that's not actually an axiomatic rule. You do not fail poetry or songwriting forever if you do! If you really want to use "orange" as part of a rhyming couplet, and end up rhyming it with "orange", you have not breached some literary law of the universe, and if the poetry cops come for you over it, they're just bastards. There's no rule saying you can't do that.
It is still a "rule", though, insofar as it's generally accepted that "rhymes scan better when they're different words". Much like the preceding statement scans better than my first draft, which was "...in that it's generally accepted that...", which is acceptable sentence construction but doesn't FEEL as good, because there's too many "that"s. The aesthetics of language are a thing, even outside poetry and lyrics.
But understanding the rule, in art, means that you also may understand when to ignore the rule for effect. So even if he did just rhyme "blazing" with itself (over and over in the course of the song), it's just straight-up okay to do that if it sounds good and scans good!
Except that's not just what he did.
A hallmark of Daisuke's work through the whole Strive soundtrack is setting lyrics in a shifting offset pattern to the music. Sometimes it's one consistent offset, sometimes it moves throughout the piece - one of my favorite examples is "Love The Subhuman Self", where the relation of the lyrical pulse to the musical pulse is really magnificent, and the contrasting mood of the music is reinforced by things like "where the words start". Here's a link. https://youtu.be/7qsc2ydmLSM
In Smell Of The Game, there's a consistent pattern, because the lines aren't just read off evenly. If we present the poetry in a form that's closer diagrammed to the musical pulse, it looks something like this:
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
|---|---|---|---|
| I | know who | I a- | -am |
| the | moon-lit | lake | told me |
| this | is | ||
| who | you | a- | -are |
| my | fangs | are so | long |
| my | nails are | sharper than | ice |
| that | is | ||
| me | eee | eee | ee |
| i- | -i | wo- | -oon- |
| -dee- | -eer | wha- | -at |
| that | will | ||
| prove? | that is | bullshit! | |
| Bla- | -zing! | Still my | heart is |
| Bla- | -zing! | If the | "words" |
| killed me | I | don't | need a |
| new | world | or- | -der |
| You... | soon you | will | |
| kno- | -ow | we al- | -ready |
| know the | smell o- | -of the- | -e ga- |
| -aaame | (sick | guitar | riff) |
Without even really talking about the syncopation and other rhythmic techniques in play, one thing jumps out: "blazing" doesn't end the line, it starts the line, in relation to the music! If we diagram out the lyrics in terms of sound-flow, instead of in terms of "poetry and sentence structure", it actually looks more like
I wonder what that will prove?
(that is bullshit!)
BLAZING! Still my heart is
BLAZING! If the words killed me,
I don't need a New World Order
It's not rhyming, it's anchoring. It's reinforcing the "blazing heart" as the central theme from which the lyrics flow (and they don't really rhyme, but there's no rule saying that either lyrics or poetry has to rhyme, only that specific forms have to, and even then see about about "breaking the rules for impact").
But then the genius hits, because the truth of the matter is - it's both! Blazing is simultaneously the end of the line and the start of the line, because the text and the music exist in complementary opposition to each other. You can read it both ways, and by putting it together, you are subconsciously influenced to read it both ways at the same time, and that's why it works so well.
Daisuke Ishiwatari is really good at music, and that's not even going into the unique magic that Naoki Hashimoto's vocals bring to the table (Naoki Hashimoto is ALSO really good at music).
The whole soundtrack is just chock full of really, really good stuff, y'all. Even the tracks that work well as character themes but perhaps don't work super well as "fighting game stage tracks" for pacing reasons - looking at you, Baiken (whomst I love dearly but whose absolutely phenomenal song is very poorly paced for high-energy fighting soundtrack because a fight is usually over before the energy hits)
I could just go on and on and on about it, really, it's so good.
So in the continued fandom of "a game that I currently can't actually PLAY for various reasons but I still utterly love dearly", Strive has announced (released? Probably released by now. Update: definitely released by now? IDK) a new character and OF COURSE ya girl is listening to his theme song and I don't have a lot to add other than the following:
- I didn't particularly like him when I first saw him, didn't really speak to me, isn't super my type
- Then I listened to his theme song
- Now I can't stop singing it
- This is the only goddamned fighting game where the character designers can go like "yeah this new character is literally the best guy in the world even though all the other guys are already literally the best guy" and I ask "why, how can this be" and the game goes "listen to his music :)" and then I go
- DAMN HE'S THE BEST GUY IN THE WORLD, HE IS, HOT DAMN
The music in question: https://youtu.be/xKgzFJnYonU?si=SF3CV0WgUwHdPCtN
On matters of substance:
- I honestly think that the tone layering here is 100% on par with The Town Inside Me, even though the song is a different general musical family, it's very good
- "The guy hated by the God of Failure" did not have to go that hard, hot damn, the lyrics are EVOCATIVE
- "The outlaw, no age can judge him" YES YES YES YES YOU GET IT, sickos.jpg THAT'S IT, THAT'S THE VIBE
- "It's a mess but nobody thinks that it is a joke" I cannot tell you how much I love this line
ok bye I'm gonna go listen again
