Given the overall theme of suicide which is central to EoE, the words of the song almost certain refer to Shinji.

An important point about the song is how it is a sincere apology to the audience. The speaker is expressing deep regret at their actions. The context of the chorus begins with "I wish that I could turn back time", suggesting that the speaker is regretful about actions taken in the past. In this context "pride" is a sin, which the speaker may be regretting, something which has contributed to their state. But then of course what about love?

It all returns to nothing = "vanity of vanities"

The Music was good. The lyrics needs to change.

BGMLV wrote:The Music was good. The lyrics needs to change.

Why?

BGMLV wrote:The Music was good. The lyrics needs to change.

If they changed the lyrics 1/4 of the whole movie loses most of its impact.

Honestly, I don't like the music, but enjoy the words. The song just seems way too upbeat. Every time I've seen EOE, as soon as the song comes on, my mood is shifted.

I thought the conflicting combination of suicidal lyrics and happy beat was done perfectly; there's just something so gratifying about it. This happy song about suicide is amazing, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Too often do we see happy songs with a happy beat; too often do we see sad songs with a depressing tempo! Though, this is coming from the guy who gets kicks out of tragedies and NICE BOAT endings.

I especially enjoy playing the beat on my drums, mixed with my own style. But that's a different story.

Sachi makes a good point. This is a fun song to play, despite the suicidal lyrics of course.

I like to add a little reverb on my amp to give it a nice echo-y sound.

The whole kitchen scene leading into the song and then the whole scene during the song is one of my most favourite parts of EoE, that part has the biggest impact on me. It affects me every time i watch it, it seems so sad and beautiful all at once and imo brilliantly done. This part of the movie seems to have the most emotion in it to me.

A little off topic, but i'm unsure about what those oddly violent children's drawings are. Are they drawing Anno drew as a kid or for the movie or are they symbolic of something, or maybe something Shinji or Asuka might have drawn as little kids?

Xard wrote:Komm Susser Tod is ridiculously easy to "recognize" as far as its structure etc. goes; it's some Pachelbel's Kanon mixed with Hey Jude

From Kanon (to my ear) carries over certain chord progressions and passages, e.g that organ in beginning. Arrangement itself is pretty much direct copy of Hey Jude, as well as great deal of basic musical structure, for example clear influence on melodies (Nananananannaa part and tumbling-down-tu-u-umbling-down parts are pretty much identical) and of course outro with the hand clapping and ecstatic screams.

Listen Hey Jude and immediatly after it Komm Susser Tod and you see what I mean

It's Pachabel's Canon as are so many other fine tunes.


plus Lyrical Dissonance

^Well, Xard's actually correct. The chord progression of the song changes after ~2:10, fooling the viewer/listener into thinking it's just going into a bridge, but then the coda kicks in and there's no return to the Pachelbel progression. In other words, it's only a cover of Pachelbel's Canon for the first two-some minutes; after that, it's Hey Jude almost 100%.

Say what you want about Sagisu's music, it at least must be said his work on pieces like KST and Thanatos (Thanatos: If I Can't Be Yours, as well) is amazing.

Oh, and it's understandable why KST was used in terms of scene-matching and tempo compared to EYED. Although it was the other song option for Insturmentality, Everything You've Ever Dreamed is too slow-tempoed (also it's a minute or two shorter than KST), though some of the music fits the scenes when you play the sequence and song together.

@apjak: Yes.

Hey Jude comments

You will find some arrangement choices that are similar between Hey Jude and KST-b, but KST-b is two chords (VII-I-VII-I) while Hey Jude's runout (HJ-b, if you will, which is the only part of the song that is similar) is a more 4-bar pop-based I-VII-IV-I. Also, KST-b is ascending while HJ-b is descending.

If you want to stick to superficialities, they are similar in some arrangement choices - but handclaps hardly make them identical. It may be that The Beatles' influence is showing up here - as it has the world over for decades. But no one's going to take a plagiarism case seriously.

Whereas KST-a contains the exact same chord structure of P's Canon in its verse.

I really like KST - one of best songs written for anime for sure. As for its musical characteristics it really is "Pachelbel meets Jude" to me.

As for Hey Jude's musical characteristics see this

anyway, to me Hey Jude vibes come from arrangement. The hand claps are meaningful because long drawnout coda of KST resembles Hey Jude's famous coda IMO in many ways. The usage of orchestra etc. in the part does so too.

Really, the formal similarities in KST's and Hey Jude's codas (no matter how superficial or deep) can't be completely accidental.

Sure, verses etc. are pretty much Kanon (or Canon, I can never decide how it's better spelled..)

Mongoosedog wrote:A little off topic, but i'm unsure about what those oddly violent children's drawings are. Are they drawing Anno drew as a kid or for the movie or are they symbolic of something, or maybe something Shinji or Asuka might have drawn as little kids?

I belive Anno drew them for the movie. Somewhere I had read that he was a fan of crayon art. Maybe I just dreamed that.

Sailor Star Dust wrote:Say what you want about Sagisu's music, it at least must be said his work on pieces like KST and Thanatos (Thanatos: If I Can't Be Yours, as well) is amazing.

I just started rewatching the series about a week ago and am keeping a closer eye on the music after having read that people didn't enjoy a lot of it, and I am thinking the cues are done really well. Funny music in the right places, classical pieces arranged in just the right way; the Ode to Joy bit with Kaworu is particularly engaging. I especially like the music in episode 9 when Unit 1 & 2 do their little dance. Count me in as a fan of the music throughout the entire series.

I like most of NGE OSTs but they're not exactly mindblowing. There're some masterful compositions though, Thanatos is heartbreaker...

...but if I ever catch someone bashing EoE Soundtrack then I go little bit nuts

Killericon wrote:Ignoring for a brief moment questions about translation/adaptation from the original lyrics by Anno, and accepting the lyrics we hear in the movie, from whose perspective are we hearing this song? It seems to me that it's being sung by Asuka, but I've heard others saying it's from Shinji's perspective. Thoughts?

A very interesting question, personally. I've been working on a little essay on just that topic: http://www.gwern.net/komm-susser-tod#analysis

I am currently leaning towards Shinji POV. There are too many points of difficulty with the Asuka POV hypothesis, while it works well with Shinji POV.

Killericon wrote:Can't forget love and pride? When the hell does Shinji ever feel pride?

But I think we do need to discuss the translation aspect! Anno and Mike differ quite a bit. In neither translation of Anno's lyrics (by Bochan_bird and Rachel Clark, see http://www.gwern.net/komm-susser-tod#lyrics) does the word 'pride' ever appear. Nor does anything even close.

Given that 'love & pride' was probably chosen to rhyme with 'killing me inside' (both not uncommon English phrases), is there any actual question to answer here?

Mongoosedog wrote:The whole kitchen scene leading into the song and then the whole scene during the song is one of my most favourite parts of EoE, that part has the biggest impact on me. It affects me every time i watch it, it seems so sad and beautiful all at once and imo brilliantly done. This part of the movie seems to have the most emotion in it to me.

I agree. Some parts confused me, some left me nonplussed - but even the harpies eating Unit 2 didn't horrify me quite as much as this scene. A story of communication indeed.

Mongoosedog wrote:A little off topic, but i'm unsure about what those oddly violent children's drawings are. Are they drawing Anno drew as a kid or for the movie or are they symbolic of something, or maybe something Shinji or Asuka might have drawn as little kids?

They don't look much like the drawings by Anno as a kid shown in Hideaki Anno Talks to Kids. Anno probably drew a few himself, but I doubt he drew them all. He was much too busy with everything else, IMO.

Now, I think that to the extent that anyone really thought about it, there probably was a vague notion that maybe these drawings of a dead dog or a dead Asuka were by a childish Asuka or Shinji. The annotations in the storyboards might help us out there (much like they identify the woman in the playground scene as Misato and the 2 kids as Shinji & Asuka).

Takumi Fujiwara wrote:Am I the only person that becomes both depressed and happy when you hear this song? It's really strange to describe this song...

Nope, I listen to it after breakups, but at the same time im gonna have them play it at my wedding reception.

JoeD80 wrote:I just started rewatching the series about a week ago and am keeping a closer eye on the music after having read that people didn't enjoy a lot of it, and I am thinking the cues are done really well. Funny music in the right places, classical pieces arranged in just the right way; the Ode to Joy bit with Kaworu is particularly engaging. I especially like the music in episode 9 when Unit 1 & 2 do their little dance. Count me in as a fan of the music throughout the entire series.

As with many things Eva-related, the music is both carefully chosen and seamlessly integrated into the series. Other soundtracks stand on their own as worthy efforts, and are easier to listen to outside of the context of EoE, but I've yet to find one that suits its material so perfectly.

gwern wrote:I am currently leaning towards Shinji POV. There are too many points of difficulty with the Asuka POV hypothesis, while it works well with Shinji POV.

I am unclear as to why it cannot be both.

Bagheera wrote:I am unclear as to why it cannot be both.

Because that would be silly. It's clearly not a duet, nor does it transition between POVs. And Asuka & Shinji are not the same person. Nor are their problems the same.