The singer, Chihiro Onitsuka, also made the lyrics, and she wrote it in 10 minutes because she believes the first thing that comes to mind is the best version.
The singer for this song was sought out for the unique sound of her voice which had become damaged and she was due to undergo vocal surgery. She recorded this song before doing so to capture this unique sound Her surgery went successfully btw
I have absolutely adored this song since I heard the very first little bit of it we got with Drakengard 3's trailer. I really love how throaty the singer gets in parts of this song. It's amazing how she can sound so beautifully melodic while also almost sounding like she's lost her voice. This song to me very much encapsulates the main character of Zero. In the context of the game the premise in many of the fights is that primary characters are singing as part of their combat and the main character Zero is basically leading a two person crusade (her and her dragon companion) against an entire empire lead by her 'intoner' sisters who call upon incredible/awful power through songs. Add to that the fact that she has only a fleeting familiarity with her own past and the tone and lyrics kind of combine in my head to embody her whole situation. She's disoriented, exhausted and uncertain if she's even human, but she has a goal, she knows what she needs to do, she is more than ready to give her life to see it through and she will wade through a sea of blood and scream herself hoarse to silence the songs of her sisters, her sin.
"This is a story of six sisters, in a world protected by the power of song. But one of these sisters seeks to bring about the world's ruin, and she won't rest until all the others are dead" - Drakengard 3
I'm gonna say this before going into the context of the song, but if you enjoy tragedies, please you owe it to yourself to look up Drakengard 3. It is... such a beautiful tragedy. But this really also deserves explanation. So. Now that we're below the spoiler jump, this truly embodies the character of Zero, the main character. She has been on the receiving end of virtually every injustice and indignity and even when she was on the verge of death, even that release was taken from her as a magical flower meant to eradicate all life takes over her body. The entirety of the game is an act of defiance, killing the fragments of herself that were created when she tried to rip the flower out of her body, not because she had any desire to save the world that had made her life a living hell, but because she didn't want to be a pawn in a cosmic war. And this song is Zero's triumph. She won, she died, and did so on her terms. Ending the song of Oblivion, ending her pain, *this* silence is hers. And only hers, and none can take it from her.
Only sad part is she never won canonically. All the routes of the game, even the final one aren't what actually happens. Yoko Taro and his love of using multiple mediums to convey his story.
@@Shantaq Sad, right? Even in the end, she never gets her happy ending. Her journey really is a thankless one (no one really recognized her for her effort, and they even HATED her; how ironic is that?), and in “saving” her world from the flower, she condemns another one. In a way, I guess that the Gods will have their way, in this world or the next.
I love how thematically the best ending of Drakengard 3 makes it so the rest of the series doesn't happen. She ends the tragedy of the Watchers before it can begin, and thus saves an infinite number of alternate realities from plagues that would befall them. The Grotesqueary Queen never defiles Nier's world, and even though they're fated to one day be invaded by aliens if society doesn't completely collapse they may be able to actually fight them off instead of having to enforce a never ending stale mate. And all it cost was her life, which she never wanted in the first place. All it cost was her silence, which she gladly gave to the world. But even then it never happens, a "best possible" future that the Accords will simply never be able to bring about.
@@Shantaq No, all of them happened. Different timelines brutha, and since The Night Kingdom is canon in the universe, meaning every ending in DOD1 and DOD3 is canon in the universe, just not in timeline.
Chihiro Onitsuka is very good at tearing her heart out and bearing it through many of her songs. This song not only expresses the pain and desperation of the character Zero, but it feels like hers as well. If you listen to some of her other songs, you can hear that same feeling. I think she kinda understands Zero
As a long time fan of Yoko taro I got chills when I first heard this in the launch trailer. It perfectly sets up the atmosphere of the game in a lot of ways. It seems Yoko taro games are destined to always have godlike music
I don't know the context of the song, so I don't know anything about the lyrics, but this song has always been so beautifully haunting to me ♥ Especially the way the singer is delivering it! While the Japanese-English is still very jarring to me, I'm always more mesmerized by the singer than the lyrics themselves!
Trivia In the game we're the intoners , girls who sing to have powers The singer of this track is a good singer in Japan , but got a surgery who made her unable to sing for years , we got this as one of her first song after the surgery .. this song is crazy , so sad and so powerful at the same time ..
As others have pointed out the song fits the subject matter; Zero is a woman who had been through so much misfortune and abuse since childhood, yet even when she could have ignored the situation the "villain" causes in Drakengard 3 understood she had the responsibility to take care of it as it personally involved her. Her goal was to finish this task or end up dying on her own terms because of it, hence the title name to me. She went through so much suffering out of her control, choosing how she's going to die was something only she had the right to do and no one else.
I think here, "silence" is a synonym for peace, and death. It's essentially a song about her saying this death is hers. This peace is hers. This rest is hers. Because peacefulness, restfullness, and silence are ways to interpret death. Also, her saying "is mine" infers that she feels that she really earned this death, this peace, this rest, this silence.
@@trevorveillette8415 It's also more somewhat more literal, too. She and her sisters are intoners, they have godlike abilities that they manipulate through their songs. *spoilers ahead* With Zero's plan to kill her sisters and herself complete at the end of the game, the intoner's songs have fallen silent, which was her plan all along, making this her silence.
This song makes me cry every single time I hear it. It’s beautiful in such a broken, intentionally raspy, but powerful way. The breathing at the end matching offbeat with the bass drum absolutely breaks me, especially given the theme of the song and the main character. Also yup NieR is a Drakengard spin-off and he worked on the first one around the same time he was working on Tekken. It really shows in his NieR DLC music.
Chihiro Onitsuka Ís the singer on this legendary song. She does not sound like this normally she changed her voice to fit this song Ive been listening to Japanese music since I was 10-11yrs old. (35yrs now) Chihiro Onitsuka is my favorite Japanese singer all time She sings from so much emotion, passion, elegance and beauty all blended into a unique sound. Your symphony is never ending..........chills
Whaaat I thought it was a guy singing. I mean it's really in character for keichii okabe to use female vocals. Those are his go to. Emi evans voice especially seems to be his guilty pleasure. But I totally didn't expect this singer to be female
Before seeing this video I didnt realize how much context playing the game actually added to this. But, it's also extremely impressive that you can still get the intended vibes just from listening. Understanding what the lyrics are referring to does really up the experience tho. But I think its enjoyable for everyone regardless
Okay, now that we've gotten you to Drakengard, I *need* to hear your reaction to the first games soundtrack. Those bastard abominations of classical pieces that breathe insanity. As someone put it on one of them, the soundtrack is ***Hateful*** And I love it. So "Growing Wings" has gotta show up here at some point
@@LTDLetsPlays Drakengard 2s version of growing wings is better than the game its in, but its also mmissing the disturbing and uncomfortable aspect that the drakengard 1 version has which resonates perfectly with that games tone. Personally I like to listen to them both one after the other, it really hightlights the difference of the two games and how drakengard 2 is basically the "good ending" to the endless spiral of misery that is drakengard 1 and the resulting nier timeline. I wish 2 had been directed more by Yoko Taro so it couldve been less of a mediocre game and instead seized its chance to be that one "good ending" to the drakengard series. I think it highlights the already immense tragedy that is the main drakenier timeline that there is one timeline branch where things ended up somewhat okay-ish for the world and the people in it.
Growing Wings is the perfect representation of what Drakengard is. It's such a phenomenal piece in the weirdest way possible, and I think Drakengard is the only game that could have such a melody. Truly hope we get a remake in the future so more people can enjoy the game's story as well the gameplay bc, well, we all know how the gameplay is.
The way I always envisioned this song is Zero's struggle against the flower's influence. Since she's an intoner, which works around song to corrupt everything around them, she longs for the silence through killing every last intoner, ending with herself. She's taking control and trying to reclaim the silence she longs for that the flower has taken from her.
I’ve always loved the music from Drakengard, but This Silence is Mine has always had a special place in my heart. It’s such a beautiful, yet haunting song. Then again, considering the entire Drakengard story is steeped in one tragic event after another, it would make sense for the music to have that haunting sound behind it.
" it's becoming one of my favorite " Me: YES !! This song is crazy I'm so happy you liked it You should definitely take a look at drakengard 3 ( at least story and music , don't need to play the game , it's already an excellent journey )
At first the incoherence of the lyrics really threw me off but the more I thought of it I came to the conclusion that is basically the death throes of someone that has lived a tragic life.
I am so glad you are checking out more drakengard! It's one of the few games I have played that has a story centered around song/music that isn;t a rythm game.. mostly. It is a very tragic story, with your main charcter that you see in the picture zero and her dragon companion mikhail on a mission to kill her five sisters this song is specifically about her. Due to the game being centered around the power of song there is actually variations of some when you go into what is called *intoner mode* and it sometimes ads lyrics, more instrumental or both to the track playing in the background. It was always I touch i thought was cool and i admit died to because i was too busy trying to listen to the music instead of fighting
This song alone made me play Drakengard 3. Didn’t matter if the game was good or not (it absolutely is) or if the story was amazing or not, I needed to know what context created this song. I was not disappointed. However I was very depressed.
This has been one of my favorite songs for a while. Everything about it is great. Musically speaking, vocally speaking and lyrically speaking it's amazing. It takes you to another world.
Even not doing reactions, I think you should give the Intoner songs a listen. They're named after numbers 5 to 1. Try to find the ones with the vocal intros since they add quite a bit to the music imo. That said I hope it's been requested because I'd love to hear your thoughts on them.
SPOILERS for the Drakengard/Nier series here. I highly suggest playing at least Nier before reading forward. It's an amazing tragic story. . . . . . The context of this song is SO hard to articulate. It is credits roll music taking place after "The Last Song" which you reacted to. And "The Last Song" is what plays during the true last boss where you actually play as Mikhail (Zero's dragon companion) against Drakengard/Nier's background overarching antagonist known as The Watchers. The watchers are extradimensional beings, possibly gods, that are hell bent on killing human life in every timeline across every world. They do this through a variety of means but usually these means involve dropping horrible magical WMDs or opening portals to dimensions full of monsters. Story wise this song is the end of the main character Zero's journey on her quest to kill all intoners which are beings capable of using their voice to cause miracles that usually have a calamitous monkey's paw effect. Note: Zero is also an intoner. The intoners are actually created by The Black Flower which is a watcher weapon. And in the ending Zero is becoming one with the flower. For the player this song is relief after a crushingly difficult final sequence where you had to play an 8 minute rhythm game and a single mistake causes you to restart. And the entire rest of the game to this point had been a horde hack n slash.
@@sergio7496 it took me a lot of attempts. It wasnt the final note that always got me. It was those rapid notes. Also One kept owning me with the big swing before the transition
Love this song. I always felt, especially after playing the game, that the singing was holding back a frustration and cry of how unfair there life had been. How little was left to them and finally finding that one thing that could not be taken from them.
An amazing and beautiful song, by far my favorite from the Drakengard/Nier series as a whole. Zero was such a great main character to play as and I felt really bad for her by the end of the game... Especially with the context of the book that came with the pre-order of Drakengard 3.
As with everything created by Yoko Taro, the story of Drakengard 3 is beautiful but bleak, largely focusing on people who are trying their best, but doomed by their own flaws and by circumstances beyond their control. This song encapsulates that perfectly, encompassing the heart of someone who has all but given up hope of a better future, and thus has decided that all she can do is end things on her own terms.
the whole OST of Drakengard3 is either hauntingly beautiful or discordant for the sake of hurting music theory jerkoffs. From echoing pianos to exasperated vocalists, the whole of the OST is amazing. the game also has the worst framerate I've seen on the ps3, and it doesnt have any ports to better performing platforms, otherwise I'd play it more often
If a Drakengard 3 remake ever comes out for current gen consoles and/or PC I am going to buy it as soon as I'm able to. I had to give up playing in the 3rd cycle because the game was getting so bogged down that it became a chore to play. I ended up looking up what happens in the rest of the game through a Dark Id lets play, but I still want to do it myself one day.
This one was actually composed by Kakeru Ishihama! Keiichi okabe never did a full soundtrack himself... a lot of the drakengard and nier tracks are also composed by keigo hoashi, who does half of it, please people, don't forget them, i love keiichi okabe but he gets way too much credit all the time
I'm sure it's been said a lot but just to clarify, Keiichi Okabe is the main composer for the Nier and Drakengard series and Yoko Taro is the director of the games, so he doesn't have too much to do with the composition of the music
It seems no one mentioned this in the comments, so just want to note Okabe is the arranger of this song. The singer Onitsuks is both the composer and lyricist of the song.
I would love for you to listen to The Weight Of The World by Nier Automata and Ashees of Dreams by Nier Replicant. Those songs are so Beautiful and a lot of meaning of the contexts about both games
Glad you got to this one. This is my favorite song in the entire Drakengard/Nier series. Its chalk-full of emotion. Kinda wished you saw a version without the lyrics so you could just focus solely on the delivery, but its fine.