Hero Se Moti Se Lyrics

[Heberto Calderon]

Inmy previous God of War blog entries, I alluded to the team of dedicated artists and writers who collaborated with me to create the lyrics for these scores. Here, I hope to chronicle the meticulous attention to detail and ambitious scope of their work. I will also, at long last, share the lyrics and translations that fans have been clamoring for. This is the story behind the lyrics of God of War (2018) and God of War Ragnark (2022). (Spoilers for both games lie ahead.)

I recognized immediately that these lyrics would be a massive effort, one I simply did not have the bandwidth for while I simultaneously composed the three to five hours of score each game required. While Sony Interactive Entertainment and Santa Monica Studio have an expansive team of game development professionals, they understandably did not retain any full-time lyricists. Thankfully, many members of the team served double duty, juggling both their primary jobs and serving as lyricists or in other support roles for the process of lyric creation. For this blog, I have spoken to several of them, including Game Director Eric Williams, Narrative Director Matt Sophos, Score Producer Keith Leary, Music Affairs Manager Justin Fields, and Translator Bjrn Thorarensen.

MATT SOPHOS: We wanted everything in this game to have meaning. And that goes to the lyrics. We did it because we wanted it to feel authentic and mean something to us. I never think of the lyrics as a singular thing, but as part of the journey. Lyrics in the score are a part of the soup that makes up the entire gaming experience.

BEAR: I have found that musicians always perform in a more emotional way when they understand the context of the music, and this is especially true of singers, even more than instrumentalists. I am certain that the sound of these themes, these cues, would be diminished if the individual members of the choir did not know what they were saying, or worse, knew they were singing nonsense syllables. I also think that having recurring lyrics over certain ostinatos and leitmotifs helps the listener remember them.

For the God of War games, I always began my creative journey by crafting themes. I knew if I could write themes that became iconic for specific characters, story arcs, and realms, that they would ultimately translate to deeper emotional connections for the gaming audience. Most of my themes feature prominent lyrics to help listeners identify them.

The most iconic music in the modern God of War franchise, the Kratos Theme or Main Theme, is built upon a foundation of a recurring three note pattern or ostinato. A recurring lyrical pattern is established in the text right at the beginning, setting a precedent that will pay off in subsequent development passages and quotations throughout the cinematics and gameplay cues.

MATT: I wrote all these lyrics in English and emailed them off, and then you and the audio team did your thing. From my perspective, at that point, I was out of it. I was on to the next thing. To be honest, the first time I ever heard the music was when you walked out into the orchestra pit at the E3 in 2016! I was just sitting in the audience and, boom, these bass drums and chanting male singers hit. The music started to play and nobody in the audience knew what it was. But I knew what it was! I had the extra special thing of knowing what was being sung in the lyrics. I knew the meaning behind it all.

The Kratos Theme would return for God of War Ragnark, though I felt strongly it needed to be altered to reflect the fact that the Kratos in this game carries with him his character growth from the last game. His lyrics were changed to support this concept. I also notably added melodic quotations of the Faye Theme and Atreus Theme to the middle of the Kratos Theme, to make clear that his family has forever changed him, they are now a part of him.

BEAR: Agreed! Lyrics in the choir imply wisdom and experience. While Atreus is very smart and clever, he is neither wise nor experienced, yet. However, certain revelations in the narrative made it possible for me to support his character arc with a different theme, that of the long-lost Giants of Jtunheim.

KEITH: I loved the lyrics the narrative team wrote, and they worked beautifully for the middle section, when the female singers take over. We ended up writing the lyrics for the main melody of that theme. I remember during the recording sessions that the lead soprano afterwards thought this was an authentic Old Norse lullaby. She was amazed when I told her we had written it! That was a real stamp of approval.

BEAR: Lyrical images like that did help, especially because the dwarves have those images already associated with them from the narrative. I thought it was brilliant to make their text a bit more literal in that sense.

From my earliest days writing on the God of War franchise, the need was clear for a system to be set up where the lyrics could be generated, translated, and placed into the score. Score Producers Pete Scaturro and Keith Leary were immensely helpful in creating this system, allowing me to stay focused on musical composition.

KEITH: For character themes, we asked the narrative team for detailed lore arcs. For a realm theme, we got the in-game mythology and researched the actual mythology as well. For a cinematic, we analyzed the emotions, the story, and the characters. What is the scene trying to say?

JUSTIN: There were significant new character and realm themes in God of War Ragnark that had choir and beautifully written melodies. The narrative and music team were looking for some help with the lyrics, so they came to me. I jumped at the chance to be involved as a lyricist.

KEITH: For the lyrics, the simpler the better. As long as the core meaning, the core emotion that was being portrayed by the words in English, was still there in Old Norse, then we felt we were doing our job.

KEITH: After we wrote the lyrics in English, the next step was to send those lyrics to the director for approval, Cory Barlog (for God of War) or Eric Williams (for God of War Ragnark). Once a cue was fully approved, our music team would get the musical audio stems from you and your team. We would isolate the choir stem and create a choir-forward mix. We would also work with the orchestrators to create a lead sheet for the vocal parts into which we would insert the English lyrics. All those assets would then go to the translator, Bjrn Thorarensen, along with a blank lead sheet for him to insert his Old Norse lyrics in.

Once Bjrn completed the final proofreading, the text returned to the orchestrators and copyists so that scores and parts could be printed. Beyond being a translator, Bjrn is also a skilled musician and singer, and took part in the recording sessions, singing in the choir on the score after having translated it.

Even though most cinematics feature dialog, I felt no reason to avoid lyrics in the score. I found lyrics in choral passages had a profound impact on dramatic scenes, imbuing them with gravitas and emotion. I took great care to make sure lyrics were placed in key dramatic moments where they would not detract from dialog.

KEITH: When cinematics first come to the music team, we look at what the scenes are trying to say. We want to understand the story within that cinematic. Then the team and I would match existing lyrics or write new ones to shape to that particular scene.

Sometimes a dramatic set piece, or boss fight, will feature music so distinct that it could arguably function as a character theme. One such piece from the first game underscored the bombastic Dragon fight, as Kratos and Atreus first climbed the summit in Midgard to face a beast named Hrzlyr.

Some of my favorite Angrboda moments occur in her intimate conversations with Atreus. Though both characters have their own themes which certainly get their moments to shine, I frequently created more emotional impact in their scenes by quoting the Giants Theme, a melody they share through ancestry.

Gamers got to explore the realm of Alfheim in both games, providing two opportunities to expand upon this haunting theme. I am fond of these lyrics because they embrace the concept of war between the Dark and Light Elves, without taking a side, thus embracing the moral gray area of the narrative.

In both actual Norse mythology and the lore of the God of War franchise, the realms of Muspelheim and Niflheim are primordial, related realms. I wanted to codify this concept into music when scoring God of War Ragnark (2022) by writing one shared piece of music for them, giving each realm a unique variant of musical color. For the fires of Muspelheim, I set the melody for low male singers. For the chilly mists of Niflheim, I moved the melody into the airy upper registers of female singers.

Game development is an exhausting endeavor for everyone involved. Knowing how much work was expected of everyone on the team already, I was struck by their overwhelming enthusiasm to contribute lyrics to the music. It seemed that everyone was eager to juggle their primary jobs and create lyrics at the same time.

BEAR: I appreciate all of you chatting with me about the creation of these lyrics, and I hope this gives fans a newfound appreciation for how much work goes into just this one particular layer of their experience. I guess my final question for everybody is a simple one: was it worth it?

Special thanks are owed to everyone who participated in creating this blog entry, especially Pete Scaturro, Keith Leary, and Angelina Park at Sony Interactive Entertainment, as well as Reed Trachy and everyone at Sparks & Shadows.

Heero se moti se gahno se

Phoolo se tujhko saja deta

Are heero se moti se gahno se

Phoolo se tujhko saja deta

Ari tu hoti rani jo raja main hota

Ari tu hoti rani jo raja main hota

Gaon mein sahro mein dilli mein

Galli mein hangama ho jata

Kya baat hai

Gaon mein sahro mein dilli mein

Galli mein hangama ho jata

Arrey main hoti rani jo raja tu hota

Haye main hoti rani jo raja tu hota

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