In the wake of the death of a musician and songwriter who helped shape my youth, I felt it was important to explain how music can effect people and how the song can touch so many people in very important ways. In any good game, we have the background music and other cues to let us know where we are or the type of event that is occurring. Persona 4 does a great job of having great music that, even outside of the game, that helps to convey the feeling that it's trying to bring forward.
I was talking with my friend a bit about Leonard Cohen's songs a few days after news of his death. I've been a long-time fan of his and at least one of his songs is on any playlist of mine at any given time, or a song of his has given me some motivation or inspiration. A lot of people have done some of the songs as tribute, though "Hallelujah" tends to be the go-to one because of it's simplicity and themes of love, loss, and understanding of how hard love and loss, or even life, can be. With the other musical deaths earlier this year as well, I felt them as an older person who could appreciate their music, but Cohen was someone I did my level best to introduce to multiple others, going so far as to spend a good amount of money for front-row seats in order to drag a friend of mine to see him live during his first tour in years. It was worth that dint into my finances, and well worth it to see him live and listen to his music.
The music of many games can help structure how you feel about them or how you feel about a point in the game. Songs like "SMILE" and "I'll Face Myself" show the growth that the characters are experiencing, or showing as they accept their Shadow selves. The Battle version of "I'll Face Myself" that plays at each major fight is also one that gets you ready to defeat the Shadow, however your play style is, and which also has the same tones as it's lighter, more positive counterpart, but also hints at the dangers you're facing, the change and upset that is coming up instead of the happier tones. The opening theme, of which I often borrow parts of to convey the general theme of the post, is one that talks about finding yourself amid the various other 'selves' that can come up - the television and online persona verses the one you use with your family or friends. While Cohen had no other persona besides who he was - a man who wrote his songs, who enjoyed writing and also enjoyed telling the stories of what he believed in, it was often through his songs and through their stories they told that you got a better idea of what he enjoyed writing about, what he found as something to write about. A lot of it was about love, or about the far more physical aspects of what people consider love, or not about that at all.
As with the versions of "I'll Face Myself" - the Battle and the other one - you get that sense of going up against something for one, while the other is the end and simply melancholy, realizing that yes, you can be like this, and how hard that is to accept. Just as Cohen's songs celebrated all the parts of life that were, in some cases, both beautiful and ugly when you wanted them to be, the soundtrack to Persona 4 allows you to slowly get into the world and the mystery you've found yourself working to solve, as well as the others you fight to help and protect, both inside and outside of the TV World.
I know I was going to talk about Rise and a lot of other things, but life has basically changed it up, so hopefully next time, Rise and her arc will be examined. Because boy is there a lot of it.
