I'm not sure how I've gone this long without posting part of a Godzilla soundtrack, but it's time to remedy that. Like many other six year olds, I was a big fan of Godzilla movies after being introduced to them by my cousin and a friend from elementary school. I wasn't a superfan, but I had one or two Godzilla toys and owned what might be the worst of the Godzilla movies: Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster on an English dubbed VHS. My fandom died down as I entered my teens, but in college, a film teacher screened the original Japanese version of Godzilla from 1954, and I was hooked once again. I then began to collect Godzilla movies - the Japanese versions this time - and became well acquainted with the three separate series that resulted after two reboots (series reboots were commercial ploys in Japan long before they became popular here). The Showa series includes the movies made between 1954 and 1975. The Heisei series are made up of the movies from 1984 to 1995. And the Millennium series are the movies produced between 1999 and 2004. My collection is far from complete, but it continues to grow.
One artistic thread that tied the first two series together, from 1954 to 1995, was the music of composer Akira Ifukube. Ifukube did not compose every soundtrack, but in spite of different composers trying their hands at Godzilla, the producers would routinely go back to Ifukube a few years later. Godzilla fans praise Ifukube's music, but I have to admit I didn't quite see the appeal at first. His music seemed very generic, bass-heavy and lacking of any complex melody. I preferred the more recent composers, like Reijiro Koroku (yep, the composer who later went on to do Kessen) and Takayuki Hattori (composer for Romance of the Three Kingdoms, my first post on this blog). However, as time went on I started to warm up to Akira Ifukube, particularly when I began listening to his Heisei-era soundtracks. For those movies, Ifukube reused his old themes, but expanded upon them. Those expansions, combined with the much higher audio quality of the later 20th century, resulted in some really wonderful soundtracks. Today's song is from one of those.
Godzilla vs. Mothra, being part of the rebooted series, is a remake of the film Mothra vs. Godzilla (see what they did there?) The original film was released in 1964, while the remake was released in 1992. Akira Ifukube composed the soundtracks for both. This song is from the end credits of the 1992 film - the "Sacred Springs" melody from both films. In 1964, a vocal version of "Sacred Springs" was performed by the super popular singing duo, The Peanuts, and released on an LP along with "Mothra's Song". In 1992, the songs were again released as singles, performed by a different female duo. Here however, the song is an instrumental version, performed by an orchestra and a chorus, sans lyrics.
It might have been more appropriate for my first Godzilla post to be the actual theme of Godzilla, composed in 1954 and used repeatedly by different composers. However, I think that this particular composition captures the beauty of Ifukube's soundtracks that often goes unappreciated. Akira Ifukube's powerful anti-melodic compositions have become the standard for monster movies in Japan and beyond, but just as the monsters are used to frame human stories in those films, his simple few-note themes are supplemented by richer and more complex ones like this. This will certainly not be my last Godzilla post, but until then, enjoy!
Album info: http://www.godzillamonstermusic.com/G-019.htm
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