Song Lyrics in FFXIV: Compilation, Discussion, and Interpretation

[Aquaslash]

Has everyone just given up on Rise?

[thegreatonemal]

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...e_rise_lyrics/

This be the best attempt at lyrics for it I've seen.

[LuckyFish]

After looking at Sephirot's lyrics and reading the lore book entry that the Triad actually fought against each other, I am starting to thin that his song is referring to Sophia ("Her" "She") and that the song is trying to convince one of her followers to follow him instead.

Especially seeing how extreme Sophia and her follower's belief of "Harmony" truly is

I want to take this one step further. The first half of the song is about Sophia, but the second half is about Zurvan. We know Zurvan's faithful believe him a "god above gods," he would have tried to place himself above the other two. The lines

Better to serve
In a waking nightmare
Than rule in your paradise.

Could be interpreted as saying "I'd rather be a battery for the Allagans than be a god if it means acknowledging you first."

[Anonymoose]

After looking at Sephirot's lyrics and reading the lore book entry that the Triad actually fought against each other, I am starting to thin that his song is referring to Sophia ("Her" "She") and that the song is trying to convince one of her followers to follow him instead.

I want to take this one step further. The first half of the song is about Sophia, but the second half is about Zurvan.

This inspired me to dive back into my own notes on Sephirot's theme (basically a reduction of the lyrics, cleansed of repetition, idiom, and references to Kabbalah) to see if I could make it about the competing members of the Triad. It backfired on me, though; I'm more convinced than before that it's Hydaelyn. (For now).

The song is from the point of view of an aetheric deiform, and those are not known for having high opinions of...pretty much anything but themselves. They fear and loathe all other higher powers, believing themselves to be the "one true god". This hatred apparently extends to Hydaelyn, as well; Garuda refers to Her gifts as a "foul stench" once she realizes that they prevent her from claiming you, herself.

Deiforms are consistently used as tools by the Ascians; they exploit the darkness in the hearts of man to give birth to something that will bleed the land dry and bring chaos. As a Calamity draws near, certain people see the warning signs coming as those blessed with the Echo start to appear. These two groups (the "messengers" and the "gifted") become the lynchpin of an attempted defense.

I hear it as Sephirot is saying, "Ignore them. Summon me."

Hydaelyn is a voice of Light, always speaking in themes of affection. To her, the world should be filled with hope and summoning is the ultimate wrong. They need to use Her gifts to see some survivors through the catastrophe. I see Sephirot as urging his followers to reject that.

He wants them to see "The Truth": a depraved Allagan onslaught of chimeric monstrosities and voidsent is on their doorstep, and the Light is doing nothing of value. She'll fill them with comfort and false hopes and Allag will kill them all. No matter what they do from here, the Umbral Era is coming; humankind has poisoned its own well. The only hope of driving back Allag is to embrace the wrong, embrace the Knowledge of the Paragons, and summon the Fiend. He's a tourniquet that might let them at least escape with their lives.

I REPEAT: This is just my present interpretation. It might be wrong; I might have a different impression later.

EDIT
Assuming it actually is about Hydaelyn, the bit at the end makes a bit of sense. "Stagnant waters" (water being a theme with the aetherial realm and the Mothercrystal), our savior waiting for a "turn in the tide", and how humanity is the "void where the serpent lies". (Not just a biblical reference, but a reference to Zodiark by way of the 13th Zodiac?)

[Aquaslash]

Surprised it wasn't posted here, but there was a podcast during the recent fanfest that landed an interview with Koji Fox, and he had this to say about Rise:


Shishikura: Speaking about the set list, do you have any favorite tracks you would like to perform?

Koji: Oooooooh! Well, I personally… The most fun to sing is…

Marko: Fiend?

Koji: Yeah, Fiend; Sepiroth. That’s… I know, I wrote the lyrics and, you know, me singing it is kinda like “Heey!”, patting myself on the back, but I love those lyrics. It’s so much fun to sing and just you know, “Say my name! Say my name!” Aw, I love that part! And, yeah, that’s fun to sing. Of course, Titan is fun to sing. That’s the first one I really go to—other than Good King Moogle Mog. But I mean, Titan was the one where I really go to… It wasn’t a… “Hey, look at me dance and wear hats!” It was actually “I get to sing it!” That’s fun as well! I’m looking forward to the day where I get to do Rise. But! I’m just gonna have to figure out how to sing that without tripping over myself! Because… It was a challenge recording that. ‘Cause he was like “I wanna do like, fast! Rap!” “O…Okaaaay? How fast?” “Yeah, just write something!” and I get in there and he’s like “This is the tempo!” [Tempo: 160BPM] do-Dun-do-Dun-do-Dun-do-Dun. And I’m like “Ahhahahahaha…” And it took probably about twenty takes…

Marko: Oh wow!

Koji: To get to it where I’m not tripping over myself to the end. Even then, it was like we cut it up. We took a couple lines, cut it, then the next couple of lines, cut it, and yeah… Currently, I don’t know if I’ll be able to pull it off from start to finish without tripping over myself. But! It’s a fun song. I know we haven’t released the lyrics for that yet. The lyrics are absolutely ridiculous! We have like the Brute Justice metal where it’s like the Gobbies singing it so it’s just a bunch of Gobbie speak. This one, also, we wanted to do in like, Gobbie speak. So there’s a little bit of Gobbie speak in this one, as well. But it’s just, it’s even over the top. I think I swear in it as well. (laughs) I don’t know if I should say it here, but… I don’t know. If you listen closely, you might be able to hear me say a certain…

Shishikura: Certain words…?

Koji: Certain words, but hey! We have… Our descriptor; Teen, but we have language, mild language, suggestive themes… I think I got all of those into the lyrics to Rise…(laugh)

Marko: Is it before “Rise with me, Rise with me”?

Koji: Yes, it’s before that.

Marko: Okay! I got it, then!

Ritsku: Yeah, nice!

K: Heh… That’s not any innuendo! Rise is actually not… you know… (laughs)

Shishikura: Speaking about the lyrics, the Lore Forum seems to be getting a bit antsy with some of the new lyrics that have not been released. Do you have plans to put them out of their misery?

Koji: Yeah. Rise and also the other Alexander track… Which is called Exponential Entropy. We haven’t released them yet, and we will be releasing those soon. The reason there’s a delay on those, is because the English is finished, but when we release it, we want to release both the English and Japanese at the same time. And right now, Oda-san is the one who does the translation for the Japanese, and he is currently 100% working on 4.0 script and so basically, the upper echelon; this is some director like, “Until he finishes the script, you’re not allowed to give him any other work.” And so if he does it, then I get busted for asking him to do it. So we’re currently waiting for him to finish. He should be finished. I think we’re in the process of wrapping up the script right now, getting into recording stuff. So it should be pretty soon, I would think, once he’s got it translated it. It usually takes him a little bit to translate them anyway. I mean, I’ve given him lyrics, I’ve given him a Japanese translation so he could go off that. Get something a little bit more, you know, beautiful than my broken Japanese. But yeah, it should be soon. It should be really soon. I know everyone’s getting antsy, everybody wants to know. I saw the Youtube video of the fans who was like “I think they’re saying this!” and it’s just like nothing but nonsense. Actually, that’s really funny though because I was like “That’s… Holy… I should’ve said that instead of what I wrote here! I kinda… I don’t wanna actually reveal the real lyrics, because the ones on that video were… and in a couple parts “This is actually way better!” But uh… Yeah!

Source:
http://gamerescape.com/2017/01/05/lorecast-8-tokyo-fan-fest-2016/

[Mysteltain]

So, looks like we got a sample of the Stormblood theme, Revolutions, from the EU Fanfest! We also got the full reveal trailer theme, but I can't make heads or tails of any lyrics in it at the moment. So, for now:

...
Soul scarred
Twelvefold
Beckoned by the bells of vengeance
Spirits bold

A lover lost
A family torn
A solemn pyre
Raised to rouse the slumbering heaven

Fire in your eyes!
Fire in your hearts!
Steeled as you sound the horns of war!

Yet know the cost
...

While it's only a fragment, there are a few things I'm noticing, with the first one being the last two lines of the second verse. That strikes me as either referencing what the Griffin just did, or that we may expect more of it in the future. My bet's on the former, but who knows what could also happen in Othard. The second thing is more of an amusing bit of wordplay, when they refer to souls being scarred "Twelvefold". And hopefully that's all it is, because it would be pretty catastrophic if there were any further attempts at summoning the Twelve.

[YMeAgain]

Hey guys, I just wanted to run some lyrics by you guys. Seems this is a good place to put it. These aren't official, just what I thought was what they were. Also, I took in some of the hints from the most recent interview

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing

((Longer than 1000 characters so I put 'em in a google doc))

[Khalithar]

At the end of Under the Weight, Soken screamed "F___ YOU TITAN!" I imagine that's not part of the official lyrics even if we've all probably said that at one point or another.

[Aquaslash]

Koji does admit to swearing in this one though, which would make Rise the first song to offficially have such a thing?

[Aquaslash]

The lyrics to the Stormblood trailer have been posted in the dev blog:


Storm of blood
Born from blood
Of our fallen brothers
Borne upon our hands
Cradled in our arms
Swelling in our hearts
Raise your weary head
Heed the call to arms
Ringing in your heart
Loyalty!
Unity!
Liberty!