Wednesday, September 11, 2019

MIDI Week Singles: "The Gift of Forever" - Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem (GC)


"The Gift of Forever" from Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem on the GameCube (2002)
Composer: Steve Henifin
Label: Nintendo of America / Nintendo Power
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Silicon Knights



Last week, while randomly looking up information about Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, I found out that former Silicon Knights composer and former director (and composer I assume?) of Hadal Studios, Steve Henifin passed away in July, 2019.  He was 51.  The obituary I found from the funeral home did not say anything about how he died and I could not find anything else online about his passing that was not already mentioned in the aforementioned obituary.  All I can further assume is that his death was sudden and unexpected.

I was really unsure what music to choose as a way of saying goodbye to the one person whose music I had only experienced in one game that I played.  But that one game, over time, has become one of my favorite video games of all time, and the music that Steve Henifin wrote played a big part of that love for the game.  In all honesty, I decided on "The Gift of Forever" partly because of the name of the song and how I view music that I love, but also because of how it was used in Karim's chapter and how his story unfolded.

It almost seems like the song plays out the events of Karim's chapter.  There is the start of the song with a quote from Ulyaoth about the Universe being a yawning chasm, which you could say is the time before Karim came upon the Tome of Eternal Darkness. There are the female vocals signifying the source of Karim's love and the origin of his quest followed by ambience until around 2:13 when the song becomes the Tome's influence on Karim's love? Then later in the song, the chugging drums is the drive Karim feels to recover the ancient artifact, and the lone female vocals are Karim's reminder of the woman he loves.  Maybe.  I am just making assumptions here, but that is the way I interpret the song and adding a story that really does not need to be there.  Whatever.


A great song, from a great game, written by a great composer gone too soon.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
I Seek The Night And Hope To Find Love

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