Super Smash Bros. Brawl Main Theme
The Main Theme song in particular was revealed along with the game itself at the game's first trailer in E3 2006 before being posted at the site much later. This thundering orchestra with vocals sung in Latin was composed by famed Final Fantasy series composer Nobuo Uematsu, and its lyrics were supervised by Sakurai himself. The lyrics are seen in the closing video of the Subspace Emissary.
Specifics
- Composer: SMILE PLEASE Co., Ltd.
- Arranger: HAL Laboratory, Inc.
- Lyricist: SORA
- Composition Supervisor: Nobuo Uematsu
- Arrangement Supervisor: Shogo Sakai
- Lyrics Supervisor: Masahiro Sakurai
- Lyrics Translation: Taro Yamashita
- Soprano: Oriko Takanashi
- Tenor: Ken Nishikiori
- Source: Original
- Composotion, arrangements, lyrics and translated lyrics Copyright Nintendo / HAL Laboratory, Inc.
Lyrics
Audi famam illius.
Solus in hostes ruit
et patriam servavit.
Audi famam illius.
Cucurrit quaeque
tetigit destruens
Ille iuxta me.
Socii sunt mihi.
qui olim viri fortes
rivalesque erant.
Saeve certando pugnandoque
splendor crescil.
Translated Lyrics
The translation of the lyrics appears in the end game credits of Subspace Emissary as follows:
I’ve heard legends of that person
How he plunged into enemy territory
How he saved his homeland
I’ve heard legends of that person
How he traveled the breadth of the land reducing all he touched to rubble.
I’ve heard legends of that person
I’ve heard legends of that person
Revered by many - I too, revere him
Feared by many - I too fear him
Now that person
Stands at my side
Now that person stands at my side
Now my friends are with me
Some of them were once heros
Some, my mortal enemies
And as we face each other in battle, locked in combat
We shine ever brighter
Although the above translation is fine for idiomatic English, the translation takes many liberties with the Latin. These include liberties include: making a second person singular imperative verb a first person singular indicative verb, making "legend" plural, understanding the verb for "give," ignoring participles, making some verbs that are active passive, making gerunds verbs, understanding nouns, and ignoring the cases of several nouns (sometimes leading to noun disagreement). A more accurate translation which stays truer to the Latin follows:
Listen to the legend of that one.
Alone he rushed into his enemies
and saved his fatherland.
Listen to the legend of that one.
He ran, destroying everything he touched.
Listen to the legend of that one.
Listen to the legend of that one.
There is hope for everyone, and also for me.
There is fear for everyone, and also for me.
That one
is close to me.
That one is close to me.
There are allies to me.
Those who were once brave men
and who were once rivals.
And by contesting and by fighting fiercely
Our splendor grows.
Meaning
The song describes how different characters come from different universes, how those heroes (or villains) defeated many enemies in combat to earn a spot in Brawl as a playable character. The "legends" of that person are the trials and tribulations that those characters had to go through (For example, Mario having to save the Mushroom Kingdom countless times from King Bowser). The fifth and sixth stanzas refer to The Subspace Emissary on how characters fight together, or more generally to any Brawl in which the teams are ever-changing, pitting characters against each other in likely or unlikely arrangements.
