Heroes II Soundtrack

[BMJedi]

I see somebody just bumped this thread. I thought about doing that, but then decided against it.

Moderator, feel free to delete my other thread if you want. And thanks again to everybody that knows stuff about these German lyrics.

I am interested in any and all info about Rob King's HOMM music, if anybody knows anything not covered here.

[GreatEmerald]

Well, this is quite a bit of a bump, but hey, this is a real nice thread! I was just looking at the same, and perhaps lyrics files (LRC) for the tracks could be made, so they're synchronised.

One thing I noticed is that the lyrics for the PoL Warlock theme are repeated in a peculiar way. In particular, it looks like:

Denn es wird die Posaune schallen
Und die Toten werden auferstehen
Unverweslich
Und wir werden auferstehen
Unverweslich
Und wir werden verwandelt werden

This is in fact a perfect fit for the Necromancers. The lines formed are both "The dead will rise uncorrupted" and "We will rise from the dead uncorrupted". But... Well, this is supposed to be the Warlock theme, not the Necromancer theme. But if you listen to the Necromancer theme, you can hear that it's not really fitting, it's waaay too happy-sounding. So I'm wondering if there was a mixup there; there definitely have been plenty of those!

This makes me wonder about what the general meaning of the lines would be with regards to the factions. Clearly the composers put at least some thought into it (even if probably not too much, understandably so). Generally, the Might and Magic universe is about a bit more literal interpretation of myths and religion, and it looks like there is sense in most of the texts when you apply the same logic to that.

The idea of the above text is obviously "we will use Necromancy on you and ourselves".

The TSW lyrics for Warlock could seemingly be interpreted in two ways, depending on whether they are addressed to their enemies or themselves. If themselves, then the idea is something akin to "Kill your enemies with fire, as long as you don't get burnt yourself." Whereas if it's addressed to the enemies, it's a dare; akin to "You dare bring fire to my lair?! You must die in a fire!" The references to fire are very apt; mostly due to dragons in HoMM2, but given the links to Asylum, that sure is nice.

The PoL lyrics for Barbarian town make a lot of sense again. It's all about asking for victory.

The TSW lyrics for Barbarian town are the most unclear to me. How do the barbarians relate to thieves? They are technically friends of the evil ones because they are evil-aligned. So maybe the idea is to pillage and plunder, because they are evil? Also, the text is repeated as well, in a fairly odd way in terms of language:

Oder gehst du jetzt selber
auf den Wegen
auf den Wegen
Oder gehst du jetzt
der Diebe,
der Diebe,
du Freund der Bösen?

I definitely can't hear the third "auf den Wegen", even though that would be right in terms of language.

The TSW Necromancer lyrics are a bit puzzling but ultimately make sense to me. If the dogs are the Necromancers, then the idea is that when the enemy's soul tries to break out of all prisons (AKA they die), they are waiting and barking in joy and anticipation.

The TSW Knight town lyrics are initially odd-sounding, but then you realise that they're talking not about themselves, but their enemies. What has eyes but do not see, has a nose but does not smell, etc.? The undead. Or gargoyles and golems (although they're good-aligned, but hey). So the idea is "we fight the unliving".

The sorceress themes are also a bit odd. They are the most spiritual texts; a bit odd, given that Sorceress is all about the ancient myths and religions. I suppose one should interpret God in the lyrics as gods (mind you, from the ancient religion and mythology course I had I know that there is always a prime god that is referred to by default when one says "God": Zeus, Thor, Ra, etc., so the monotheism/polytheism segregation is completely artificial). It also shows that the Sorceress is the more spiritual Druid faction as opposed to the more industrial Knight.

[GreatEmerald]

So I made the LRC files. They are supposed to work like subtitle files: as long as the .lrc filename matches the filename of your audio file, you should be able to see the lyrics. The problem being that you need a media player or a daemon that actually supports that.

In any case, here are the LRC files:
PoL Barbarian:

Code: Select all

[00:48.15]Wo ist dein Sieg?
[00:54.37]Wo ist dein Stachel?
[01:00.41]Wo ist dein Sieg?
[01:07.41]Wo ist dein Sieg?
[01:13.46]Der Tod ist verschlungen
[01:19.63]in den Sieg.
[01:25.35]Tod, wo ist dein Stachel?
[01:31.33]Hölle, wo ist dein Sieg?
[01:36.86]Wo ist dein Sieg?
[01:42.71]Wo ist dein Stachel?
[01:48.79]Wo ist dein Sieg?
[01:55.10]Hölle, wo ist dein Sieg?

TSW Barbarian:

Code: Select all

[00:10.41]Oder
[00:16.10]gehst du
[00:22.11]jetzt
[00:27.68]selber
[00:51.27]auf den Wegen,
[00:56.89]auf den Wegen...
[01:07.63]Oder gehst du jetzt...
[01:27.37]Der Diebe,
[01:32.92]der Diebe,
[01:38.73]du Freund
[01:44.55]der Bösen?

TSW Knight:

Code: Select all

[00:43.61]Sie haben Mäuler,
[00:47.50]und reden nicht;
[00:51.64]sie haben Augen,
[00:56.10]und sehen nicht;
[01:00.44]sie haben Ohren,
[01:04.67]und hören nicht;
[01:08.72]sie haben Nasen,
[01:12.96]und riechen nicht;
[01:16.25]sie haben Hände, und greifen nicht;
[01:21.76]Füße haben sie, und gehen nicht;
[01:26.90]sie reden nicht durch ihren Hals.

TSW Necromancer:

Code: Select all

[00:33.40]Deine wilden,
[00:37.55]wilden Hunde
[00:41.32]wollen in die Freiheit;
[00:46.09]sie bellen
[00:50.56]vor Lust in ihrem Keller...
[01:12.02]Wenn dein Geist alle Gefängnisse
[01:22.33]zu lösen trachtet.
[01:27.79]Sie bellen vor Lust!
[01:49.62]Deine wilden,
[01:53.80]wilden Hunde
[01:57.53]wollen in die Freiheit;
[02:02.41]sie bellen
[02:07.03]vor Lust,
[02:09.21]vor Lust!

PoL Sorceress:

Code: Select all

[00:31.98]Herr, du bist,
[00:35.04]du bist würdig,
[00:38.05]zu nehmen Preis
[00:42.14]und Ehre!
[00:44.85]Preis und Ehre
[00:48.08]und Kraft,
[00:50.98]Preis und Ehre
[00:54.85]und Kraft.
[01:16.98]Preis und Ehre und Kraft.
[02:08.00]Preis und Ehre und Kraft!..

TSW Sorceress:

Code: Select all

[00:29.85]Die Toren sprechen in ihrem Herzen:
[00:34.72]Es ist kein Gott, es ist kein Gott.
[00:39.33]Die Toren sprechen in ihrem Herzen:
[00:44.11]Es ist kein Gott, kein Gott.
[01:41.91]Es ist kein Gott, kein Gott...
[03:41.82]Es ist kein Gott...

PoL Warlock:

Code: Select all

[00:55.49]Denn es wird die Posaune schallen,
[01:12.18]und die Toten werden
[01:19.37]auferstehen,
[01:23.93]unverweslich.
[01:32.14]Und die Toten...
[01:41.71]Und wir werden
[01:52.21]auferstehen
[02:01.44]unverweslich!
[02:10.84]Und wir werden
[02:16.09]verwandelt
[02:21.27]werden!

TSW Warlock:

Code: Select all

[00:53.14]Willst du heute dein Feuer in die Täler tragen?
[01:04.67]Fürchtest du nicht,
[01:08.16]Fürchtest du nicht...
[01:12.79]Fürchtest
[01:14.49]du nicht des Brandstifters Strafen?

[Sabitor]

Hi guys,

I recently found this thread (Googling about the magnificent Heroes music), and it's good fun to read all these lyrics and about their origins.

This thread started with asking for both lyrics and music origins (and inspirations I guess), and thus I'm writing now. I think I have found one Rachmaninov piece that might have inspired some of the town themes of Heroes 2 and 3 (maybe others as well). I recently bumped into Rachmaninov's symphonic poem "The Isle of the Dead", and I could hear many bits that resounded parts of some town themes. As for what I remember on the top of my head, I could hear bits of the Castle town and Fortress town (from H3). The piece is 21,5 mins long, and it's my new favorite classical piece.

Rachmaninov's "The Isle of the Dead" is linked here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbbtmskCRUY

Early in this thread there was a mention of Liszt, Bach and Rachmaninov (linked to a site that is no more). Does anyone know more pieces that they (Paul Romero, Rob King etc.) have taken inspiration from or directly re-orchestrated? A big thank you to the person who posted Bach's Gavottes 1 & 2. It was awesome listening to the original composition.

[Sabitor]

I just stumbled upon another piece that might have inspired the Sorceress' Theme (TSW). I heard Alexander Borodin's "Prince Igor - Polovtsian Dances". It doesn't sound exactly the same, but very nearly. Here's a link, now tell me what you think https://youtu.be/FsTVF0Fu5_c?t=48

[Darmani]

Nice! PAR keeps an active presence on YouTube; you can ask him! https://www.youtube.com/user/PAULanthonyROMERO/