Songs worthy of being Godzilla's theme?

[eabaker]

Oh! Thought of one!

[G2000]

This is one of those things that I’ve always had thoughts on but try to never talk about because on reflection it’s cheesy as all get out. It’s also difficult because while I think that there’s a lot of songs out there (particularly in hard rock and various shades of metal genres) that can work musically there’s not a whole lot that work lyrically. And for me, if you’re going to step outside the bounds of orchestral music for Godzilla it’s primarily a hard rock/metal sort of thing. Granted that’s largely due to my own musical tastes, and there definitely are exceptions (mainly electronic or ‘70s prog rock).

Someone’s already mentioned Motorhead’s “King of Kings” so there’s one down. As an aside an old Final Wars AMV in the early 2000s using that song was my introduction to Motorhead, so I’m grateful to the slew of cringy Godzilla AMVs so prevalent in that time for that at least.

One song I think actually fits fairly well lyrically is Van Halen’s “Atomic Punk,” and I’m suprised that I haven’t seen it bandied about more: you’d think the name alone would be enough for someone to make an AMV or something


Moving on to more orchestral pieces:

This particular rendition of Fabio Frizzi’s “Voci Dal Nulla” from his score for The Beyond is a great piece and would fit nicely into an darker, apocalyptic sort of Godzilla film. Frizzi has worked on Godzilla in the past - he was part of the Magnetic System group that did the revamped version of “Prayer for Peace” that served as the theme for the infamous 1977 “Cozzilla” (a poorly colorized Italian re-release of King of the Monsters incorporating WW2 stock footage by director Luigi Cozzi) and it seems that Frizzi’s Zombi 2 score two years later was influenced by it.


Rounding out this post, we have “Seigfried’s Funeral March” from Wagner’s Gotterdamerung. I’m going to be honest, I mainly have 1981’s Excalibur to thank for this one rather than a real appreciation of opera; the opening scene with the knights doing battle in a darkened, burning forest to this piece is a really impressive bit and ingrained it in my mind as a timeless “battle theme” of sorts - I can picture mideval armies clashing to this just as easily as I can a tank battle on the 1980s North German Plains or starships lobbing relativistic kill vehicles at one another in the cold depths of space. I can easily picture a climactic one-on-one kaiju battle set to this as well; Godzilla battling some titanic and powerful foe in a burning city or a primordial, prehistoric landscape, almost like Fantasia‘s Tyrannosaur-Stegosaur battle set to Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring (starts at the 15 minute mark for the impatient)

[Gojirawars 03]

Metallica's "For Whom the Bell Tolls?"



IDK, just throwing out suggestions. I think the lyrics could definitely fit Godzilla's "misunderstood, mutated abomination" Heisei Series origin. Plus the intrumentals have a powerful feeling to them.

[godzilla98rules]

I was introduced to Mark Collie's "In Time" through a Godzilla Music Video and always thought that it had the perfect feel and tone:

[Great Hierophant]

Here would be a fitting selection I think :

[MamaMia2021]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u77yCRwSCXg

[The Octopus]