I suppose I’ve been on something of a Sonic binge lately (maybe is due to the new mainline Sonic game, Sonic Frontiers, that just came out), but I had so much fun talking about “With Me” (the final boss theme from Sonic & the Black Knight) in my last review, and how it aided the story in the game in being more engaging and compelling, that I decided to do it again. The song I’ll be discussing today is “Supporting Me,” from the classic Dreamcast title Sonic Adventure 2.
While I do think the song needs some narrative context to fully encapsulate how and why it is a great song, I’d like to talk about the song in broad strokes first as a jumping off point before getting to the nitty gritty of the music (instrumentation/arrangement), lyrics, plot, and themes.“Supporting Me” has a hard goal to achieve. As part of a grander narrative, it must fit the scene. As a video game track, you must be able to listen to this song on a loop as you don’t know how much time you’re going to spend on this stage/boss, and this is not even mentioning how Sonic Adventure 2 is an action-platformer, therefore the song in the game should excite you and pump you up while not conflicting with the tone of the scene/stage. Just from a utilitarian perspective, there are a lot of elements to juggle around, and it all must be cohesive by the end. “Supporting Me,” written by Fumie Kumatani and Shinobu Shindo, produced by Hegio Tani & Jun Senoue, masterfully checks every box on the check list. Here’s how.
Let’s start with some context (and spoiler warning for Sonic Adventure 2). What is going on in the scene where this song plays? “Supporting Me” is the boss theme for the Biolizard boss battle, the prototype of the Ultimate Life form (i.e. Shadow the Hedgehog), both created by Gerald Robotnik. Leading up to this battle, we learn, through a video recording of Gerald’s execution and his journal, that the government raided Gerald’s research facility in Space (the Space Colony Ark), and in that raid killed his granddaughter, Maria. Stricken by grief at the death of Maria, and feeling enraged and betrayed (as it was the same government who contracted him), he re-programmed Shadow (altering his memories) to set off a program that would send the Space Colony Ark to crash to Earth, killing all of humanity. As a failsafe, he placed the Biolizard as a guard dog to protect the cannon’s core (the only thing that can stop this program). Shadow, having a change of heart and unlocking his true memories (where Maria’s dying wish was to save humanity, not kill them), catches up to Sonic and faces off against the Biolizard, the physical and metaphorical manifestation of Gerald’s wrath, on his own. With this very brief synopsis for context, let’s start with the music.
The song opens up with an eighth note bassline and this soft screech that sounds like a scream or a roar, descending in volume and intensity as the synth rises in volume, and in tension. The guitar cuts through with a very simple riff while the drum machine keeps a fast and steady high-hat sixteenth note barrage. Then, the music softens again, giving us our main riff on the synth before it all comes together with the extremely distorted vocals. After 8 bars, there is a beautiful break where the synth strings sound bright and melancholic, before falling back into the tense darkness with that guitar riff from the beginning. There is another short “bright break” where afterwards, the distortion and noise become more dominant. The use of white noise and distortion in the song to add different sonic textures is very clever throughout, but more so this section. I could try and further describe what the song sounds like, but the song, to me, is very visual. The production and sonic textures in the song paint a scene. For instance, a big theme in the story of Sonic Adventure 2 is artificiality and artificial life. Shadow (and by extension, the Biolizard) is the embodiment of this theme as he is a lifeform created by Gerald Robotnik, and the music reflects this by the use of “real” instruments (like the guitar) and “artificial” instruments like the synth and drum machine (with the added layer of the strings being a mixture of the two since they’re not real strings). The screech at the beginning is the roar of the Biolizard, and the crescendo that follows is the rising tension Shadow feels before engaging in this battle. This is what I mean by the song painting a scene. Details in the production and composition play a part on how the song plays and sounds. The fight takes place in a very dark, spacious, and hollow room, and the synth tones chosen in “Supporting Me” do have a bit of reverb and sound a bit echo-y. Outside of the narrative, and on a technical level, what keeps this otherwise mellow song at such a high-octane energy is the consistent bassline, and the dance drumbeat keeps a steady backbeat, preventing the song from becoming too sluggish.
Moving on to the lyrics. Many songs throughout the playable sections of Sonic Adventure 2 are meant to represent what the character is feeling and/or thinking (most notable example is Knuckles’s songs, rapped by Hunnid-P) and “Supporting Me”is no exception. The title is a play on the Biolizard’s life support and Shadow’s memory of Maria (who’s pushing him through and keeps him going). And the lyrics really emote Shadow’s mental state in this scene. They’re hard to make out because of the distortion on Everette Bradley’s vocals, but they’re also quite simple and to the point. The song opens with “I believe in my future, farewell to the shadow” which is a direct reference to Shadow realizing Maria’s true wish. In the first break, Everette sings “Everything’s just like an illusion; I’ll be losing you before long” which to me is a heartbreaking line because Shadow either realizes he’s about to die, or that fulfilling his wish to Maria, he might have to confront the fact that maybe none of his memories were real. The theme of the song really being hammered down with the repeated lines of “You are supporting me.” It feels weird breaking down lyrics that are so straightforward, but I did want to emphasize how involved this song is to the scene it is a part of.
“Supporting Me” is a master class in songwriting for narrative media (interactive or not). The song on its own is like watching a scene from a movie without the video, and still being able to tell what’s going on which is an outstanding feat, as only a couple of songs can do that (Like “The Force” leitmotif in Star Wars or “Wheel of Fortune” from Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest). The instruments, the arrangement, the production, the vocals, the effects, it all comes together to create an atmosphere, setting, and story, and therefore I am in sheer awe of the craftsmanship found in “Supporting Me.”