I noticed there’s been some that have been baffled about the lyrics in this, for a while, and for good reason, it isn’t even easily noticed that they’re supposed to be coherent words in English.
I tried to make it easier to sort out Hideyuki Fukasawa’s natural voice beneath all the digital harmonizing, distortion, phasing, vocoding or whatever it all is to craft this “Gregorian Chant”, and I listened intently for defining phonetics that stood out enough to build off of, so we can get to the bottom of this and remedy the numerous misconceptions floating around the net:
My name is Viper
Drilling down (+holes?) under (+Hear the thunder?)
I have no fear
There is no way out
Fly, Crimson Viper (+Try to survive her?)
It’s on the clock (+There is no way out?)
Dive, Crimson Viper
There is no way back
At least thats how I pieced it together from the partial articulations I could confirm to be there, not 100% on this, the awkward formants make that difficult, and with the heavy effects chain with it, I can’t get enough to rule out the possibility that there may be different lines subtlely overlapping each other. In the ambiguity, I’ve been suspecting things like “down” is combined with “holes”. Could there be anything dualistic or deceiving about the character or what she represents? We could have a scaly conspiracy on our hands!
Good stuff, I think the lyrics have something to do with her always working but all she wants his to finish as fast as possible to get home to lauren. “Fly, Crimson Viper” could be interpreted as hurry up viper or go faster etc., “it’s on the clock” could be the time she told lauren she’ll be home., “Dive, Crimson Viper” when you dive your looking for something so maybe she’s diving deeper into her work to find a way to make a certain amount of money were she would be set and could just spend all her time with lauren., “There is no way back” i guess refers to the previous part that she made her decision and she’s in to deep to turn back now.
I don’t get the first part but this is what I think the second part means since vipers character is all about making money and getting home to lauren as fast as possible after her jobs. Then again I’m half asleep so I could be completely wrong lol.
I have wondered about the lyrics to this since vanilla SFIV. I think your guess is the best I’ve seen yet, and especially has an interesting guess for the second verse. I’m still not sure about the second line in the first verse, though.
I love Viper’s theme, one of my favorites I think it suits her extremely well. Fast pace and exciting with a short soft bit sprinkled in- just like her character. Strong, capable, no b.s. agent risking her life but at heart she is a mother. I wish I had the tech skill to play her :{
I 2nd Juri, people say she is technical but compared to Viper she’s like… playing Bison (my main, not very technical…)
This was one of the lines where I had more certainty about, I may be wrong here since it’s an educated guess after all, but to me the giveaway are the consonant sounds throughout it. Gregorian chants have a quality at times to use formants (vowels) that are different from the way we would normally speak words, presumably for comfort or projection in singing and/or imitating Latin when in English to keep stylistic roots.
Thus, “back” would sound like “bawk”
Aha, so it does. “Drilling down under” is made more clear in that version, even though there is an “S” sound that is rather hard to ignore in this version. There may really be overlapping words in this, or that “hiss” is from another source altogether (rather curious that contrasting these versions result in a snake pun!)
The MvC3 Viper theme contains an additional verse:
My name is Viper
Crimson Viper
I end my sojourn
There is no way out
I think it’s implied “I [will] end my sojourn” even with the lack of an “L” sound, since that doesn’t seem to make sense in context on its own and I draw blanks in what else that line could be.
It is rather ambiguous, I was juggling around the idea that it was “Hear the thunder” myself. But the second word seemed to end in an “S” and now “down” is apparent from MvC3…I think we can agree that it’s plain bizarre.
Now that you mention it, has anyone actually asked?
Anyone got ideas where we would go to find an email for him or an intermediary?
I think I can agree with you on “fear” and that fits rather well.
Your second verse doesn’t match up to some prominent consonant sounds but I see what you’re getting at and that might be part of the overlap if there is overlapping going on.
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