Sanctuary
| "Sanctuary" | ||||||||||
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| Single by Hikaru Utada | ||||||||||
| from the album This Is the One | ||||||||||
| Released | July 21, 2009 | |||||||||
| Format | Digital Download | |||||||||
| Genre | Alternative rock, ethereal wave | |||||||||
| Length | 4:25 5:58 |
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| Label | Toshiba-EMI | |||||||||
| Writer(s) | Hikaru Utada | |||||||||
| Producer | Akira Miyake, Hikaru Utada and Teruzane Utada | |||||||||
| Hikaru Utada singles chronology | ||||||||||
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"Sanctuary" is the theme song for the international release of Kingdom Hearts II. It is also the second single from This Is the One, released only in Japan (both the Opening and Ending versions), thereby under the name Utada, not Utada Hikaru. However, Sanctuary was not included in the Japanese version of the album (it was on the US as a bonus track ).
Utada sung "Sanctuary" (in combination with "Passion") during Utada: In the Flesh 2010.
In the videogame Kingdom Hearts II, the "Opening" version of the song is played during the opening movie; the more emotional "After the Battle" (titled "Ending" on This Is the One) version is played after defeating the final boss of the game, much like the theme song of the first Kingdom Hearts, "Simple and Clean". The arrangements of the two songs differ in some aspects, much in the same nature as "Simple and Clean" did in comparison to its "Hikari" counterpart.
"Sanctuary", like "Passion", includes several instances of reversed lyrics throughout the song; these lyrics are the only official backwards lyrics. Played throughout the song are the lyrics "I need more affection than you know" in the "battleground" stanza, as well as the phrases "So many ups and downs" and "I need true emotions".
Unlike "Passion", "Sanctuary" had not received any official release on CD until 2009, where its opening and closing versions were included as bonus tracks on Utada's album, This Is the One.
It is also interesting to note that "Sanctuary" does not feature Utada's vocals in the background of the song (as "Passion" does), a notable difference throughout the song.
Both the Opening and Ending versions of Sanctuary were included on Utada's first English compilation album, Utada the Best.
In 2008, "Passion" was sampled for artist Stevey Jay's EP, The Streets Are Watching for the song 'Kingdom of Hearts". Although it shares the similar name of Kingdom Hearts it is not known to share any relation with the exception of the theme. The song was released under Suburban Entertainment.
In 2011, Sanctuary (Ending) was sampled by American rapper XV in the song When We're Done contained in his "Zero Heroes" mixtape.
In French Montana's new mixtape Mac & Cheese 3 there's a song called Sanctuary which has Utada Hikaru's song sample.
Read more about this topic: Passion (Hikaru Utada Song)
Famous quotes containing the word sanctuary:
“He took the props down used for propping open,
And set them up again for propping shut,
The widespread double doors two stories high.
The advantage-disadvantage of these doors
Was that tramp taking sanctuary there
Must leave them unlocked to betray his presence.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“If the veil were withdrawn from the sanctuary of domestic life, and man could look upon the fear, the loathing, the detestations which his tyranny and reckless gratification of self has caused to take the place of confiding love, which placed a woman in his power, he would shudder at the hideous wrong of the present regulations of the domestic abode.”
—Lydia Jane Pierson, U.S. women’s rights activist and corresponding editor of The Woman’s Advocate. The Woman’s Advocate, represented in The Lily, pp. 117-8 (1855-1858 or 1860)
“Proverbs, like the sacred books of each nation, are the sanctuary of the intuitions. That which the droning world, chained to appearances, will not allow the realist to say in his own words, it will suffer him to say in proverbs without contradiction.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)