"Thanatos: If I Can't Be Yours" is a song composed and arranged by Shirō Sagisu, with lyrics credited to Mash and vocals performed by Loren & Mash. The song was used in the credits sequence of the animated film The End of Evangelion (1997). "Thanatos: If I Can't Be Yours" is based on a piece originally composed by Sagisu for the soundtrack of the Neon Genesis Evangelion television series, which he initially had no intention of turning into a song. The vocal version originated from an experiment he conducted in London to rework existing background music into R&B, and director Hideaki Anno immediately decided to use it in The End of Evangelion after hearing the demo. The title refers to Thanatos, the death drive in Freudian psychoanalytic theory, while commentators have associated the composition and its melancholic character with Rei Ayanami.
King Records released "Thanatos: If I Can't Be Yours" as a single on August 1, 1997, with the title "The End of Evangelion", alongside the film's soundtrack pieces "Komm, süsser Tod" and "Air". The release reached number two on the Oricon Singles Chart and received a platinum certification. Billboard reported that it had sold approximately 600,000 copies in the country, describing the figure as extraordinary for a foreign act in the Japanese market. The song also ranked fourth in the song category of the 1998 Anime Grand Prix conducted by Animage. Critics generally praised the vocal performance, the song's unsettling and mournful atmosphere, and the way it complements the film's themes and soundtrack.
Background and composition Shirō Sagisu composed and arranged "Thanatos: If I Can't Be Yours", while the official credits attribute the lyrics to Mash and the vocals to Loren & Mash. Sagisu had previously collaborated with director and screenwriter Hideaki Anno on two anime series produced by the animation studio Gainax, Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water and Neon Genesis Evangelion, whose original score he also composed. From 1990 onward, Sagisu increasingly worked in Europe and collaborated with British soul and R&B artists; in 1996, he established the Ro-JAM label and subsequently produced the London-based projects Mash and Loren. Mash originated as a collaboration between Sagisu and British composer and producer Martin Lascelles, with its name combining "Martin" and "Shiro". Lorrain Briscoe, known professionally as Loren, developed her musical background in gospel music and worked as a lead and backing vocalist across genres including gospel, jazz, and pop. Lascelles discovered Loren during a recording session and planned an album with her; Sagisu took an immediate interest in her voice and continued to feature her in his R&B and jazz projects. "Thanatos: If I Can't Be Yours" originated from a musical experiment Sagisu was conducting in London, in which he reworked existing background music into R&B. Sagisu initially had no intention of turning the original E-13 background music into a song. After hearing the demo, Anno immediately decided to use the song as the theme for the film The End of Evangelion (1997).
"Thanatos: If I Can't Be Yours" reworked the original background music from the series as UK soul. Lyricist Mike Wyzgowski recalled that Sagisu gave him the melody and a preliminary arrangement for "Thanatos", after which Wyzgowski wrote its lyrics. Sagisu recorded "Thanatos: If I Can't Be Yours" in March 1997, while production of The End of Evangelion was underway, in order to preserve the "tension" of the four-month period leading up to the film's completion. During its production, Sagisu attempted to convey his image of Evangelion character Rei Ayanami to Wyzgowski, describing her as "like an android, but a little different", which reportedly left Wyzgowski even more confused. In addition to "Thanatos: If I Can't Be Yours", Sagisu also composed the film's other theme song, "Komm, süsser Tod". Sagisu regarded both the pieces as songs that presented a new direction for anime music. He explained that anime songs had traditionally drawn from Japanese popular and idol music, with less interchange with Western pop. For the two songs, Sagisu discarded those conventions and pursued a different approach, which he linked to Hideaki Anno's eclecticism and the increasing diversity of anime music during the 1990s. The song accompanied the closing credits at the end of the film's first segment, "Air". A society named Omnibus Japan designed the credit sequence, arranging the text in a double-helix pattern that unfolds throughout the sequence.
The song's melody draws from an eponymous piece from the television series, which appears in the episodes "Introjection" and "Rei III" in scenes that involve Rei Ayanami. Justin Wu of The Artifice noted its use during a scene in which Rei attempts to destroy herself along with her mecha, Eva-00. The composition takes its name from Sigmund Freud's concept of Thanatos, the destructive human death drive, which in turn takes its name from the personification of death in Greek mythology. Freudian psychoanalytic theory places Thanatos in opposition to Eros, the life drive, and also refers to the two impulses as destrudo and libido, respectively. The series had previously invoked these concepts when protagonist Shinji Ikari merges with his mecha, Eva-01, and is absorbed into it in the episode "Weaving a Story 2: oral stage". Critics and official materials have identified the conflict between the life and death drives as a part of Shinji's struggle throughout the series and The End of Evangelion. Writers Kazuhisa Fujie and Martin Foster further argued that both "Thanatos: If I Can't Be Yours" and "Komm, süsser Tod" exemplify the importance of the death drive to the film's narrative. Bamboo Dong of Anime News Network compared the song's sound to the music of His and Her Circumstances. Devin Meenan of Comic Book Resources noted the contrast between the song's "jazzy acoustics" and its melancholic lyrics, which he interpreted as expressing the uncertainty and self-doubt of unfulfilled love. He regarded this juxtaposition of upbeat music and sorrowful lyrics as characteristic of the music of Evangelion. Meenan also interpreted the song as referring to Rei Ayanami, arguing that its lyrics reflect her growing awareness of her nature and her feelings for Shinji, which her circumstances prevent her from resolving in a mutually fulfilling relationship.
Release and other versions King Records released "Thanatos: If I Can't Be Yours" as a single by Loren & Mash on August 1, 1997, under the catalog number KIDA-155 and the name "The End of Evangelion". The single also contains "Komm, süsser Tod" and "II Air", an arrangement of the second movement of Johann Sebastian Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068. The single's cover features a computer-generated artwork by designer Norihiko Netsu. On May 24, 2006, King Records issued "Thanatos: If I Can't Be Yours" again on a joint single with Yōko Takahashi's "Soul's Refrain". The release, catalogued as KICM-3122, pairs the original recording with a new version titled "Thanatos: If I Can't Be Yours – Nine Years After Mix". King Records also included the song as the eighth track on The End of Evangelion, the film's soundtrack album. The label released the album on September 26, 1997, under the catalog number KICA-370. "Thanatos: If I Can't Be Yours" later appeared on Neon Genesis Evangelion: S² Works, released on December 4, 1998; Evangelion: The Day of Second Impact, released on September 13, 2000; Evangelion: The Birthday of Rei Ayanami, released on March 30, 2001; Refrain of Evangelion, released on July 24, 2003; and Neon Genesis Evangelion Decade, released on October 26, 2005. A remastered version appeared on the A.T. EVA01 Reference CD, released on December 20, 2007. King Records later included the song on both Neon Genesis Evangelion Soundtrack 25th Anniversary Box and Evangelion Finally, releasing both albums on October 7, 2020.
A remix titled "Thanatos: If I Can't Be Yours (Jazzy Side Stick-Mix)" appeared on the album Evangelion-Vox, released on December 3, 1997, and containing hip-hop and R&B remakes of Sagisu's music. Mash produced the remix, with Sagisu handling synthesizer and drum programming. The arrangement features Makoto Kuriya on electric piano, Yoshinobu Takeshita on acoustic bass and a string section, while Loren performed lead and backing vocals and Mike Wyzgowski provided additional backing vocals. The album also includes a separate track titled "Interlude-Thanatos (E-13)", also credited to Wyzgowski and Loren. The song was subsequently reworked as "Thanatos (Nyqi Turntable Opara)" for Loren, Mash, Hazel, Desire, an album released on June 26, 1998. King Records described the album as the culmination of Sagisu's European work during the 1990s, encompassing material developed through his activities in Paris and London and his formation of Mash with Martin Lascelles. Sagisu also included four reinterpretations of the song on his album Shiro's Songbook, titled "Thanatos: If I Can't Be Yours Part 1: Piano & Verse", "Part 2: Orchestral World", "Part 3: Funk & Go", and "Part 4: Overcome". King Records released the album on November 3, 1999. Another remix later appeared on Sagisu's Shiro's Songbook "Remixes and More", released on June 21, 2000. Sagisu revisited the "Nine Years After Mix" for Shiro Sagisu Outtakes from Evangelion (Vol. 1), released on July 30, 2016, with the title "E13 nineteen years after mix". He later included the original version on his four-disc compilation Anison Roku Plus, which King Records released on August 29, 2018.
In 2006, King Records included "Thanatos: If I Can't Be Yours" on the Neon Genesis Evangelion Music DVD, a collection edited by series assistant director Masayuki that synchronized songs from the Neon Genesis Evangelion franchise with selected footage from the Evangelion anime. A "Thanatos: If I Can't Be Yours" video by Masayuki using footage from the Evangelion anime was also included in the music clip collection released as bonus material with the 2015 Neon Genesis Evangelion Blu-ray Box and the 2019 Standard Edition. The 2021 international Ultimate Edition Blu-ray release also featured the video.
Reception In the 1998 Anime Grand Prix, a large annual popularity poll conducted by the anime magazine Animage, "Thanatos: If I Can't Be Yours" ranked fourth in the anime-song category. Tiffani Nadeau of Mania.com praised Loren and Mash's rendition of "Thanatos: If I Can't Be Yours", describing its performance as "vocal perfection". She also felt that the song and "Komm, süsser Tod" complemented the soundtrack's instrumental pieces and suited the album's overall theme. Anime News Network's Bamboo Dong called "Thanatos: If I Can't Be Yours" the "best Evangelion song ever", while describing its sound as "freaking creepy". Scott Green of Ain't It Cool News described "Thanatos: If I Can't Be Yours" and "Komm, süsser Tod" as "unforgettable mournful vocals" that evoke the film's trauma and melancholy, considering the two songs alone worth owning the soundtrack.
Chart and commercial performance