Fly Me to the Moon Ending Theme Song

“Fly Me to the Moon” is a song that was originally written by Bart Howard in 1954 and was selected to be the ending theme for the popular anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion. One particular noteworthy trait of this ending theme is that each episode used a different variation of the song’s arrangement and/or vocalist to create a track that was unique for each episode’s ending. In the 2019 Netflix re-release of the series, “Fly Me to the Moon” was replaced with a section of “Rei I”, a piece from Evangelion’s soundtrack.

Original Release

“Fly Me to the Moon” was originally written and composed by American Jazz musician Bart Howard. The original title of this cabaret ballad was “In Other Words” and was written in a 3/4 time signature, but later changed to 4/4 when re-arranged by Quincy Jones in 1964. Felicia Sanders was the first person to sing the song publically and did so in a famous New York club called the “Blue Angel”. The first commercially recorded performance of “In Other Words” was done by Kate Ballard and was released under the record label Decca in April 1954 as a flipside to another song titled “Lazy Afternoon”. Many jazz and cabaret singers covered the song in the following years, and its title was eventually changed to “Fly Me to the Moon”. The popularity of the song likely peaked after Peggy Lee sang the song during The Ed Sullivan Show in 1960. Other famous names covered the song as well, like Frank Sinatra, who released an album titled It Might as Well Be Swing in 1964 that included the song. This particular version was closely associated with NASA’s Apollo space program and was even played on portable cassette players during Apollo 10 and Apollo 11. “Fly Me to the Moon” also has an opening verse that is often omitted by performers when singing the song. This opening verse reads as follows: “Poets often use many words / To say a simple thing / It takes thought and time and rhyme / To make a poem singing / With music and words I’ve been flying. / For you I have written a song / To be sure that you’ll know what I’m saying / I’ll translate as I go along”.

In the Evangelion Anime Series

Throughout the release of Neon Genesis Evangelion numerous versions of “Fly Me to the Moon” can be heard. These differences can range between the instrumentation and style of music used, to the vocalist singing the song. In the “Renewal” version of the series’ home release was announced, there were even more variations of the ending that were added. Most “Normal” versions of the ending theme are sung either by British vocalist Claire Littley or Yoko Takahashi, the vocalist for the anime’s opening theme, A Cruel Angel’s Thesis. Several voice actresses also sing versions of the song as well, including Megumi Hayashibara (Rei Ayanami), Yuko Miyamura (Asuka Langley Soryu), and Kotono Mitsuishi (Misato Katsuragi). In some instances, all three of the voice actresses sing as a trio. Genres like bossa nova, acid bossa, and bossa techno were also used to help create variations with significantly different tones. Many of these variations were released on the three original soundtrack albums, albeit split up between the three.

In 2000, Hikaru Utada, a popular Japanese-American singer-songwriter, recorded a J-Pop cover of “Fly Me to the Moon (In Other Words)” that was released as a B-side track with her single “Wait & See (Risk)”. This cover was then later remixed in 2007 and released on her “Beautiful World” single. Both of these songs were used as promotional material to advertise the release of Evangelion 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone. One interesting note to make is that Utada included the often omitted introduction of “Fly Me to the Moon” mentioned above.

Netflix Controversy

The Evangelion anime series was released and made available for streaming in 2019. Many American (and other English speaking) fans of the Evangelion series were already upset at the streaming platform Netflix for making the decision to re-dub the series instead of either using the original ADV Films dub or contacting the original cast. However, another change to the release caused an additional wave of disappointment to wash across those already familiar with the series: the replaced ending theme. Rather than having a unique variation of “Fly Me to the Moon” playing at the end of each episode, a section of “Rei I” from the original soundtrack is heard in instead, as long as you are viewing it in the United States (no matter what language you view it in). Viewers in Japan are still able to listen to the varied endings, however. Since there was no change in Japan, many were left to believe that securing the legal rights for “Fly Me to the Moon” is what led to the change in outside of Japan.

Links

Music of Neon Genesis Evangelion
Fly Me to the Moon
Netflix's Evangelion is missing its great-end credits music