Dearly Beloved
by Yoko Shimomura

“ Dearly Beloved ” is a song from the game Kingdom Hearts. The music of the Kingdom Hearts video game series was composed by Yoko Shimomura with orchestral music arranged by Kaoru Wada. The original soundtracks of the games have been released on three albums and a fourth compilation album. The soundtracks to the Kingdom Hearts games feature several musical pieces from both Disney films and Final Fantasy games, including such pieces as “Mickey Mouse Club March” by Jimmie Dodd, “This Is Halloween” by Danny Elfman, and “One-Winged Angel” by Nobuo Uematsu. They also feature several vocal songs, the most notable being the two main theme songs, “Hikari” and “Passion”. The two themes were written and performed by Japanese American pop star Hikaru Utada; in addition to Japanese, English versions of both songs were produced, titled “Simple and Clean” and “Sanctuary”, respectively.
Although the majority of the music has been released only in Japan, the first soundtrack was released worldwide and tracks from the Kingdom Hearts series have been featured in Video Games Live at multiple venues. The music has overall been well received and several tracks have received particular praise. The two main themes were well received by both video game and music critics, and did well on Japan’s Oricon Weekly Singles chart.