With deep lyrics and an emotional chord progression, What Could Have Been from the Arcane League of Legends soundtrack makes me feel more than any song I’ve listened to in a long time. 

This song starts off slow, with only a piano, until Sting’s voice comes in. With his raspy and almost whisper-like voice, he sounds like he has just finished crying or perhaps even lost his voice from screaming in anger. As the song goes into the chorus, Sting’s voice is layered on top of itself and different harmonies, all a bit dissonant and robotic sounding, creating a beautiful display of how desperately hurt he’s meant to be in this song. As the music swells, I felt goosebumps erupt across my skin only for the music to quiet down a second later. As the song goes on, the violin played by Ray Chen is played faster and faster as the music gets louder and louder until all the instruments simultaneously combust, Sting’s voice moving up an octave. 

The lyrics “I couldn’t care what invention you made me” and “I want you to hurt like you hurt me today” really show off the mental state of the character in the show Arcane at the time this song is played. 

The emotional menagerie of instruments — an entire orchestra being the main violin, vocals, and piano — overstimulates my brain in the best way possible. With the focus on the violin growing with each second of the song and the mesh of background instruments flooding my ears, this song makes me feel as if my skin is on a painless kind of fire and my body is floating. It’s best listened to with headphones on so that you can hear each instrument hugging the walls of your ears with purpose. 

As the song ends on a soft and sad note, using Sting’s voice to highlight the name of the song, “What could have been”, I find myself unable to listen to any other song right after this one has ended.