 The soundtrack to Nier is largely composed of melancholy acoustic pieces which heavily feature vocals by Emi Evans . Of the 43 tracks included in the released soundtrack album , only 9 do not have any vocal component to them ; these are the four versions each of " Dispossession " and " Yonah " , as well as " Dance of the Evanescent " . With the exception of " Ashes of Dreams " , the lyrics are not intended to mean anything ; for that song , Evans was given a list of Japanese words to use , which she then translated for the English , French , and Scottish Gaelic versions of the song . The song and its variants were the last to be recorded , and Evans convinced the composers that one song in the soundtrack should have recognizable lyrics rather than futuristic English as they originally planned . Evans found " Ashes " to be the most difficult song to write on the soundtrack , as she had difficulty writing lyrics that met the composers ' criteria of despair and lack of hope . 
