That opening piano on "Pollyanna (I Believe In You)" is one of the most disarmingly hopeful things the NES era ever produced. Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka wrote the MOTHER soundtrack like a love letter to 1980s Americana filtered through Japanese sensibility, and these vocal arrangements from the 2004 release bring those 8-bit melodies fully to life.
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"Bein' Friends" has this breezy folk-pop warmth that shouldn't work as well as it does, "Snow Man" carries a loneliness that hits different when you know the game, and "Eight Melodies" builds from a simple lullaby into something that genuinely chokes you up.
"Flying Man" just drifting there in the tracklist like a half-remembered dream. The demo version of "Smiles And Tears" tucked at the end is a beautiful bonus, a song technically from EarthBound that traces its roots right back here.
If you've ever wondered why people get emotional over a Famicom RPG from 1989, press play on this and you'll understand in about thirty seconds.