Hearing Keiichi Suzuki's home demos of the MOTHER/EarthBound songs is like finding a songwriter's diary under the floorboards. Lost Suzuki Tapes Vol. 2 collects recordings spanning 1981 to 1994, and the raw quality is part of what makes it so fascinating.
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The Eight Melodies demo from 1989 strips that legendary theme down to just a keyboard and Suzuki's voice, and it somehow hits harder than the Famicom version. Pollyanna in demo form has this wobbly cassette warmth that makes the optimism feel more fragile and real.
Saturn Valley's theme recorded at home in '94 is wonderfully bizarre even outside the game context. All that I needed (was you). Pure pop songwriting with no polish. If you care about EarthBound at all, hearing where these songs started before they became iconic is the kind of thing that stays with you.