ReMix: EarthBound 'Home Again'
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- Game: EarthBound (Nintendo, 1994, SNES)
- ReMixer(s): Dale North
- Composer(s): Hirokazu Tanaka, Keiichi Suzuki, Toshiyuki Ueno
- Song(s): Home Sweet Home
- Posted: 2007-01-21, evaluated by djpretzel
It's been a very long time indeed since Mr. North graced our pages, but after a multi-year hiatus he too has submitted something new, or relatively new, from the still-quite-popular Bound Together Earthbound project. Dale writes:
""Home Again" is something I slapped together at the last minute for Joe Cam's Bound Together. Pollyanna is a song I never wanted to tackle. Anyway, this was fun. I threw in a surprise and made sure it was loud as hell for surprise effect."
Even if it was "slapped together" for Bound Together, and the ReMixer was reluctant about the source material, the end result is an R+B ballad that sounds pretty pro, and pretty pretty. Acoustic piano, guitar, warm but unobtrusive pads, cymbal-heavy percussion, bells, and oboe round out the instrumentation, but the big surprise is that Dale finally busts out his velvety-smooth vocal chops in a game mix at 2'22", with background choral work joining in for the full effect. The lyrics are taken from the first verse of "Pollyanna (I Believe in You)", originally performed by Catherine Warwick for the 1989 Mother arrange album. I'd heard Dale sing on some originals of his a long time ago and wondered why on earth he hadn't applied his vocal abilities to his game arrangement work; it's good to see he's finally decided to do so. In fact, I'd say the only beef I have with this mix is that it's rather odd for a piece that's only 3'21" long to have the vocals come in with only a minute left over. Clearly Dale wanted the singing to be something of a surprise, but the logical intro point for a vocal would have been a minute earlier, in place of the oboe. Don't get me wrong, it's a lovely oboe part, but I'd prefer to have seen Dale do a bona fide vocal mix as opposed to an instrumental with a vocal passage, however good that passage may be. Hopefully, if this piece is well received, he'll consider doing just that in the future, and submitting it as well. Regardless, this is a lovely piece that takes R+B arranging into the more inspirational, contemporary/spiritual direction than anything I can think of. Generally, that's really not a genre of music I can get into very much at all, but Dale's performance and arrangement abilities make this both accessible and memorable.
Discussion: Latest 15 comments/reviews; view the - rainmanbk on December 23, 2008
This is a beautifully sung and arranged remix, but as beautiful as it is, and how glad I am when this ends up playing on shuffle, this somehow distracts me for a moment. I guess in the sense that it literally means, it is a 'noticable flaw' and it distracts from the rest of the piece, but really, I've heard this probably 25+ times in the short(ish) time it has been out, and it is still a pleasure to hear it, which is something only accomplishable by only a handful of OCRemixes I've heard.
Great mix, especially for something supposedly 'thrown together'. n_n
- SomeCrazyGuy on September 10, 2007
Trenthian;221452 wrote: Nothing bad to say about this track at all except I'd like more of north's sexy vocals.
This song is great, but Im constantly waiting for dale north to suprise me with something that breaks away from his typical style. I'm sure he would come up with some great results with a little experimentation.
Heh. That made me laugh.
Anyway, I love this mix. It's cool, refreshing, and always manages to inspire me. Listening to it makes me want to make beautiful music too.
It's totally worth listening to.
- squashai on July 3, 2007
This is just an amazing mix. The first time I heard it, it gave me goosebumps. I agree with the argument that the vocals could have come in earlier, but nevertheless good work!
Great arrangement, great sound and a great voice!
- Mano on May 21, 2007
Can't believe I never commented on this track before. I could easily listen to many more songs like this, especially if Dale is singing on any of them.
Short, but sweeeeeeet.
- Hale-Bopp on February 7, 2007
However, the song itself isn't exactly my cup of coffee. It's nice and okay in the background, but to me, it just sounds too much like a song from some 1990s Disney-movie. Which isn't exactly a bad thing when it comes to production quality...
- Martin Penwald on February 7, 2007
- el Zeratulo on February 7, 2007
consider my amazement when I, after about 1-2 years of not visiting this site, come here again just to find a track from dale in the "charts" :)
interesting
- el Zeratulo on February 5, 2007
I wasn't sure if there was going to be a Pollyanna remix on the Bound Together project when I downloaded it, then I got to Home Again and was just totally blown away. It was just such a sensitive, slow version of the theme after I wasn't sure I would hear it all. Just when it was winding down, the words came back and reminded me of the song and the message in the song that I loved so much and tears came to my eyes.
I have so many memories associated with this song, and the remix tapped into all of them in a way so much more...sad than the original? I think that's what I'm going for.
Much love for this song.
- Zarla on February 4, 2007
- spongerman1 on January 30, 2007
Now if this consensus doesn't show something about the character of OCR, then I give up.
- Souliarc on January 29, 2007
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