EarthBound Music Similarities

So, maybe that is why that guy fellow said that most of the music in Earthbound weren’t original.

Very interesting thought!

Heh, I somehow doubt a guy of that intelligence and youth knew about this stuff that even we crazy fans are just discovering 😉

Yeah, actually. But it is kind of ironic

I had known about a few of these, but some are news to me. Very cool. 😀

I don’t suppose that all these (cool and interesting) samples are a reason why Earthbound’s VC release is delayed so much?

Oh and also, that Ric Ocasek song sample you have up there also has sound effects from Atari’s Missile Command! Cool stuff X^D The Moonside track changes the sound effects though, lame!

I’m surprised you didn’t mention the New Age Retro Hippie’s music and Johnny B. Goode.

How can you forget the Hippie Song? 😀

That one’s too easy, I decided to go for the lesser-known here 😉

It was annoying way back like 10 years ago, because kids would submit midis of that song, claiming it was the NARH song or a remix of it.

I wonder why people associate that song with New Age Retro Hippies though. It first plays when you fight Frank I think.

I always associated it with New Age Retro Hippies because they’re slightly more awesome than Frank.

Doesn’t the hippie song also play for the hippies in EB zero? That’s probably why.

Oh man, I never even heard that sample for the naming screen, and that’s one of my favorite songs. Now I can’t unhear it. Same with the Jackie’s Cafe one too…

I SHAT BRICKS WHEN I HEARD THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER IN JACKIE’S CAFE.

OH GOD D: D:

I will never be able to un-hear what has been heard…. xD

I always used to think that monty python sample was supposed to be bustling city noise: car horns and what sounded like voice chatter. But it’s Monty Python… those sound designers were nuts.

The bushes and the clouds are the same in Super Mario Bros?! :O

For some reason I can’t hear the Monty Python theme in the Naming Screen, but all of the other song similarities I couldn’t believe I had missed for so long! I thought I knew everything about the Jackie’s Cafe song, but the Little Rascals threw me for a curveball.

I guess I got lucky and recognized the Star Spangled Banner on my first playthrough — I guess it’s only fitting to stick it in there since the music used for that anthem is actually from an old drinking song. That’s some witty allusions for those developers to plant into Jackie’s “Cafe”. 🙂

How about the Beatles and the dungeon man loop?

I knew about the Star Spangled Banner in Jackie’s Cafe for a while, but I never knew about the Little Rascals Theme.

The Monty Python theme is actually “Liberty Bell March” by John Phillip Sousa. Regardless, I will never hear the song the same again.

I associate it with Frank…I call it “Frank’s Music”

This is a cool little tidbit of musical info, though.

Oh, also, the naming screen song plays in the credits for the American GameBoy Camera.

!!!

Wow. I learn more about Earthbound every day from this blog.

Took me a while to be able to match up the sample from Monty Python, though. I had to put on my studio headphones and listen to it like five times over. If the room wasn’t so quiet I probably wouldn’t have been able to hear it. Man, who figured that one out?!

http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/EarthBound_-_Hidden_references/id/5549000

Hey, the “weak enemy” song sounds a lot like Tequila. Did you know that?

Sorry, couldn’t resist. 😛

if you put Rockin’ K.K. in your cd player in AC, it sounds a lot like the hippie battle

Obvious comment is obvious (also unrelated to Earthbound): Mr Batty Twist’s intro is from Batman.

Also, Leder’s gymnopedie is in fact Satie’s.

And don’t get me started on Mr. and Lord Passion!

Pimpshi: see here and here

The Monty Python theme song is “The Liberty Bell” by John Philip Sousa. I have it as a ring tone.

Intresting, I could never find the National Anthem when I tried to edit Jackies Cafe In the EB music Editor for my PK hack….

Also, I always knew some way or another that the naming screen music was a Monty Python reference……

And I never knew until today about the Moonside and Sky runner…..

This is amazing. I didn’t know about a lot of these. So that’s why Earthbound can’t get released on VC. I wish they’ll finally get licensing ready and release it already!

Holy crap..

BTW, that song sounds great, excluding the whole trippy intro, too :O

Stupid buggy browser, it messed up my comment! :O

“Silent Night (the Christmas song) and Bed and Breakfast from EarthBound/MOTHER2 (the music that plays when getting up in the hotel) are similar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmAzdT7OvYY

Silent Night (on guitar, but still Silent Night XD)

http://starmen.net/mother2/music/028-%20Earthbound%20-%20Bed%20and%20Breakfast.mp3

Bed and Breakfast”

Mato said on Feb. 13, 2009
Pimpshi: see here and here

I shat bricks.

A while ago I noticed a similarity between Dinosaur Jr’s Poledo and one of the songs that plays during the Giygas battle.

Interesting… I was listening to Pollyanna (none-lyrical version) and my mum said she had herd of it and began singing the intro a little accept instead of “I believe the morning sun” she sang “Maybe we could fall in love” I asked her if she remembered the name of the song or even the singer but she didn’t… shame I really wanna know now XD

In addition to the already mentioned Sgt. Pepper (reprise) drum loop in the Dungeon Man music, the scary music from the Cave of the Past is actually the intro of All You Need Is Love. Well, it’s La Marseillaise, the French national anthem, but the sample is taken from AYNIL which begins with the opening phrase of La Marseillaise.

I’ve read most of your posts here from January 2008 to the present. This one is by far the most interesting. It is made all the more amazing because of the inclusion of the songs to hear in a way that is very conveniently user-friendly. From the bottom of my heart, from the depths of my loins, I encourage you to expand this as much as possible, as soon as possible. I’m just a random passerby, but I cannot stress my feelings on this enough to you.

Don’t worry, like I mentioned, I plan to make a much bigger list at some point. I posted these because I just happened to have the MP3s and links lying around, I’m gonna have to do some searching to find music for all the other stuff first.

I remember playing EB for the first time and after talking to the lady in Jackie’s cafe she says “sounds like they are singing take me out to the ball game” I actually paid attention and couldnt hear it, but I DID hear star spangled banner.

On a random note, maybe if paul McCartney loves earthbound he could take care of all the music copyright issues NOJ might have.

Actually, it’s NOA that has copyright issues, NCL/NOJ doesn’t see why stuff needs to be changed or doesn’t feel like investing the time to make the changes. So it’s NOA that most wants the issues fixed.

Am I the only one who finds that Jackie’s Cafe sounds sorta creepy? Like if you were in a dark room and that started playing? 😀 Especially with the Little Rascals theme.

The New Age Retro Hippie music sounds an awful lot like Johnny B. Goode.

The store theme from Mother 2 owes a lot to a 1920s ragtime/blues number by the Dallas String Band called ‘Dallas Rag’ :http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&field-keywords=Dallas%20String%20Band%20Dallas%20Rag&page=1&url=search-alias%3Ddigital-music

I don’t know quite how to explain this. I can’t find the music files to back it up, but I’ve always felt that part of the Dungeon melody from A Link to the Past was used, I THINK, in the zombie Threed theme. Dun dun dun dun, dun dun… Am I crazy?

This has been haunting me forever, and I just recently solved it: “Because I Love You” – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_WCzMax0Sc – is actually pretty strongly inspired by Beethoven’s Sonata no. 8 Pathetique – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klZYv-f9kCE. Not that they’d have any issues sampling that, though. I do believe it’s a few years past copyright protection!

Wow, lots of blogs are latching onto this post.

I thought I would add that the song played after drinking the cup of coffee in Saturn Valley bears a striking resemblance to a King Crimson song, The Court of the Crimson King. Hears a link to both songs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cJqFc-wRhw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSe_A3VQXso

Now I can’t unhear the monty python theme!! GAAH!

You know I’m ashamed to say it’s been several long years since I played through earthbound, and at the time I wasn’t a Beatles fan, but I’ve heard that the Tessie music is just the intro from Strawberry fields…must. . . find . . sample

Im surprised no one has mentioned the cave of the past accessed from the lost underworld (where you learn Starstorm Omega) – the beginning of all you need is love by the beatles. not originally i know, but I’m sure thats what itoi intended

Yeah that Tessie/Strawberry fields thing turned out to be a bust, thank GOD for Youtube videos, although I did notice some similiarites in the Tessie horn music to the horn playing from “for no one,” and the ending fanfare sounded nigh identical to the end of “With a little help from my friends”

Unless we are planning to get the written permission (or something, too tired to thing) of everyone possibly needed to avoid a nintendo-music lawsuit, there’s really no point in going on with this now is there?

I’m assuming they avoided lawsuits the first time around, I say just release it and hope for the best!

I’ve got one for you: Finding Nemo samples Earthbound Zero.

The scene after Nemo is captured and Marlin is swimming in vain to try to catch up to the boat has a song that has opening notes exactly like a song from EBZ. I’m not sure exactly which song it was, as I haven’t played in a while, but I think it was the Poltergeist song.

I did mention it Rusty!

Some people don’t seem to understand the difference between samples and quotes. Sampling is when you take an actual bit of audio from somewhere, for example the drums from Sgt. Pepper or the horns from the start of All You Need Is Love. A quote is like the bit of Star Spangled Banner, it’s a piece of melody that is making an appearance. Not by having been taken from a recording but having been written in by the composer.

Also the beginning of one of the Fight music songs is also the beginning to Trans Europe Express by Kraftwerk

The trumpet guy in Onette plays a bit of Dvorak’s New World Symphony, 2nd movement. I think his sprite is holding a sax, I don’t remember

Humouresque of a Little Dog is a pretty clean lift of Alice’s Restaurant.

I’m not sure if this is like any Earthbound track… but it does ring a bell

http://www.imeem.com/people/cAoidiw/music/Sqokz0KJ/jah_shaka_eyes_of_the_lion/

I know there’s another reggae-like track, which is in one of the houses in Onett — but I’m Not relating that one to this song.. it’s either from somewhere else or nowhere at all

OBJECTION: Animal crossing has similiar music as well.

I think for the Monty Python song, you mean 23 seconds instead of 3 seconds.

As stated here before, don’t forget the beatles! In addition to being parts of the naming screen (defaults), there’s cave of the past (all you need is love) and dungeon man (sgt peppers).. plus a few more if I recall.

Sephy: Yeah, I actually went and covered things in more detail here.

I still wish that NOA would give more recognition to the series though.

Here’s another audio similarity:
Kraken’s song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D20dF5Ao1mE
Ships Ahoy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2d4DSANHOk

44:14 of http://static.youku.com/v1.0.0025/v/swf/qplayer.swf?VideoIDS=XMTEwMzE4Mjg=&embedid=-&showAd=0

1:41 of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwCmj8neudI

(heh, strange with the 1-4 coincidence)

Wow, no wonder they can’t get Earthbound on the VC. Copyrights everywhere.

Is it ironic that GamesRadar appears to have stolen this article from you?

Heh, oh well.

The Jackie’s café thing is new to me, thanks!
When I played Earthbound for the first time, and i was at the screen where you name the characters and stuff. While I was thinking of funny names for them i heard a very familiar theme in the background music. When i realised it was Monty Python’s Flying Circus theme i thought: Woa, this game must be awesome! (and it was, and is)
Another great one is the desert theme, it’s pretty much the same as the drums in Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band Reprise by the Beatles!

Hehe. I always thought the Sky Runner theme was missing a “YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!”.

Is there any download for this??? There should be, it would be cool!!!

@Vile

I don’t think that the Kraken’s song should be included in any similarity comparisons.

I’ve looked at the data for the song, as well as several midis, and the main lead for the Kraken’s theme is just a basic acid sequence where the music hits the same note but in a different octave in sequence. (C1 C2 C3, etc, E1 E2 E3) As someone who’s into electronica, I can tell anybody here that they’re going to be looking forever if they try to find a similarity for that song. Countless Acid, Trance, DnB, and Dance songs use the effect.

@D

I agree. Also, it reminds me more of the Who song “905”.

I DO NOT hear any resemblence between the naming screen and that Monty Python song.

I can’t believe the New Age Retro Hippie song isn’t on hear. It sounds a bit like the song “Johnny Be Good”

I was listening to Rush’s 2112 today and the intro reminded me of the beginning of Earthbound minus the cricket sounds.

Doing a run-through and noticed a bit of a similarity between the Summers theme:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FidFQjZJlUM
and San Tropez by Pink Floyd:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkRcwqxLEuk

I kept hearing a similarity to the Winters Theme
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiGfjOLF_j0
and Sexy Sadie by the Beatles.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8vWSlOXMBE

The similarity is the bass riff at the very beginning of both songs, other than that nothing really but It really strikes me each time I hear the song.

I kept hearing a similarity to the Winters Theme
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiGfjOLF_j0
and Sexy Sadie by the Beatles.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8vWSlOXMBE
The similarity is the bass riff at the very beginning of both songs, other than that nothing really but It really strikes me each time I hear the song.

sorry for the double post (this making it a triple)

hi usars

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1 this is sgt dungeon

Bricks were indeed shat when noticing the Star-Spangled Banner.

Most of those are real reaches I’d say. The ones that aren’t are the comparisons to the Star Spangled Banner, a public domain piece of music, and the Liberty Bell March (which you labeled as the Monty Python’s Flying Circus theme song), which is also public domain (otherwise the Pythons wouldn’t have used it, I’d imagine).

One of the reasons why Earthbound has songs that resemble The Beatles is because Itoi like The Beatles.
Summers sounds alot like Dear John. Also, Mother was named after Mother You Had Me. Go to this guys channle to see Earthbound and Beatles Similarites.

http://www.youtube.com/user/MotherYouHadMe#p/u/1/7RtXJjQ6flg

when it comes to Jackie’s Cafe, I never noticed the little rascals but i always noticed the star spangled banner. from the instant I heard it. it made me think old fashioned TV or maybe reflections of times before I was born like maybe a dirty record in the background. it was very comforting. and now with the little rascals it makes me think even more. old fashioned TV. (or just old fashioned USA)

The Star Spangeled banner creeps me out… alot… lol. It really sounds like the programmers were high…

Threed after the zombies are gone shares the same progression with “Tomorrow never knows” by the Beatles.

mudmen by pink floyd also kind of reminded me of the coffee song.

The ones in the article are pretty good, but a lot of the links posted here are a definite stretch. It’s disgusting that this game isn’t seeing VC release because of what are ultimately a handful of passing resemblances and a few little musical references.

I’d also like to note that the Jackie’s cafe music also seems to contain the bassline from “Habanera”, the Carmen opera theme, or at least a bit of it. I love all the textures going on in the Jackie’s cafe music, it’s like some sort of jukebox hell going on in there with all the sounds, samples, etc.

This is probably why Nintendo of America hasn’t released Earthbound on the Virtual Console. Nintendo doesn’t want to get copyright issues for it’s music.

The monty python sounded exactlly like the earthbound clip!

So this is more of a current song (came out in 1997), but I still hear elements of Earthbound all over the place in Land Of The Loops song “Party Pooper”:

http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/s/Party+Pooper/2Eh7Z9

^^^ It came out in 2000 actually, my bad.

Save the Miners! and Trans Europe Express by Kraftwerk.

You guys do realize that this is bogus…. these “samples” aren’t exact samples; furthermore they would fall under the catagory of parody, meaning that they don’t need the artist permission in order to use. This is just a sad excuse more than it is a reason. Nintendo is more afraid of the game not selling than they are of being sued.

Some are definitely direct samples though (although lowered in quality for the SNES), specifically the ones mentioned in this post. The fact that an SNES game has music samples simply blows my mind–this game was ahead of its time in every way.

(sorry for the double-post)
Nintendo afraid of it not selling? I seriously doubt it–I’m pretty sure Nintendo is beyond that now. They’re certainly aware that it’s one of, if not the, most demanded VC release and this has even been acknowledged many times in Nintendo Power magazine. Not to mention, they’ve already released plenty of other titles that people wouldn’t care about nearly as much. Plus, Super Smash Bros. and the Internet has certainly boosted up Earthbound’s popularity. There is some other reason why this is not being released, whether it be legal or otherwise.

Damn, do you guys listen to rap/hip hop music? 90% of the samples are stolen straight away and yet nobody really cares. And i’m talking about very well known artists, like Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, 2Pac and also indie hip hop. If you change a couple of notes, that seems the case in earthbound there isn’t any trouble at all. Vanilla Ice got away with it and so did million of famous rap artists…

at first, i didn’t hear the monty python one.
but when i heard it i was like, “EARTHBOUND!!! THIS IS WHY I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!”

The music for the New Age Retro Hippie and Frank reminds me of Back to the Future for some reason.

I totally agree with the Mudmen by Pink Floyd, I was listening to it for the first time and I immediately thought the Coffee song from Earthbound used this as an influence!

You should add that one!

The sound stone backbeat is clearly sampled from John Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance”

I think the holders of the copyrighted music would be honored to have their music featured in EB

i don’t know about you but hearing the star spangled banner song distorted like that is really creepy

but that’s not the biggest reason that made me freak out,go to the town gate in Animal crossing Wild World (DS),doesn’t that sound a bit like the Star spangled Banner too?

Actually nintendo sampled already even before eb and eb0. I am serious. I’m going to make a list of how many I know so far.

Mega man 1-Elec Man is Journey’s”Faithfully”
ActRaiser’s Ending is 20th century fox theme
Final Fantasy 7’s Costa Del Sol is Carlos Santana’s”Oye Como Va”
Chrono Trigger’s Robo’s theme is Rick Astley’s Never gonna give you up/ RICK ROLL!

So pretty much NOA is just pointing at the MOTHER series for no reason at all. It might be even necessary if you tell NOA that with the list of songs.

^ None of those games are first-party Nintendo titles. Final Fantasy VII wasn’t even released on a Nintendo console!

Well still even though i mistaken that, it is video games, but I’m not sure if the nes and the snes games are on the VC. If so then why are they focusig on EarthBound?

That song in the background at Jackie’s Cafe is actually the old drinking song, “Anacreon in Heaven” which was used as the base for “The Star-Spangled Banner”. Jackie’s Cafe was originally Boris’ bar, so it makes more sense that a drinking song would be playing. ^.^

If I recall correctly, one of the musicians actually mentions that it’s the Star Spangled Banner he used, but that’s a cool connection, maybe he did it without thinking.

Uh, Cube the Starman, Elecman’s theme song is “All the Right Friends” by REM. And if the composer’s to be believed, Robo’s song was made without any knowledge that Rick Astley existed.

Anyway, I think there’s a legal difference between sampling (actually using clips of songs in your music) and just ripping off music. You can rip off music and have it be legal pretty easily.

It seems a lot of people are wandering why Mother and Mother 3 aren’t on VC, but they see about EarthBound. Well Mother’s hippy song id the only proboblem so they should just change that and bam bam boo. But Mother 3 has many things. As many as you know Lord Passions theme is many classical themes. Mr.Batty’s twist is Bat Mans theme. HIs Highness’s theme is the theme to space invaders and Godzillas theme (Probobly a coincedence). Leader’s gymnepodies is a old piano song called gymnepodies. NK cyborg theme is in debate. It can be Dr.Willy’s theme, Beat it, or elenor rigby. A dude looks like Mr. T. At the begining of “Isn’t this such a Utopia is the 20th century fox theme.That’s all I know. see here: http://earthboundcentral.com/2009/08/some-mother-3-music-simularities/

guess what the link doesn’t work, so don’t even bother

@Anonymous, samling is no different then stealing/making a refrence. EB is doing the same thing.

How come I can’t comment on the big follow up page?

@RadicOmega Read the last comments on that article

@Zoom (This is RO) oh i see. But MR. SATURN was the childish one. Anonymous was being sarcastic. And That was the fifth time Rock asked Mato to disable stuff

I don’t see what the problem is with the Belch’s factory song. It sounds like the music in MOTHER when you are in Duncan’s rocket Factory. And apparently it’s a strong resemblance to Pink Floyd. If anything the beginig just sounds like a factory

I don’t see why people think this is an interesting/fun thing.

This is literally a lawsuit. The APE team thought that the japanese wouldn’t catch the illegal copying/sampling because the songs are American…

This is definitely 100% against the law and shows the lack of creativity the musical team who worked on the game has.

God damn ;_; my favorite song in the whole game (name select screen) turned out to be ripped from some monty python song?? 🙁

This whole thing is bad, and if people would have known about it when EB was just released I gurantee some of the bands would have sued and this would have been all over the media. (at least that didn’t happen 🙂 )

I really wouldn’t say it was a lack of the music team at all. They were giving musical homages to America and songs the could be heard in America. Its artistic and talented in the way the music was done, because they did musical homages.

Maybe this could get those songs publicty? like maybe some random kid plays it and then they here it in those songs, and go buy them maybe, but there is nothing wrong with homages or parodys, heck the game can be a parody itself sometimes

yeah I noticed some of this when I went to cleaveland I played earthbound in the car so is this why earthbound can’t be in america?

Here’s how America can get EarthBound and Nintendo can avoid any lawsuits, and it’s sooooooo easy:

REMAKE
THE
F’ING
GAME

No eb on vc is not worse than 9/11 one awesome game does not compute into thosands of lives but still no eb on vc is still a tragdy.

Part of the Moonside (when your in the club) has a part of the national anthem of america

I was a preetty big Little Rascals fan when I was a littrle kid. (My dad got me into it,despite the fact that I was born in ’96.) When I was in Jackie’s cafe I was holding the speed up button so I didnt notice anything (was using ZSNES). Everything I have heard cant be “unheard”. The little Rascals theme kinda freaked me out when I heard it sampled.

Oh, and I had absolutely no idea what you meant by how it sampled Monty python. (I’ve also never watched any monty python before.) I thought the stuff at the beginning was the sound of people laughing and talking, then I listened really hard.

Hey Mato,

I don’t know if you’re read this (I hope you, or someone else does), but the Summers theme is heavily inspired by a Hall and Oates song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOLqqSmwZOk

I guess not many Mother fans dig early H&O. Apparently someone in Japan did.

Someone has 2 fix the sky runner vid

How has no one noticed the similarities between the Sky Runner theme and the opening intro to “Magic” by The Cars?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfC7z26c9QI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2Bsl7P6h0c

I actually believe it fits WAY better than then Won’t Get Fooled Again by the Who.

The Hint guy’s theme is basically Pass The Dutchie by Musical Youth.

THIS VIDEO DOES NOT EXIST 🙁

I was just watching “Stephen Fry’s 100 Greatest Gadgets”. When it got to gadget no.85-4, I could have sworn I heard the Earthbound theme for selecting a file, specifically only the first 2 second opening of the tune that sounds 8-bit.

Did the show “Stephen Fry’s 100 Greatest Gadgets” use Earthbound music? Or was the ‘Select file’ melody yet another sampled arrangement?

The shop store theme also copies When I’m 64 by The Beatles.