In a recent interview, legendary Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu divulged that “To Zanarkand”, the de facto theme of Final Fantasy X was actually a happy accident.
According to Uematsu, the song was originally written as a favor for a flute recital but was never used. As the deadline for Final Fantasy X approached, Uematsu was rushed for time and handed in the song. Luckily for him the producers loved it.
You can read a portion of the interview translated by Twitter user Aitaikimochi below.
Uematsu: “To Zanarkand” was actually not meant to be the theme for FFX. There was a flute player from France who originally asked me to write a song for them to play during a recital. When I wrote the piece, I thought perhaps this sounded a bit too sad for a recital. So I set it aside for the time being.
Sometime after, when I was making the score for FFX, I was falling behind all the while the Producers were hounding me. So since that flute piece was unused, I just kinda meekly handed it to them. They listened to it and said “Yes! This is brilliant!”
You can check out the full interview (in Japanese) below.
Uematsu has been Square’s foremost composer for decades. His most recent work is the main theme of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth titled “No Promises to Keep”.
