RPGSite: Before we move on, you also worked on the music of Final Fantasy X - you wrote the English lyrics for ‘Otherworld’, another brave but successful departure for Square Enix. Can you tell us about the genesis of that particular song and whether you had a hand in translating any songs for X-2?
Alex: The song came to me almost fully formed from Nobuo Uematsu, with a guide track to indicate where the lyrics were to go. The lyrics were loosely based on The Song of Wandering Aengus by W. B. Yeats, and the singer, Bill Muir, was the frontman of a death metal band active in Tokyo at the time. Interestingly enough, the spoken section in the middle of the song was originally just going to be a guitar solo, but the temporary base track Uematsu had inserted sounded just like the guide track used elsewhere to indicate lyrics, albeit more staccato,
so I assumed it was one of those Limp Bizkit-style breakdowns and wrote in words. Uematsu was gracious enough to include the unintended results!