Enya Appreciation

[Crumb]

I know I can't be the only one here who listens to Enya. It is the ultimate in relaxation and escape to a better world music. I just loaded her stuff onto my new mp3 player and am listening to Memory of Trees and the amazing track Anywhere Is.

This reminds me to check and see if she has anything new out.

Magical and fantastic stuff.

[Legs]

Enya was playing the first time Widget and I had sex.

[Crumb]

Lucky widget.

[Legs]

Enya has been replaced by the Golf Channel now.

[Crumb]

That's so sad.

[Dingfod]

You're not alone Crumb. I've had an ongoing [imaginary] love affair with Enya since I first heard "Orinoco Flow (Sail Away)" on my company truck radio back in early 1989.

[Ari]

...But brings now meaning to hole in one.


...sorry back to Enya.

[Plant Woman]

I too enjoy Enya.

[godfry n. glad]

The first time I heard Enya was with 'Orinoco Flows'...or thought it was the first time. When I mentioned it to my wife, she said "Yeah, I heard that, too. I know I know that voice."

After hearing the new Enya releases, she finally remembered...it's Eithne Ni Bhraonain (Enya Brennan), from the Celtic musical group Clannad. Since she was in to Irish and Scottish music so deeply, I figured she was spot on. Plus, she had an excellent ear for music.

I subsequently became embroiled in a minor disagreement over whether Enya was a new vocal artist or whether she'd been around. I used my wife as a source; her veracity was disputed. It wasn't until a short bio of Enya became available that it was made clear to the listening public that she'd done background vocals with Clannad (a group of mostly her family members, actually) since the early to mid 1980s.

It was curious that shortly before the release of her first solo album, Volkswagen was using a Clannad tune in one of their advertisements...with her distinctive voice, of course.

I haven't listened to my Enya CDs in quite some time. Her music has come to have a certain 'sameness' to it, as though one album is sufficient to serve as a sample of her work.

[SharonDee]

I listen to my XM Radio's "Audio Visions" channel and Enya gets played there quite a bit. I hear all this other stuff that, while beautiful, I generally don't recognize. Then they play Enya and it's like coming home.

[viscousmemories]

I like Enya. I've been listening to Shepherd Moons when I go to bed for the last week or so.

[Crumb]

The albums I have are The Memory of Trees, Shepard Moons, A Day Without Rain and Watermark. All very much worth the money. Looks like there is a new one out: Amarantine. It's on my too buy list.

[The Lone Ranger]

I like Enya's music -- it's hauntingly beautiful and has a very etherial quality to it. She was the perfect choice to compose and perform some of the "Elvish" music in The Fellowship of the Ring. (Heck, give her pointed ears, and she could easily have played an Elf in the movie.)


I do have to agree that a lot of her songs begin to sound the same after awhile though, so I have to be in the right mood to listen to her music. Having said that, "Orinoco Flow" is just so danged catchy! And so is "Harry's Game" [the "Volkswagon song"], though in a different way.


If you like Enya, you might enjoy the music of Loreena McKennitt. Her voice can be just as hauntingly beautiful as Enya's, in my opinion, but McKennitt's albums tend to be a bit more musically diverse.


Cheers,

Michael

[Crumb]

Loreena McKennitt

Thanks, Michael! I'll look her up.

[inland wave]

Originally Posted by Crumb

Thanks, Michael! I'll look her up.

Thanks for the tip Michael!

[Godwhacker]

I'm a big Enya fan. Memory of Trees was her best. Sadly, I did not like her most recent album nearly as much. Amarantine (which sounds like a medication) just was not up to her usual standards, in my opinion.

[Crumb]

Amarantine (which sounds like a medication) just was not up to her usual standards, in my opinion.

Well I just put it on hold at the library (along with some Loreena McKennitt) I'll let you know what I think. (I know you must be on the edge of your seat now!)

[Plant Woman]

I love Loreena's balads. Her story telling in song is great.

[Anastasia Beaverhausen]

Love both of them!

[Shake]

Enya's one of those artists where you don't even have to know what she's singing to appreciate its beauty. I'm not sure I'd even want to know what some of the songs are about. It might spoil them. I found Enya good to study to, so long as I wasn't sleepy. I could just let the music be in the background and not be thinking about the lyrics.

[erimir]

Eh.

Her music is ok, but I find it somewhat boring.

[The Lone Ranger]

I looked up a few of Loreena McKennitt's "videos" on YouTube, if anyone's interested.


The first is actually a clip from the movie Highlander III. I wasn't terribly impressed by the movie, but that song ("Bonny Portmore") so struck me that I stayed to watch all of the credits so that I could find out who the singer was. I then went straight to the music store and bought my first Loreena McKennitt album.

It's a very sad song, about the cutting of the Great Oak of Portmore, which stood on the grounds of Portmore Castle, Ireland. Much of Ireland's forests were destroyed to provide timber for the British (read English) shipyards.



The next song is "The Bonny Swans." The song is based on an old Irish fable: love, betrayal, murder -- all that good stuff. Unfortunately, the video has a couple of gaps.


Probably my favorite of Loreena McKennitt's songs is "All Soul's Night." Somebody used it to make a "music video," though I'll be danged if I know what the video has to do with the song, which is about harvest festivals and remembering the dead. (McKennitt does say that the song was inspired by Japanese festivals honoring the dead, so maybe that helps explain the fan video. I dunno.)


My second-favorite of Loreena McKennitt's songs is "The Mummers' Dance." Whoever made this "music video" did it by stringing together clips from the "Lord of the Rings" movies. The video doesn't really match the mood of the song in my opinion, but Loreena's singing is the real attraction anyway.


She has her own record label, called Quinlan Road.

Cheers,

Michael

Bonny Portmore
by Loreena McKennitt

O Bonny Portmore, I am sorry to see
Such a woeful destruction of your ornament tree
For it stood on your shore for many's the long day
Till the long boats from Antrim came to float it away.

O Bonny Portmore, you shine where you stand
And the more I think on you, the more I think long
If I had you now, as I had once before
All the Lords in Old England would not purchase Portmore.

All the Birds in the forest, they bitterly weep
Saying "where shall we shelter; where shall we sleep?"
For the Oak and the Ash they all cutten down
And the walls of Bonny Portmore are all down to the ground.

O Bonny Portmore, you shine where you stand
And the more I think on you, the more I think long
If I had you now, as I had once before
All the Lords in Old England would not purchase Portmore.

The Bonny Swans
by Loreena McKennitt

A farmer there lived in the north country
a hey ho bonny o
He had daughters one, two, three
The swans swim so bonny o
These daughters they walked by the river's brim
a hey ho bonny o
The eldest pushed the youngest in
The swans swim so bonny o

Oh sister, oh sister, pray lend me your hand
a hey ho a bonny o
And I will give you house and land
the swans swim so bonny o
I'll give you neither hand nor glove
a hey ho a bonny o
Unless you give me your own true love
the swans swim so bonny o

Sometimes she sank, sometimes she swam
with a hey ho and a bonny o
Until she came to a miller's dam
the swans swim so bonny o
The miller's daughter, dressed in red
with a hey ho and a bonny o
She went for some water to make some bread
the swans swim so bonny o

Oh father, oh daddy, here swims a swan
with a hey ho and a bonny o
It's very like a gentle woman
the swans swim so bonny o

They placed her on the bank to dry
with a hey ho and a bonny o
There came a harper passing by
the swans swim so bonny o

He made harp pins of her fingers fair
a hey ho and a bonny o
He made harp strings of her golden hair
the swans swim so bonny o
He made a harp of her breast bone
a hey ho and a bonny o
And straight it began to play alone
the swans swim so bonny o

He brought it to her father's hall
with a hey ho and a bonny o
And there was the court, assembled all
the swans swim so bonny o
He laid the harp upon a stone
a hey ho and a bonny o
And straight it began to play alone
the swans swim so bonny o

There does sit my father the King
a hey ho and a bonny o
Yonder sits my mother the Queen
the swans swim so bonny o
And there does sit my brother Hugh
with a hey ho and a bonny o
And by him William, sweet and true
the swans swim so bonny o
And there does sit my false sister, Anne
with a hey ho and a bonny o
Who drowned me for the sake of a man
the swans swim so bonny o

All Soul's Night
by Loreena McKennitt

Bonfires dot the rolling hills
Figures dance around and around
To drums that pulse out echoes of darkness
Moving to the pagan sound.

Somewhere in a hidden memory
Images float before my eyes
Of fragrant nights of straw and of bonfires
And dancing till the next sunrise.

I can see lights in the distance
Trembling in the dark cloak of night
Candles and lanterns are dancing, dancing
A waltz on All Soul's Night.

Figures of cornstalks bend in the shadows
Held up tall as the flames leap high
The green knight holds the holly bush
To mark where the old year passes by.

I can see lights in the distance
Trembling in the dark cloak of night
Candles and lanterns are dancing, dancing
A waltz on All Soul's Night.

Bonfires dot the rolling hillsides
Figures dance around and around
To drums that pulse out echoes of darkness
And moving to the pagan sound.

Standing on the bridge that crosses
The river that goes out to the sea
The wind is full of a thousand voices
They pass by the bridge and me

The Mummers' Dance
by Loreena McKennitt

When in the springtime of the year
When the trees are crowned with leaves
When the ash and oak, and the birch and yew
Are dressed in ribbons fair

When owls call the breathless moon
In the blue veil of the night
The shadows of the trees appear
Amidst the lantern light

We've been rambling all the night
And some time of this day
Now returning back again
we bring a garland gay

Who will go down to those shady groves
And summon the shadows there
And tie a ribbon on those sheltering arms
In the springtime of the year

The songs of birds seem to fill the wood
That when the fiddler plays
All their voices can be heard
Long past their woodland days

And so they linked their hands and danced
Round in circles and in rows
And so the journey of the night descends
When all the shades are gone

"A garland gay we bring you here
And at your door we stand
It is a sprout well budded out
The work of Our Lord's hand"