On October 14, Enya gave an exclusive interview in Killruddery House, Dublin, and answered questions submited by her Spanish fans.
The way I describe the difference between Enya album from ‘Amarantine’ to ‘Watermark’, ‘ Sheperds Moons’, … is that it’s basically series of stories and they are quite diverse, the stories. And there is another collection of stories on ‘Amarantine’. Twelve individual stories. It’s very interesting because one can be instrumental, another one in Japanese…
At the moment, I’ve just finished the album, just on Wednesday… Yes, this Wednesday night. I just feel it’d be unfair to sort of pick one to be the favorite piece of all, they are very, very close to me, the all of them. All express different emotions and feelings, so, at the moment I can’t choose a favourite.
It is only two years in making of this album, because I was involved in the promotion of ‘A Day Without The Rain’ for over a year, and then I got involved with the soundtrack of ‘The Lord of the Rings’, which took few months, and then promoting that. So then I took break in the summer 2002, so it was like early 2003 when I started to feel that it was the right time for returning to the studio.
It can vary so much what I am going to write about. I feel it’s nice not to impose anything or restrict myself in what I am going to write, so I feel I like the freedom to basically let the melody evolve, kind of go with this journey where it’s going to take me. It’s only when I finish the melody that I listen to it and ask “What am I describing? What am I saying?”. I can feel that it can be very visual for me. It is a combination, it is very difficult to know what will be the main inspiration.
It is, I think what is important is the inspiration can be, like I said, by going for a walk in the park, taking time to yourself, going for a walk to the beach, it can be a particular person that you know, it can be good time, bad times, you know it can vary so much… So I think that anything that’s kinda dear to you.
I think the way on arranging, I love to sound like myself, like my voice is my voice, so, and it is very dificult to change one’s voice. I feel that no matter what song it might be, even somebody else’s song, when I sing it sounds much like I. So I always kinda go again to the music, because there are different ways I sing on this album. When I sing ‘A Moment Lost’ it sounds to me more like an old type of song of years ago, and it is quite different from the song ‘Water Shows The Hidden Heart’, that perhaps sounds to me more classical. So quite different song and that is very interesting. For me, it is a challenge when I write the melody.
I would have to say I veer quite a bit to classical music. And it is quite there, you know on the arrangements, the strings, the pizzicatos…
It was such a wonderful project, The Lord of the Rings, because to begin with, it’s a book I read quite few years previous and I had heard about the movie being made. It is such a complex book so I felt it was very difficult to capture the whole essence of the book, but when I saw the first cut of the film in New Zealand it was wonderful and I wrote the songs ‘Aniron’ and ‘May It Be’. In addition, it was also fantastic because it gave me the oppotunity me to sing in Elvish. It is a fictional language, and Roma (Ryan) had studied it, it is very complex. It was an adorable project and I really enjoyed it a lot.
I get the opportunity when I do promotion, promotional tours, to do live performance for the songs. Like Amarantine I’ll be performing live. And when I recorded ‘May It Be’ in Abbey Road, the orchestra is there and when you hear the orchestra to actually play the music it is ‘wow, it is so wonderful’. So you know it is something I always as a musician hope to actually do. It is a way to listen to a different form of music because you cannot make it sound the same as on the album, so I hope that it happens soon.
I think there is a great passion here (in Ireland) for culture. It includes music, literature, … so I think it’s to do with celtic passion, so yes it’s very strong here.
Terra Music | October 28, 2005
trancribed by enya.sk
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