Album version 3:44 English 2008
Radio edit 3:09 English 2008

Quotes about the song

Enya: The song ‘Trains and winter rains’ is like a dark winter journey and I think everybody has taken this journey where it’s time to leave home. It’s exciting but because it is the unknown, that’s why we wanted to capture the little dark aspects in both the lyric and in the music. I think that it’s important sometimes to move on. There is a time where people get too comfort in a zone and there’s a risk factor involved but go for it.

And Winter Came EPK, 2008
transcribed by enya.sk

“This track is my personal choice for the first single also” Enya says “I particularly enjoyed our percussion arrangement in this song.”
Enya.com news, 2008

Roma describes the song as a “journey from home that everyone must make when they start to get too comfortable. Enya said: “I find traveling by train gives you time to think and reflect. The rhythm of a train journey is particularly soothing; it allows you to listen to your thoughts, even plan the future, and daydream especially.” Also the gloves in the music video hold a special special significance for her: “I remember wearing gloves for the first time when I left home for College. They were my Mother’s gloves, and a source of comfort. For me, singing the lyric, I put my own memories into it.”

Top 40, 2008

…less Christmassy moments including Trains and Winter Rains. In the pipeline for around five years,
it is a piece Nicky Ryan is particularly fond of.
“I have been fighting with Enya to do it because there is a riff in it that I really like,” says Nicky. “She wrote the piece and I heard
this funky riff in it and I thought, ‘I want this.’ There is a slight darkness; it has an atmosphere which I love,” he smiles.

Music Week, 2008

Trivia

The song premiered on the BBC Radio 2 show Wake up to Wogan on the 29 September 2008.

The song features Agnus Dei, The Lamb of God, a Christian verse commonly heard in churches. The invocation to the Lamb of God is sung or recited during the fraction of the Host.

Single

‘Trains and Winter Rains’ was the first single from the album and the only one that got a physical release and a music video. It was officially released on November 10, 2008.

cover

01 Trains and Winter Rains [radio edit]


Music Video

The music video, directed by Rob O’Connor from Stylorouge with Mikkel Lundsager Hansen co-directing, tells a story of a young boy making a journey from home. The train station scenes were filmed in Heron Quays DLR station in London. The video became available on Enya’s official website on October 22, 2008.

Performances

Venue Date Details
Happy Xmas Show (Japan) Dec 24, 2008 Lip-synced
Sukkiri (Japan) Nov 27, 2008 Lip-synced
Children in Need Fundraiser (UK) Nov 15, 2008 Lip-synced
GMTV (UK) Nov 13, 2008 Lip-synced

Lyrics

City streets    passing by
Underneath     stormy skies

Neon signs     in the night
Red and blue     city lights
Cargo trains rolling by
Once again     someone cries

Trains and winter rains
No going back     no going home
Trains across the plains
And in the sky     a star alone

Every time     it’s the same
One more night     one more train
Everywhere     empty roads
Where they go no-one knows

Trains and winter rains
No going back     no going home
Trains across the plains
And in the sky     a star alone
Trains and winter rains
No going back     no going home
Trains across the plains
And in the sky     a star alone

Trains and winter rains
No going back     no going home
Trains across the plains
And in the sky     a star alone
Trains and winter rains
No going back     no going home
Trains across the plains
And in the sky     a star alone

lyrics by Roma Ryan
EMI Music Publishing Ltd, 2008