Hope Has a Place

Album version

4:48

English

1995

Liner notes

Hope has a place in the lover’s heart.

If love was always kind there would be no need to worry for those who begin this journey. On Love or the loss of it, no amount of advice or reason can ultimately protect the one who loves from pain or from the disappointment of loss. We hurt so much because we love so much.

This is a wish that love may be kind, and if it should not be, that the one precious feeling held captive in Pandora’s box may find it’s place in the lover’s heart.

notes by Roma Ryan
The Memory of Trees promotional box, 1995

A song of love’s beginning. A song of first love.
notes by Roma Ryan
Only Time: The Collection, 2002

I wrote this for my daughter, Ebony. At the time she had reached the age when love comes charging into your life. I think teenage years are a hard period to go through, all the freedom of childhood is gone, and you are trying to find out who you are in a sometimes cruel world. Love and relationships are something parents worry about when it comes to their own children. Most people are sensitive to life and to others, and are therefore fragile (I say most, as I know some people who are not). Most hearts are easily broken. You would do anything in your power to save those you love from having to endure painful times. But it isn’t possible to do that. Each person must learn and live life for themselves. That’s the whole point. You continue to learn all through your life, it doesn’t end. This song is a reassurance, a support, a hope, an optimism. In truth, I probably wrote it to reassure myself, as much as for Ebony’s sake.
notes by Roma Ryan
Roma’s book @ enya.com, 2005

Quotes about the song

Enya: This was another case of the lyric coming first. Roma was visiting the north of Ireland on the way back home to Belfast. She had read about a beautiful place called the Silent Valley in the Mourne Mountains in County Down. She wrote the lyric while she was there. “Hope has a place in the lover’s heart.” A love song? It was actually a song about love, as opposed to a love song. There is hope when it doesn’t work out, or someone has lost a loved one. I wrote the melody, but I had to see the Silent Valley. Nicky and I went to visit the Silent Valley, and he decided to record the lead voice there. If you listen, there’s a different atmosphere around that lead vocal.
Enya & The Memory of Trees, Gavin, 1996
enyabookofdays.com

Trivia

The lead vocal was recorded outdoors in the Silent Valley, Ireland.

Lyrics

lyrics by Roma Ryan
EMI Music Publishing Ltd, 1995