Pax Deorum

Album version

4:59

Latin/Gaelic

1995

Liner notes

Pax Deorum translates as “Peace of the Gods”. This Goodwill of the Gods expressed accord between ancient Rome and her Gods, maintaining a harmonious relationship between Man and Divinity. This concept, and variations of it, are echoed throughout history in other ages and cultures.

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

Quotes about the song

Enya: On this album I played light percussion and some strings. I played a little bit of cello and violin. I’m not a solo violinist, but I can play basic chords. It works well for layering sounds. The piano is still the main instrument. It’s there in every song, even if it’s not so apparent in the mix. Nicky loves to layer synthesizers and create a new sound that doesn’t singularly exist. That big, ominous sound in ‘Pax Deorum’ is an example – it’s a combination of blended sounds, not just one. It may sound like a live instrument, but it’s a combination of strings and synthesizers. Sometimes there’s a huge blend of voices doing string sections. People tend to think they’re strings, but we’re using the voices like an instrument.
Enya & The Memory of Trees, Gavin, 1996
enyabookofdays.com

Enya: Working on ‘Pax Deorum’ just before Christmas of last year, we felt we had to try. What we do in the studio is, we try everything, every idea. So there is a stage where you just cannot tell if you’re happy with the track or not. And what we do what we do is we leave it for as long as we can, maybe one, two, three months. So therefore when you go back, you can judge much, much better. (..) It actually went into a direction we weren’t too happy with. But we knew – and also with the work we had done – we could also tell what we wanted to achieve with it as well. So it was a matter of going back to sort of the basic melody, and spending another sort of two, three months, on it. But then when we went to listen back to it, we were then happy.
All Things Considered, NPR, 1996
enyabookofdays.com

Enya: When I played the melody to Roma, it was obvious that ‘Pax Deorum’ wasn’t going to be sung in English. It had a classic feel, and she felt that Latin has a classic feel lyric-wise. So, she suggested it, and it’s one of the things we do in the studio. We don’t question why, we just record it, and listen back to it.
Radio Interview, KSCA 101.9 FM, 1996
enyabookofdays.com

Trivia

An early version of the song appeared in the 1987 BBC documentary ‘The Celts.’

Latin lyrics

Translation

lyrics by Roma Ryan
EMI Music Publishing Ltd, 1995