Good Lord, how amazing is Enya?
I’ll save you some time.
Very.
I tend to play music in my car. If I find an album I like, I just play it over and over again until the lyrics stay in my head through wakefulness and dreaming.
One of the best albums that has ever been, and will ever be, in my car, was Paint The Sky With Stars. Every song, a delight. Cannot recommend it highly enough.
One of my characters decides to use an Enya song to reconnect with her husband in Book Three. It’s a good choice. Barry White can be intimidating. Boadicea is perfect.
I absolutely love the song. It’s been sampled by everyone and with good reason. Haunting and divine, it’s a total cracker. I’m sure I read somewhere that one of the reasons Enya doesn’t tour is because there are something like fifty layers of vocals on her songs, it would be hard to replicate in an arena.
Go ahead – give it a listen…
When I was little, perhaps six or seven, a song came on the radio while my Dad was picking up fish and chips. I’d never heard anything like it, and tried desperately to replay it by hitting rewind on the tape deck, little realising I was just scrolling back through the switched-off Best of Abba. The song finished before my Dad came back to the car and I was distraught because he wouldn’t be able to listen to it with me.
I think I had a crack at singing it to him myself but I was six and not musically-gifted. My not singing it would have been as useful and my trying. It was Orinoco Flow, which, at the time, I believed was called Sailor Way. Because I was six.
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My Dad, who was the kindest man in the world, went into work and hummed it to the women in the office. They knew the song well, so despite my Dad’s slightly embarrassed attempt at replicating my admittedly poor rendition, they were able to identify the tune. It was some time later, at a loss regarding Christmas presents, a word was had, and my godmother bought me the album.
Best. Present. Ever.
There you have it. Day #74 in the best of things: Enya.