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Post by manwe on Feb 27, 2019 7:28:55 GMT -5
I have to say, that DSI is not amongst my favourite albums. This are from Watermark to A Day Without Rain. But of course I like DSI very much, like every album of Enya I'll try to value the songs (1 - 5) and lose some words on every song ;-) The Humming - 2,5 / I never found a way to this opener. A solid starter though, but I miss the instrumental opener. So I could find my way - 4 / I like the lyrics and the melody, when I'm in the mood of such songs Even in the shadows - 5 / Great song, in its poppyness unusual to Enya, but adorable Forge of the Angels - 4 / I share the opinion of Moe. Usually I don't like Loxian songs and don't understand, why Enya does not use Gaelic either. But this one I like very much because of it's impulsive melody Echoes in Rain - 5 / Great song too. When the album came out, I used to play it to often. But after not listening to DSI for some month I again realised, what great song this is. Touch of Orinoce Flow. Could be my no. 1 song on DSI I could never say goodbye - 4 / Similar to SOCFMY for me. I like the lyrics. Dark Sky Island - 5 / Could also be my no. 1 song of DSI. Terrific arrangment, very nice lyrics, mysterious, stunning. Sancta Maria - 2,5 / Not really my favourite Astra et Luna - 3,5 / Nice one, I like the Latin songs a lot more than the Loxian ones The Loxian Gates - 3 / Nothing special to me Diamonds on the Water - 3,5 / Still I'm irritated because of this tone all the time (like clapping with woodstocks). Without this it would be the better song imho. Solace - 3 / Nice, but not more Pale Grass Blue - 4,5 / A really good song with nice lyrics and perfect arrangment. Excellent work of the three. Remember your smile - 3,5 / A solid closer
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Post by phantas on Feb 27, 2019 12:42:01 GMT -5
1) Dark Sky Island 2) Sancta Maria 3) Even in the Shadows The title tune is a real standout for me, and SM is a great follow up to it. Even in the Shadows has a crisp pop sound. The other songs are good, but these three are the standouts for me. Overall, DSI doesn't have the 'theme' or concept album feeling to me that, for instance, Watermark has, or TMOT or And Winter Came, where each song contributes to the feeling or mood of the whole. DSI is the most contemporary, pop-oriented album Enya's done--a collection of very fine songs, but each song stands by itself instead of unifying with every other song to create a concept. I disagree about the absence of a distinct theme - I hear a lot of water related stuff in songs like The Humming (a dark, stormy night on the oceans), Dark Sky Island obviously with its ebb-and flow rhythm and the references of the sea and the moon pulling on it, but also Astra et Luna which always makes me think of a ship at sea, trying to navigate its way using the stars. Obviously, there is a theme of darkness throughout! Night, obviously, but also darkness in the sense of personal darkness, emotional darkness. Even in the Shadows and Solace reflect that very well. SICFMW is a beautiful rendition of having some guidance through dark periods. ICNSG relates an internal melancholy (ICNSG to the sadness in my eyes). Sancta Maria could imho be taken as the sun rising , vanquishing the night. The Loxian songs are very spacial, as well as the Humming, there's a distinct feel of travelling through space or the universe. SO there's a third theme, the Universe and being a part of it. I've yet to come across an Enya album where EVERY single song related to a theme in an obvious way, so for me there's PLENTY of thematics on DSI.
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Post by Priscilla on Feb 27, 2019 18:47:06 GMT -5
For me DSI is a wonderful album. I have some favorite songs, like Solace, So I Could Find My Way and I Could Never Say Goodbye. But in general, I love the album. For me all the albums of Enya will always be incredible, always I have this reaction to each album released.
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Post by somnium on Mar 2, 2019 13:21:44 GMT -5
Don't get me wrong I love the album, but it's not one that I go back to. There a couple of songs that I can listen to on repeat, but I usually go back to my old loves. I usually hit next on a lot of the songs from the album, but sometimes it's the particular day and not the song that's the problem.
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Post by Moe on Mar 8, 2019 8:34:28 GMT -5
Likewise, som, I do enjoy DSI a lot - and it has grown on me over time since its release, but I generally listen to SM, TMOT and ADWR if I want a full album experience. However, I do make an enya playlist when a new album comes out, and then I can burn what, to me, are the best songs. And yes, the mood I am in and the kind of day it is do have a role to play.
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Dolores
Member
Happy autumn!
Posts: 57
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Post by Dolores on Mar 10, 2019 7:38:26 GMT -5
I, like Dom, love all of Enya's latest albums equally. DSI definitely had some highlights, however. I love the atmosphere and emotions in Solace and Remember Your Smile, but I love the depth of Echoes in Rain, Dark Sky Island and Diamonds on the Water. I was intriguiged by Pale Grass Blue because to me that was a new sound with new stylistics in lyrics: I even included it in my BA in English, regarding Celtic lyrics and their relationship with the folk ballad.
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Post by sempiternity on Mar 10, 2019 20:06:53 GMT -5
I think all of the Enya albums have wonderful songs and strong reasons to like/love them. Which ones are strongest to each of us perhaps depends on where we are in our lives. And our hopes/dreams. So I cannot argue with your preferences, only tell you mine. Dark Sky Island and Amarantine are currently my favorite two albums. Yes, that's somewhat offbeat. (What else is new?) My interpretation of DSI is that it consists of four sections. The first three songs are a prologue. The next two get us into the subtle narrative fully and are the first chapter of sorts. Then, I Could Never Say Goodbye and Dark Sky Island are the core of the album, the relatively short but difficult middle chapter. From Sancta Maria to Diamonds On The Water seems the third chapter, the resolution. Though as in Amarantine, the resolution is only partly explained and significantly obscured or ambiguous. The three 'bonus' songs seem to me to fit this scheme. I think Solace belongs among the prologue songs. Pale Grass Blue could be a reflective follow-on to the exultation of Echoes In Rain or perhaps it belongs at the very end of the album. Remember Your Smile is difficult to fit. Maybe it best belongs at the very end. As a fragmentary narrative, the album seems to me to start in a hard period of life of sorrowful separations and difficulties, yet determination not giving up on hopes and promises ("Even in the shadows/I turn around/To find you walk away"). Then there is the relief of a partial and painful but finally wonderful resolution ("Long journey home/never too late" "Everything flows/here comes another new day!/Alleluia!") resolving most of the difficulties. A relieved serenity and renewed certainty forms. This serenity and inner certainty grows, yet what was perhaps most sought or desired slips away again. "Night comes again." We are told the thing lacked is togetherness once known and now terribly yearned for. It becomes the central and unforgettable problem, reminded of at every turn ("And [the waves] whisper as they touch the shore/Come back to me/Come back to me"). The thing sought seems of an unusual kind; the dark midnight sky and stars on a seashore seem both metaphor for the inner condition involved as well as somehow preferable outward real places to search for signs, for answers. For whatever needs to happen. The song is the song indispensable to the album and crux of its themes and motifs and sensibility; it points to the songs and sense of narrative both before itself and after. And it can stand alone quite well. Enya doesn't give an easily intelligible shape to how this resolves, with four songs in different languages with four different emotional emphases providing a sense that it's complicated. But there is sense of relationship(s) made or recovered or restored and matured across the four or so songs. The serenity becomes complete and it shows as comfort and belonging, blessing and peace, maybe bliss ("Listen to my heart beat/As I lie dreaming.../Everywhere is whispering/The sound of summer.../The diamonds on the water/Are falling from the sun...") Maybe we are told more in Pale Grass Blue and Remember Your Smile, but it's hard to say. Hopefully the next album will tell us more....
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Post by Moe on Mar 10, 2019 20:30:40 GMT -5
I think all of the Enya albums have wonderful songs and strong reasons to like/love them. Which ones are strongest to each of us perhaps depends on where we are in our lives. And our hopes/dreams. So I cannot argue with your preferences, only tell you mine. Dark Sky Island and Amarantine are currently my favorite two albums. Yes, that's somewhat offbeat. (What else is new?) My interpretation of DSI is that it consists of four sections. The first three songs are a prologue. The next two get us into the subtle narrative fully and are the first chapter of sorts. Then, I Could Never Say Goodbye and Dark Sky Island are the core of the album, the relatively short but difficult middle chapter. From Sancta Maria to Diamonds On The Water seems the third chapter, the resolution. Though as in Amarantine, the resolution is only partly explained and significantly obscured or ambiguous. The three 'bonus' songs seem to me to fit this scheme. I think Solace belongs among the prologue songs. Pale Grass Blue could be a reflective follow-on to the exultation of Echoes In Rain or perhaps it belongs at the very end of the album. Remember Your Smile is difficult to fit. Maybe it best belongs at the very end. As a fragmentary narrative, the album seems to me to start in a hard period of life of sorrowful separations and difficulties, yet determination not giving up on hopes and promises ("Even in the shadows/I turn around/To find you walk away"). Then there is the relief of a partial and painful but finally wonderful resolution ("Long journey home/never too late" "Everything flows/here comes another new day!/Alleluia!") resolving most of the difficulties. A relieved serenity and renewed certainty forms. This serenity and inner certainty grows, yet what was perhaps most sought or desired slips away again. "Night comes again." We are told the thing lacked is togetherness once known and now terribly yearned for. It becomes the central and unforgettable problem, reminded of at every turn ("And [the waves] whisper as they touch the shore/Come back to me/Come back to me"). The thing sought seems of an unusual kind; the dark midnight sky and stars on a seashore seem both metaphor for the inner condition involved as well as somehow preferable outward real places to search for signs, for answers. For whatever needs to happen. The song is the song indispensable to the album and crux of its themes and motifs and sensibility; it points to the songs and sense of narrative both before itself and after. And it can stand alone quite well. Enya doesn't give an easily intelligible shape to how this resolves, with four songs in different languages with four different emotional emphases providing a sense that it's complicated. But there is sense of relationship(s) made or recovered or restored and matured across the four or so songs. The serenity becomes complete and it shows as comfort and belonging, blessing and peace, maybe bliss ("Listen to my heart beat/As I lie dreaming.../Everywhere is whispering/The sound of summer.../The diamonds on the water/Are falling from the sun...") Maybe we are told more in Pale Grass Blue and Remember Your Smile, but it's hard to say. Hopefully the next album will tell us more.... Thank you for this impressive analysis. There is much food for thought here, and tomorrow I will go through the album with your comments in mind
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Post by RichardF on Mar 11, 2019 2:49:41 GMT -5
I think all of the Enya albums have wonderful songs and strong reasons to like/love them. Which ones are strongest to each of us perhaps depends on where we are in our lives. And our hopes/dreams. So I cannot argue with your preferences, only tell you mine. Dark Sky Island and Amarantine are currently my favorite two albums. Yes, that's somewhat offbeat. (What else is new?) My interpretation of DSI is that it consists of four sections. The first three songs are a prologue. The next two get us into the subtle narrative fully and are the first chapter of sorts. Then, I Could Never Say Goodbye and Dark Sky Island are the core of the album, the relatively short but difficult middle chapter. From Sancta Maria to Diamonds On The Water seems the third chapter, the resolution. Though as in Amarantine, the resolution is only partly explained and significantly obscured or ambiguous. The three 'bonus' songs seem to me to fit this scheme. I think Solace belongs among the prologue songs. Pale Grass Blue could be a reflective follow-on to the exultation of Echoes In Rain or perhaps it belongs at the very end of the album. Remember Your Smile is difficult to fit. Maybe it best belongs at the very end. As a fragmentary narrative, the album seems to me to start in a hard period of life of sorrowful separations and difficulties, yet determination not giving up on hopes and promises ("Even in the shadows/I turn around/To find you walk away"). Then there is the relief of a partial and painful but finally wonderful resolution ("Long journey home/never too late" "Everything flows/here comes another new day!/Alleluia!") resolving most of the difficulties. A relieved serenity and renewed certainty forms. This serenity and inner certainty grows, yet what was perhaps most sought or desired slips away again. "Night comes again." We are told the thing lacked is togetherness once known and now terribly yearned for. It becomes the central and unforgettable problem, reminded of at every turn ("And [the waves] whisper as they touch the shore/Come back to me/Come back to me"). The thing sought seems of an unusual kind; the dark midnight sky and stars on a seashore seem both metaphor for the inner condition involved as well as somehow preferable outward real places to search for signs, for answers. For whatever needs to happen. The song is the song indispensable to the album and crux of its themes and motifs and sensibility; it points to the songs and sense of narrative both before itself and after. And it can stand alone quite well. Enya doesn't give an easily intelligible shape to how this resolves, with four songs in different languages with four different emotional emphases providing a sense that it's complicated. But there is sense of relationship(s) made or recovered or restored and matured across the four or so songs. The serenity becomes complete and it shows as comfort and belonging, blessing and peace, maybe bliss ("Listen to my heart beat/As I lie dreaming.../Everywhere is whispering/The sound of summer.../The diamonds on the water/Are falling from the sun...") Maybe we are told more in Pale Grass Blue and Remember Your Smile, but it's hard to say. Hopefully the next album will tell us more.... I agree with your points about how we regard each album is coloured by when and where we were in out own life at the time. AWT came out at a very bad time in my life, my first copy of the album was given to me by an ex-, who at the time I had very serious issues with. Needless to say it is not my favourtie albums. I personally feel if you can easily pin a meaning on a piece of art then it's very shallow. Enya's albums are very open and defy easy catergorisation and interpretation, for me that is a sign of greatness, not a fault.
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Post by Moe on Mar 11, 2019 10:25:40 GMT -5
I think all of the Enya albums have wonderful songs and strong reasons to like/love them. Which ones are strongest to each of us perhaps depends on where we are in our lives. And our hopes/dreams. So I cannot argue with your preferences, only tell you mine. Dark Sky Island and Amarantine are currently my favorite two albums. Yes, that's somewhat offbeat. (What else is new?) My interpretation of DSI is that it consists of four sections. The first three songs are a prologue. The next two get us into the subtle narrative fully and are the first chapter of sorts. Then, I Could Never Say Goodbye and Dark Sky Island are the core of the album, the relatively short but difficult middle chapter. From Sancta Maria to Diamonds On The Water seems the third chapter, the resolution. Though as in Amarantine, the resolution is only partly explained and significantly obscured or ambiguous. The three 'bonus' songs seem to me to fit this scheme. I think Solace belongs among the prologue songs. Pale Grass Blue could be a reflective follow-on to the exultation of Echoes In Rain or perhaps it belongs at the very end of the album. Remember Your Smile is difficult to fit. Maybe it best belongs at the very end. As a fragmentary narrative, the album seems to me to start in a hard period of life of sorrowful separations and difficulties, yet determination not giving up on hopes and promises ("Even in the shadows/I turn around/To find you walk away"). Then there is the relief of a partial and painful but finally wonderful resolution ("Long journey home/never too late" "Everything flows/here comes another new day!/Alleluia!") resolving most of the difficulties. A relieved serenity and renewed certainty forms. This serenity and inner certainty grows, yet what was perhaps most sought or desired slips away again. "Night comes again." We are told the thing lacked is togetherness once known and now terribly yearned for. It becomes the central and unforgettable problem, reminded of at every turn ("And [the waves] whisper as they touch the shore/Come back to me/Come back to me"). The thing sought seems of an unusual kind; the dark midnight sky and stars on a seashore seem both metaphor for the inner condition involved as well as somehow preferable outward real places to search for signs, for answers. For whatever needs to happen. The song is the song indispensable to the album and crux of its themes and motifs and sensibility; it points to the songs and sense of narrative both before itself and after. And it can stand alone quite well. Enya doesn't give an easily intelligible shape to how this resolves, with four songs in different languages with four different emotional emphases providing a sense that it's complicated. But there is sense of relationship(s) made or recovered or restored and matured across the four or so songs. The serenity becomes complete and it shows as comfort and belonging, blessing and peace, maybe bliss ("Listen to my heart beat/As I lie dreaming.../Everywhere is whispering/The sound of summer.../The diamonds on the water/Are falling from the sun...") Maybe we are told more in Pale Grass Blue and Remember Your Smile, but it's hard to say. Hopefully the next album will tell us more.... I agree with your points about how we regard each album is coloured by when and where we were in out own life at the time. AWT came out at a very bad time in my life, my first copy of the album was given to me by an ex-, who at the time I had very serious issues with. Needless to say it is not my favourtie albums. I personally feel if you can easily pin a meaning on a piece of art then it's very shallow. Enya's albums are very open and defy easy catergorisation and interpretation, for me that is a sign of greatness, not a fault. I fully agree that the albums defy easy interpretation, but that does not mean that we ought not try to interpret them We each may see different patterns or aspects, or perhaps a dominant pattern. I enjoy reading different analyses in fact, as they often inform my own views, and precisely because, as you say, the songs defy easy interpretation.
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Post by RichardF on Mar 11, 2019 10:47:47 GMT -5
I fully agree that the albums defy easy interpretation, but that does not mean that we ought not try to interpret them We each may see different patterns or aspects, or perhaps a dominant pattern. I enjoy reading different analyses in fact, as they often inform my own views, and precisely because, as you say, the songs defy easy interpretation. My point that I was trying to get across was that great pieces of art open up a wide rainbow of interpretations, rather than a single focused idea. Works of art that have a narrow intrpretation often fail. As you say, hearing others views, widens our appreciation of Enya's music.
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Post by sempiternity on Mar 12, 2019 15:57:01 GMT -5
Just looked up the lyrics. it is "sadness" yes, but it still doesn't make sense grammatically. Love the song, but that line bothers me. Across the Enya song lyric corpus Roma often seems to prefer to err on the side of too few words rather than too many when the verse doesn't allow her the optimal number. I think adding some auxiliary words when you read them helps alleviate the sense of dissonance. Even the first set of stanzas of ICNSG has this- Night has gone without my tears Now I walk alone You're no longer here The days turn to yearsA segue between the third and fourth stanzas is absent that no writer would get away with in prose. Most people don't seem to even notice this one because what is missing is so easily anticipated and mentally filled in. A decent fit is "In your absence, days pass and". In your absence, days pass and the days turn to years.So to the main problem- I could never say goodbye To the sadness in my eyes You know you are in my heart But the miles keep us apartHere I think the object of To is very clearly the person called you. Who is at the same time some sort of subject of "the sadness in my eyes". Maybe the verse could have suggested what was left out better by putting in ellipsis, but those would have made a worse problem by not suggesting two different phrases. I could never say goodbye To....the sadness in my eyesWhich just doesn't work. So she left them out, figuring the listener/reader would be less distracted by that. I would suggest the words to fill in be something like "you, who are the reason for". Thus, for pedantry's sake, then I could never say goodbye To you, who are the reason for the sadness in my eyes. You know you are in my heart But the miles keep us apart
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Post by Moe on Mar 12, 2019 17:31:53 GMT -5
"I could never say goodbye To the sadness in my eyes You know you are in my heart But the miles keep us apart" I must admit that particular stanza poses a challenge, but I'll take a stab at it. The first two lines are about "I" The final 2 lines are about "you" and "us" So, Perhaps ( sheesh, I feel like Sister Windy now!) we could interpret the first two lines (the problem lines) in this way: "I" is speaking: "I" could never say goodbye" - is it possible that Roma means exactly what she says next here? If "I" is grieving, as seems obvious, there would be "sadness" in her/his eyes. Can the persona here ever rid herself of that sadness? S/he feels that his/her "sadness" is permanent, that time will never remove that sadness from her face/eyes. It is a scar she/he will have to live with, forever. Then the persona turns to "you," the cause of that eternal sadness. Well, I tried!!
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Post by Riene on Mar 12, 2019 22:40:21 GMT -5
"I could never say goodbye To the sadness in my eyes You know you are in my heart But the miles keep us apart" I must admit that particular stanza poses a challenge, but I'll take a stab at it. The first two lines are about "I" The final 2 lines are about "you" and "us" So, Perhaps ( sheesh, I feel like Sister Windy now!) we could interpret the first two lines (the problem lines) in this way: "I" is speaking: "I" could never say goodbye" - is it possible that Roma means exactly what she says next here? If "I" is grieving, as seems obvious, there would be "sadness" in her/his eyes. Can the persona here ever rid herself of that sadness? S/he feels that his/her "sadness" is permanent, that time will never remove that sadness from her face/eyes. It is a scar she/he will have to live with, forever. Then the persona turns to "you," the cause of that eternal sadness. Well, I tried!! Could be, but what a convoluted way to express it.
But on the the other hand, here we are debating it years later, which is perhaps a sign the author was successful.
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Post by phantas on Mar 14, 2019 8:09:53 GMT -5
conclusion: Enya is singing about someone who has gone from her life (or Roma's, if you will) which brings both sadness to her eyes as well as the joy to her heart remembering that person (hence, I could never say goodbye). Enya's trademark melancholy is evoked clearly here I think Roma always has a way with words, sometimes it works in song, other times the lyrics are cut so short one has to fill in the gaps oneself.
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