for pete's sake

[moonwise]

A minirant.

Enya's new album Amarantine came out today, and I eagerly anticipated buying it, as I am fond of pretty floaty relaxing music. Her songs are never terribly complicated. She sings about love and trees and moons and stars and being far from home and other such complex concepts. Her songs are usually in English, but occasionally she'll branch out into Latin or Spanish, or into some pretty-sounding Irish. If you can read the Irish (and I can, to some degree) you find, again, that her songs are about love and trees and moons and stars and being far from home (though the Irish songs tend to center more on family.)

English and Latin and Spanish and Irish are fine choices for languages to sing in, as one who is learned enough may do some independent research and translate the song (about the moons and stars etc.), since all those languages are reasonably well known and/or resources are available. In Amarantine, Enya takes a stab at Japanese (and I assume again she is singing about flowers and trees and love) but fully three of her songs are in Loxian, a language invented by Roma Ryan (her stunning lyricist.)

She has wandered into the "made-up language" territory with Elvish, which, despite being JRR Tolkien's invention, is still reasonably well-known. This is, of course, because JRR Tolkien is well-known, and if you happened to be a student of Quenya (or whatever the heck it is) you could translate her song, which is probably about moons and stars etc. However, no less than three songs on Enya's new album are in Loxian, a language not made up by a well-known author like Tolkien but by Roma Ryan herself!

So, if you would like to know what Enya is singing about, you must read Roma Ryan's book. Nice little marketing tie-in there, right?

Take my word for it. It's probably the moon and stars thing.

Comments

[lizzyhamham.livejournal.com]

i'm hoping to pick it up tomorrow. joy!!! i had to work a double today otherwise i'd have it already. lol

[arafel.livejournal.com]

Hope you like it!

[dreamsmith.livejournal.com]

> She sings about love and trees and moons and stars and being far from home and other such complex concepts. <

I'm with you; I like the pretty floaty relaxing music, at least sometimes.
^_^

> Enya takes a stab at Japanese (and I assume again she is singing about flowers and trees and love) but fully three of her songs are in Loxian, a language invented by Roma Ryan (her stunning lyricist.) <

I like Ayumi Hamasaki's stuff, and I certainly don't speak Japanese.
I'll treat the new Enya songs the same way, Japanese and Loxian both; just enjoying them for the melody, and treating the voice as another instrument sound.
I imagine someone will do translations of them for the curious?
and--
Roma Ryan invented a language? Was it designed specifically to be sung, I suppose? That's interesting.

[arafel.livejournal.com]

I admit to being a very lyrics-driven listener, and sometimes it's fun to know and/or understand the words you're listening to. Unless, of course, you're listening to Lisa Gerrard or Elizabeth Fraser.

Roma Ryan invented a language that apparently is spoken in her novel, though I can't seem to find her as an author on Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.

[fadingembers.livejournal.com]

Enya fan site - transcribed/translated lyrics


If it helps, I'm listening to Robbie Williams recite awful poetry.

[arafel.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Just as I predicted, they're about moons and stars and being far from home. XD

Why are you listening to Robbie Williams recite poetry?

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the tip-off that it's out - I shall sample before I buy! XD

So does this album have more than 40 mins of music on it?

[arafel.livejournal.com]

Definitely sample - I haven't been impressed with what I've heard so far.

Don't know the running time, but if it's like all her other releases, it ought to come in at about 40 minutes.

[grandlarseny.livejournal.com]

Ooo, thanks for the heads up! Other than the qualms with the langauge, did you enjoy the music? I found I preferred A Day Without Rain and Shepard Moons, to say, In The Memory of Trees and Watermark (though both those albums are still good.)

[arafel.livejournal.com]

I have only heard the first five tracks, but IMO, this is not one of Enya's better albums. She doesn't sound like she's having any fun at all.

[little-licks.livejournal.com]

Ekova does something similar - their singer and "lyricist" doesn't even try to come up with a made-up language, but rather just vocalises until she gets some sounds she likes. As a result, she's been thought to be singing in Swahili, Hindi, and any other number of African/Near-Middle Eastern languages.

So as far as any of us knows, she's singing about her new Volvo, a ham sandwich, or some of the trees that Enya's missed. ;)

[arafel.livejournal.com]

Ekova does something similar - their singer and "lyricist" doesn't even try to come up with a made-up language, but rather just vocalises until she gets some sounds she likes.

Sounds like Lisa Gerrard. :)

[viride.livejournal.com]

That reminds me of Yuki Kajiura, a fairly known compositor for anime/videogames as for lately. She composed the OST for Xenosaga II, a videogame, and I spent some moons trying to decipher what the lyrics were saying. It sounded like Spanish (my mother tongue) mixed with Italian and Latin... I came with all sorts of theories (even the one that said that the main theme of the disc was a rephrasing of the first part of the Evangelion of John), until a friend of mine told me that Kajiura had been interviewed and... "No, the lyrics has no meaning at all! I invented the lyrics and, by the way, it isn't any language! It just sounds good".

So then I understood why the booklet had no transcription of the lyrics...