Enya: An Appreciation

My Top 21 Enya Songs

WELCOME TO 2024 !!!!

The lion’s share of my favorite songs have been produced by just two musicians.  This makes them my two favorite musicians of all time.  One is Peter Gabriel.  The other is the ever-private Irish composer and singer Eithne Ni Bhraonain (1961-) – known the world over as Enya.

For me and plenty of other people I’ve known since I first listened to her 35 years ago, in 1988, when I was 23, Enya’s music is the most soul-enriching music ever composed.  It would be the understatement of my life to say that Enya’s music has shaped my soul.

I especially love and am most deeply moved by 21 of Enya’s songs from three albums: Watermark, released in September 1988; Shepherd Moons, released in November 1991, and The Memory of Trees, released in November 1995.

First, the lyrics.  Please allow me the liberty of expressing all her music’s lyrics in seven paragraphs:

Across many songs, Enya sings about loss of comfort, feeling lost, not knowing life’s answers any better than a child.  She feels she just goes on searching and searching.  She knows that we are not guaranteed that any of the dreams we’ve promised ourselves will come true.  There are dark shadows around us and within us.  The wind and cold water trouble us.  And so, always, the searching.

Our comfortable self grows soft with tears.  But let’s not lock our love inside.  We still see the love in each other’s eyes. 

A new world awaits.  Look there on the shore.  At the soft blue horizon.  Across the deep water.  We stand on the shore and cool waves wash over us.  Soul time is taken.  Storms we will ever have, but beyond them roars the river, and the river leads to Paradise.

Let’s leave behind childhood’s horizon and all its smaller memories.  Daylight is fading.  For a moment, it holds us completely. As we walk the room, we sense a shadow.  But in this new world, our shadow cannot follow and dreams give birth within us.

Daylight falls, and we cross over, going on believing, going on searching.  We are confident we will find our way to our new home.  Let’s forget the storms.  Let’s forget that we took the wrong paths when the path to our safe home was down this path.

Twilight has lifted.  The flowers still bud and bloom.  The birds still sing.  It’s a brand new day.

We are close to home but we feel far away.  We step out of our home at dawn, the morning shines across the shore, and we step forward, get into our sailboat, and become lost.  The morning shines as we guide the boat across the sea and enter an Ocean of Love.

MY TOP 21 ENYA SONGS

(WITH 21 LINKS)

25. FROM WHERE I AM

As I hear the smoothly flowing melody of “From Where I Am”, I let Enya carry me along toward more beautiful days. I leave this song prepared to defend and advance what we have of true value here on Earth.

24.  MISS CLARE REMEMBERS

With “Miss Clare Remembers”, Enya’s piano-playing takes me to a lovely place.  I long for good days gone by – serene days, days of joy – and I reach up for some wholesome feeling that’s been eluding me.

23.  NO HOLLY FOR MISS QUINN

With its nostalgia-tinged timelessness, the smoothly flowing “No Holly for Miss Quinn” lifts me into a pure sense of well-being.

22.  BOOK OF DAYS

With its gracefully rolling waves of sound, “Book of Days” pulls me into a spiritual state and restores my faith in people.  Surely good souls, fully empowered, are stronger together.

21.  ONCE YOU HAD GOLD

“Once You Had Gold” is a lulling song, full of empathy, calling us to healing and new strength, energy, and wisdom through life’s struggles, decline, and loss. Time, she tells us, gives us both darkness and dreams. 

20. LOTHLORIEN

The ethereal “Lothlorien” takes me beyond everything shabby to something pure. It’s as if we’re camping around a fire together in an enchanted forest that is filled with treasures for our inner life.

19.  CARIBBEAN BLUE

The lovely, lilting, serene, and sacred sound of “Caribbean Blue” flows along with a direction — toward a more enlightened life. Enya sings and hums us toward wholeness.

18. THE MEMORY OF TREES

And then there’s Enya’s “Memory of Trees”. From the first note, something is on the move, something mysterious is rolling along. And as the spiritual energy rises, we are invited to join in this hymn of grace. Have you ever had a lucid dream — when you knew you’re dreaming — while you were flying? Lucid flying dreams are da bomb diggity. This song evokes for me a lucid dream-like experience of flying over forests.

17. THE LONGSHIPS

Heavenly singing from Enya’s whole being. Each time I hear “The Longships”, I experience new wisdom, harmony, joy, and Divine Beauty. And I yearn for a brightening of society here on Earth – for more victories of loving goodness.

16. ONLY TIME

    15. SHEPHERD MOONS

    “Shepherd Moons” rolls along with its waves of beauty and love, drawing us up and forward till our soul is flowing with light.

    14. SO I COULD FIND MY WAY

13.  CHINA ROSES

As it carries us along toward a charming garden – a new world that awaits us – is “China Roses” describing Earth or Heaven or Heaven on Earth?  Whichever it is, this song feels to me like pure love flowing freely.

12.  EVACUEE

Here is Enya at her most evocative. “Evacuee” makes me think of saying goodbye to comfort and safety and, with a sense of peace, stepping out into the unknown, day by day, and fulfilling my promise.

11. ANGELES

I am reminded in “Angeles” that the dark clouds can disappear and that we can walk along paths tread by the inhabitants of Heaven. This song restores my soul to its fullness.

10. HOPE HAS A PLACE

“Hope Has a Place” draws me forward, onward, upward. Enya welcomes us to sanctifying waters. She calls us to dream and to keep hoping till we reach the ocean where our hearts will be free. Sounds like Heaven to me.

9.  EXILE

With “Exile”, I hear Enya calling me to chase away my deepest fears so I can find my way back to a soul-centered place. What I get from this song is a haunting sense of spiritual potential yet to be realized — as supernatural light rises through the darkness.

8.  SMAOINTE

In “Smaointe”, sweet and beautiful singing draws us toward a life of healing, wisdom, and love. Here is love from the depth of the human soul — releasing our soul to be at its best, releasing our soul to be as it can be.

7. THE COUNCIL OF ELROND

6. NA LAETHA GEAL M’OIGE

“Na Laetha Geal M’oige” is exquisite and poignant.  I feel as if I’m strolling in the garden grass along a stream.  Enya invites us to walk with her to the richer, deeper places within us.

5.  ATHAIR AR NEAMH

In “Athair Ar Neamh”, feminine healing carries me up weightlessly and shows me a better place – a place of pure beauty. This musical experience is profound — almost filled with too much pure beauty — and about as transformational as a song could ever be.  

4.  ON YOUR SHORE

Her evocative, soulful, sacred “On Your Shore” provokes a shift in consciousness, a shift to deeper awareness. This song offers me a refuge, a solace, where I sense myself to be in touch with the eternal and with Divine Beauty.  And I find myself feeling as calm as I ever feel.

3. MAY IT BE

2.  EVENING FALLS

With Enya’s enchanting and mesmerizing yet peaceful “Evening Falls”, I move beyond everything that’s making me uncomfortable.  Like Galadriel in Lothlorien, a spiritually gifted woman takes our hand and guides us to peer into the waters of wisdom. Beyond shadows, going deeper into our feelings and memories, we cross over and find our way home. 

1.  WATERMARK

I’ve listened to this song a thousand times.  It is the most evocative music I’ve ever heard, soothing, as if angels are singing to us. And it offers us transcendence. In less than 2 and a half minutes, “Watermark” leaves me standing on the mountain peak.

Each time it comes on, in all its poignant gentleness, “Watermark” rolls across my being in smooth and lovely waves.  Beyond all worldly chaos, I get in touch with what is wholesome in human life and I become more serene and, somehow, wiser. 

Doors open to me, and passageways, and as beauty surrounds me, I find my soul gliding, floating, soaring.  I’ve entered a place where spiritual love and goodness are fully realized.  Everything is resolved.  Everything is in harmony again.