Rare 1988 Interview With Enya

[HolyMoly]

An Interview. Belgium. December 14, 1988

Enya

- Ireland is full of mysticism, mysterious stories, folklore and old histories. Because of Gaelic being such an old language, these stories have been passed on from generation to generation. Luckily this region has preserved it's character and peculiarity, maybe because there was nothing to get for the English businessmen. Finally our poverty was our salvation.

HUMO

- I was recently in Dublin and that poverty has touched me deep: Ireland lives in rags.

Enya

- Oh yes, it's frightful. But everything is so terribly expensive, and the goods than you can afford are of such a low quality...We don't have much, yet live isn't bad. There is a sort of connection with life and the land that I perceive nowhere else. Ireland lives very isolated from the rest of Europe, we are light-years behind. A new idea from let's say Belgium takes years before it gets over here. Not every new idea means progress, but it's becoming time that the ordinary Irishman has it equally good as the modern Belg or German. Then he doesn't need to let his children beg for money on O'Connell street. There is money in Ireland but it's not fairly divided. Generations-old potentates and politicians have reduced the whole nation to beggary. I'm not a very good ambassador for Ireland I'm afraid (laughs).

HUMO

- Where you a poor family?

Enya

- Not really, my parents were musicians that worked hard to give us good education, also musically. They played hits from the '40s and '50s in a dance orchestra but at home we listened often to classical music and authentic folk. I try to weave all those elements into my music.

HUMO

- Watermark reminds me of the music from the classical composer Henry Purcell: your music bathes in the same ethereal atmosphere, is of the same lightness and still extremely catchy.

Enya

- Purcell? I'm afraid I never heard of the man (laughs). I know something about classical music because it was part of the education in boarding school but I almost never listened to music. I never bought records and what happened in the hit charts completely passed me.

HUMO

- Than it has to be a shock to be suddenly confronted with hectic pop music and the record companies.

Enya

- My music is too important for me to pine in a small attic room. Music is my life, and because you can't eat scores I play momentarily the part of the marketing person that shouts that she sells good wares. Not my favourite occupation, but it seems to be necessary. And by travelling I also see parts of the world. I have worked for months with the same two people between the same four walls on Watermark and ultimately it makes you become a social zombie. Your friends don't call you anymore, you don't know what happens in the outside world or what people think of your music. Because of the many talks and the travels I keep up a little. Not that I really need it: I'm very happy when I'm busy with my music. Then the real me comes to the surface. And that real me is rather self-contained.

HUMO

- Maybe that is the reason why your music sounds so original: you practically can't compare 'Orinoco Flow' or 'Cursum Perficio' with other music.

Enya

- I agree, I try to keep the inner me pure, or better, I try to feed it with only beautiful things. That also puts a limit to your influences, the less influences, the broader is your world. We like to experiment frequently. Often that leads to nothing but just as many times the little ideas you pick out of the air and develop further turn into beautiful pieces of music. Our only criterion is the artistic value of what we do. We don't tolerate people from the record company in our studio because we learned from experience that they don't give a piece of music the time to grow and ripen, or give it room to breath. It happens many times that were in the clouds about a new piece of music to find out later that it lost it's attraction... then we throw it away. Good music keeps on living.

HUMO

- How must I imagine the relation between you and Nicky/Roma Ryan?

Enya

- Because we work together all the time I moved into their house. We tried to do it in a different way but that caused practical problems. By the way, if we tried to record in a conventional way, say from ten to six, and with guest musicians, our music always sounded like other music. We really had to work hard and search to break away from this, to find something totally new. Guest musicians, in spite of their talent and willingness, never seemed to come to the same wavelength, so we had to invent, record, sing everything ourselves. Enya is in fact a sort of trinity.

HUMO

- And how would you describe your music yourself? As New Age music?

Enya

- New Age music is less structured than my music, there's no spine in it. You never get the feeling somebody's trying to tell you something, tries to evoke something. It's air, thin air. It's a musical drug. It's a miracle that the record company wanted to bring out our music, because I swear there was panic in the main office because they couldn't put our music in a compartment. Luckily the success of 'Orinoco Flow' solved that problem, the public doesn't need compartments it seems.

HUMO

- Aren't you afraid after this success to lose the purity of the music?

Enya

- I am strong, I guard over it. When the record was already in the shops and turned out to be also very successful the record company asked for extra songs for a CD single. The making of those songs was the first big test, and it went well. We recorded two new songs: the Gaelic song about my grandparents is one of the best things I ever did I think. If the record company was looking for 'Orinoco Flow Part Two' they certainly didn't get it. No, I do my best to keep my work fresh. I'm very much aware of the traps where other groups have stumbled into. Nicky Ryan made back then with Clannad all the mistakes thinkable and learned his lesson. Our force is our peculiarity and we have to keep it at any cost.

HUMO

- I often don't understand the Gaelic lyrics of your songs, but is that really important?

Enya

- Not really. Our lyrics our often only colours. Unconsciously many people seem to understand what they are about. They feel it, they share the emotion. That is also the essence of music.

HUMO

- In 'Cursum Perficio' you even use a mountain of words without any meaning.

Enya

- There the sound was more important than the text. The choir is important.

HUMO

- You sing all those voices yourself?

Enya

- O yes, layer after layer, sometimes hundreds on top of each other. 'Cursum Perficio' comes from a documentary about Marilyn Monroe. It means: 'Here ends my journey' and that saying was engraved in the entrance of her last house. But that's how it often happens,you know: those two words haunted me for weeks and than I finally used them in a song. 'Evening Falls' on the other hand is based on a ghost story that Roma heard. A woman has recurring dreams about a house till the moment she one day sees the house, knocks on the door and finds out that the inhabitants are full of panic when they see her: she had haunted their house all the time. We made a musical interpretation without retelling it word for word. We keep the lyrics simple. Hopefully the listener evokes even greater and more beautiful images with our music than we had originally hidden in it. The mystery stays important.

[rainbowdemon]

I'm not a big fan of new age. But Enya is an exception. She has a beautiful voice.

[HolyMoly]

I'm not a big fan of new age. But Enya is an exception. She has a beautiful voice.

Enya has never been a "New Age" performer. It's just that the industry that sells her music classified it that way ... which she finds offensive. Check out this briefie from her interview:

- New Age music is less structured than my music, there's no spine in it. You never get the feeling somebody's trying to tell you something, tries to evoke something. It's air, thin air. It's a musical drug. It's a miracle that the record company wanted to bring out our music, because I swear there was panic in the main office because they couldn't put our music in a compartment. Luckily the success of 'Orinoco Flow' solved that problem, the public doesn't need compartments it seems.

[rainbowdemon]

Fair enough. But whatever it's called, the girl can sing!!

[HolyMoly]

Fair enough. But whatever it's called, the girl can sing!!

I wasn't being critical, really. Enya is a phenomenon in music that rarely comes to the public. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I worship her talent ... as a writer, a musician, and a singer.

BTW, I've asked this trivia question before and have never gotten a definitive answer to it. Hopefully, someone knows the answer.

The "Caribbean Blue" video weaves into it several images from the artwork of the world-famous American illustrator, Maxfield Parrish. One of those scenes comes from his work, "Chocolate," showing two bakers standing by a pillared archway. In the video, as the boy walks up the steps to the archway and finally reaches the top, one of the bakers bows to the boy. I'd SWEAR that the actor playing that baker is Paul Hogan (aka Crocodile Dundee) ... yet the video gives no credits as to the actors in it ... nor have I ever seen a "cast list" for that video (or any of her other videos). Could Paul Hogan be a closet Enya fan and did a cameo in that video? Inquiring minds want to know (grin).

P.S. Frame capture from the video is below. Is that Paul Hogan or what?

[DudeAsInCool]

Don't know about Paul Hogan. But I have a print of the Maxfield Parrish kitchen piece that you describe... and a few more :)

[HolyMoly]

Don't know about Paul Hogan.  But I have a print of the Maxfield Parrish kitchen piece that you describe... and a few more  :)

I'm sure the video is downloadable P2P-wise. If you (or anyone else) gets the chance, download it and see if you concur.

P.S. On Parrish, I once got checks done by ChecksInTheMail.com depicting Parrish's work, "Daybreak." Unfortunately, they've since discontinued the design. However, I know there are some custom check printers out there and, one of these days (maybe after I move, hehe), will order checks printed with that design again (lightened-up, of course):

[DudeAsInCool]

Nice scan! I have an early original print of Daybreak--set in an old copper art noveau frame. I have been searching for the companion piece to Daybreak--I think its called Romance--very hard to find. They wanted 600 bucks for a print five years ago... Jack Nicholson is a big fan of Parrish--has an original right above his bed. I went to a show in Beverly Hills a couple years ago--got the see the real stuff--that was a treat!