Shepherd Moons

In September 1988, Enya released her second studio album Watermark. It became an unexpected commercial success, charting around the world helped by its international top-ten hit, "Orinoco Flow". The album propelled Enya to worldwide fame and she spent much of the following year travelling worldwide to promote it through interviews, appearances, and performances. Enya worked with her long time recording partners, manager, producer and arranger Nicky Ryan and his wife, lyricist Roma Ryan. Her Catholic upbringing and childhood experiences of hymns and church music, coupled with later studies in classical music, were big influences that helped form her albums. She gained inspiration from several sources and stories, including her personal diaries and her grandparents. Two tracks on Shepherd Moons are traditional songs that Enya rearranged with Nicky. Initially, Enya felt worried that by recording non-original songs, she would be unable to perform them with the same amount of emotion as she might with her own compositions, though her strong feelings towards them coupled with their age, made recording them easier. == Recording ==

Shepherd Moons was recorded with new equipment purchased with the profits from Watermark. Much of the album was recorded at Aigle Studio, the recording studio in the Ryans' home, then located in Artane, a northern suburb of Dublin. However, as with her two previous albums, recording and production had to relocate elsewhere as the Aigle facility lacked the correct equipment to complete the final mix and mastering. The album was finished at SARM West Studios in London, where "How Can I Keep from Singing?", "Book of Days", and "Lothlórien" were recorded with additional engineering and mixing carried out by Gregg Jackman. As with Watermark, several musicians were brought in to perform additional instruments. Andy Duncan plays percussion on "Book of Days", Roy Jewitt plays the clarinet on "Evacuee" and "Angeles", Liam O'Flionn plays the uilleann pipes on "Smaointe...", Steve Sidwell plays the cornet on "Evacuee", and Nicky performs percussion on "Ebudæ". This was down to the greater amount of time Enya took away from the studio, particularly during "quite difficult" moments, while recording the album in comparison to Watermark. The process, she felt, improved her sense of creativity in the long run. Writer Molly Burke wrote about the album's artwork: "Shepherd Moons features Enya in what can only be described as an opera gown she could be twenty or forty but her delicate beauty is intact. There is a sense of timelessness here bathed in the dark but fragile blue of sorrow". == Songs ==

Side one As with Watermark, the album title opens with an instrumental title track with wordless vocals. Its title, devised by Roma, refers to two inner satellite moons around Saturn discovered in 1980, Pandora and Prometheus, "Caribbean Blue" is a waltz that depicts a journey through a fantasy world. It was named by Roma Ryan, as the melody that Enya had come up with reminded her of the Caribbean. "Ebudæ" is an ancient name of the Hebrides islands in western Scotland. The word was previously referenced in "Orinoco Flow", specifically in the lyric "From the north to the south, Ebudae into Khartoum". The song is composed of wordless mouth sounds that resemble Irish and Scottish Gaelic. Its story was inspired by the tradition of Scottish waulking songs sung by women as they fulled cloth. "No Holly for Miss Quinn" is a piano instrumental named after a novel by Miss Read. It follows its partner piece, "Miss Clare Remembers" from Watermark, also named after one of her stories. The song features Irish lyrics that describe the excitement of writing in the diary in the morning, "because you don't really know what's going to happen ... it's the expectation of that day really that she was talking about". "Evacuee" was written after she and Roma had seen a BBC documentary about a child evacuated from London during World War II and her subsequent reunion with her parents. A girl who was crying while recounting the story of her separation from, and return to, her home had moved them greatly. After Enya had written a melody for the song, the two imagined the scenario of the girl saying goodbye at the train station, "waiting until it's all over". "Smaointe...", roughly translated from Irish as "Thoughts...", was originally released as a B-side to the 7" single of "Orinoco Flow" as "Smaoitím... (D' Aodh Agus Do Mháire Uí Dhúgain)", released in 1988. The song refers to the story of a large tsunami destroying the church, and everyone inside, at Magheragallon Beach in Gweedore, where Enya's grandparents are buried. The theme of loss, something that Enya depicted in Watermark and Shepherd Moons, stemmed from her leaving home at age eleven to attend a strict boarding school, which she described as "devastating". == Release ==

Shepherd Moons was released on 4 November 1991 in the United Kingdom; its release in the United States followed on 19 November 1991 by Reprise Records. A promotional box set containing a CD and cassette of the album, plus a 14-page booklet autographed by Roma with her words on each track and lyrics, was released and limited to 1,000 copies. The album became a greater chart success than Watermark, reaching number one on the UK Albums Chart for one week for the week ending on 16 November 1991. It spent a total of 110 weeks on the chart. It then rose to its peak at seventeen on the week ending 28 March 1992. It was present on the chart for a total of 238 weeks. On the Billboard New Age Albums chart, the album was number one for twenty-nine weeks during its 266-week stay. In its first week of release, the album sold over 250,000 copies in the United States, and became Warner Bros. Records' top selling album in early 1992. This commercial success spread across Enya's catalogue; three months after Shepherd Moons, an additional 250,000 copies of Watermark were sold in the same country. By July 1994, seven million copies of Shepherd Moons had been sold worldwide. It sold close to one million copies in the United States each year from 1992 to 1996; in March 1996, it was certified quintuple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for shipment of five million copies. The album has sold an estimated 13 million copies worldwide. Between 1991 and 1994, Enya released four singles from Shepherd Moons. "Caribbean Blue" was the lead single, released in November 1991. It peaked on the singles chart in the United Kingdom at thirteen, In July 1992, "Book of Days" was released as the third single and peaked at number ten in the United Kingdom. == Reception ==

Shepherd Moons received generally positive reviews from music critics. In his review for The Washington Post, reviewer Mike Joyce praised Enya's vocals as "impressive" and "crystalline" that bring "unmistakable poignancy to much of the album". However, the tracks that focus on her piano playing, like "No Holly for Miss Quinn" and "Shepherd Moons", make the album "succumb to the usual new age doldrums". Barbara Jaeger gave a positive review for The Record. The three-year gap between Watermark and Shepherd Moons, she wrote, was "worth it" as the album, like its predecessor, contains "rich sonic tapestries that envelop the listener" that brings a "lush, semi-New Age instrumental atmosphere" that is "only part of the inviting package". She picks "Angeles" and "Caribbean Blue" as highlight tracks along with her singing in Irish. In a retrospective review for AllMusic, Ned Raggett acknowledged similarities to Watermark, while also opining that "in terms of finding her own vision and sticking with it", Enya "polished and refined her work to a strong, elegant degree" on Shepherd Moons. Saxophonist Colin Stetson credited Shepherd Moons as an influence on his album All This I Do for Glory (2017). He said the Enya album "made me think about how the air is manipulated in my own music." == Track listing ==

All music composed by Enya, except "How Can I Keep from Singing?" and "Marble Halls" trad. arranged by Enya and Nicky Ryan. All lyrics by Roma Ryan. == Personnel ==

Credits are adapted from the 1991 CD liner notes. Musicians • Enya – vocals, instruments, percussion, arrangement • Andy Duncan – percussion on "Book of Days" • Roy Jewitt – clarinet on "Angeles" • Liam O'Flionn – uilleann pipes on "Smaointe..." • Nicky Ryan – percussion on "Ebudæ" • Steve Sidwell – cornet on "Evacuee" Production • Nicky Ryan – producer, arranger, recording engineer (all other tracks), recording and mixing on "Ebudæ" • Gregg Jackman – mixing engineer, recording engineer on "How Can I Keep from Singing?", "Book of Days" and "Lothlórien" • Robin Barclay – assistant engineer • David Scheinmann – photography • The New Renaissance – wardrobe • EMI Songs Ltd. – publisher • Rob Dickins – executive producer == Charts ==

Weekly charts Year-end charts ==Certifications and sales==