365 Day Song Challenge: Day 130 – “Storms In Africa”

Day 130: Your favorite song by a band/artist whose name begins with “E”.

“Storms In Africa” – Enya

Storms In AfricaMy first exposure to Enya was in the Power Wagon on the way home from our post-Senior Prom “beach day” at Misquamicut Beach in Rhode Island.

There were three of us in the car: me, my girlfriend at the time, and my friend Pete.

On the way home we stopped at a record store. I don’t remember why. (It probably had something to do with stopping at a mall for a bio break.)

At any rate, when we got back in the car, an Enya cassette single was in the possession of my girlfriend. I don’t even remember what song it was, but if I had to guess, it was “Orinoco Flow.”

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And being the musically closed-minded teens that we were, Pete and I proceeded to make fun of the song until it was popped out of the tape deck with a disgusted sigh because we were being such jerks about it.

Fast forward to today. I love “Orinoco Flow.” (Pete may still hate it, I don’t know. I’m sure he’ll weigh in at some point.)

Somewhere between the sophomoric (despite being graduated seniors) trashing of the song that day in the car and, I’d say somewhere around the year 2000, I discovered that I really like Enya. I don’t remember how it happened, or exactly when it happened. But it did.

Much like the fact that besides Genesis I’m not a big fan of “prog” bands, so too I’m not a fan of New Age outside of Enya. There’s just something about her music that strikes a chord with me, whereas other artists don’t. Who knows why?

So, anyway, at some point I bought Watermark, and discovered that “Orinoco Flow” isn’t even my favorite on the album. No, that honor goes to the two parts that make up “Storms In Africa.” The songs are ear-wormy in a way. The tune just gets stuck in there for a while, bouncing around in your head before it oozes back out an ear. It’s the “La la la… la la”s.

After Watermark, I began trying more of her albums, so that over time my collection of Enya albums has grown over the years. I think I have most of them at this point. In general, it’s pretty good stuff.

It’s sad that I didn’t figure that out in 1989 on that June day in the Power Wagon, because I could have had a lot more years of musical enjoyment in between. But what do dumb high school kids know?

2 comments

  1. Ray · June 13, 2014

    I still hate that song, which I also thought was just called “Sail Away.”

    Enya is forgiven somewhat by whateverthehellshecalled the closing song she did for Return of the Rings.

  2. Pete · May 27, 2014

    I had no idea what song you were talking about, but if you had called it “Sail Away”, I would have remembered. LOL As for why we were being jerky, that’s what we were. Oh, and knowing us, we probably had a million cooler mix tapes just waiting to be played instead. WSHP, anyone…

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