The Memory of Trees Tracklist
The Memory of Trees is the fourth studio album by Irish singer, songwriter and musician Enya. Released on 20 November 1995 by Warner Music internationally and by Reprise Records in the United States.
Unlike its predecessor, it didn’t directly follow the promotional tour for the previous album. Instead, Enya took a year off to travel before returning to the studio for 2 years to write the album. Also, as collaborators Nicky and Roma Ryan had moved both their residence and home studio from Artane to Killiney during the break, the recording process could now be done completely in Ireland. This relocation and technical improvement allowed Enya to retain the intimacy during recording that she so desired.
Notably lacking in any outside musical collaborators, the effort and pace for the last 8 months increased dramatically. The lack of studio fees and schedule limitations, personal pressures developed as the recording process ended up being a 2 year long journey. A now typical occurrence for an Enya album, listener’s fatigue began to set in and the trio begin to wonder if they would ever consider the material ready.
Executive producer Rob Dickins came to the rescue as “their bridge to the real world” and the album went on to spawn singles “Anywhere Is” and “On My Way Home” before becoming the 3rd album by Enya to surpass 10 million copies.
In 2009 the album was remastered as part of the campaign for Enya’s second greatest hits album The Very Best of Enya. In 2016 the album was pressed for the first time as part of the roll out of Enya’s full catalogue on vinyl.
“The Memory of Trees” Q&A
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What have the artists said about the album ?
According to Enya.sk, Enya declared in a 1996 interview for KSCA 101.9 FM:
It’s actually from Irish mythology, Roma suggested the title. It’s derived from the Druids, and they held the trees as very sacred, so they were very important. So I thought the title was very strong, but it can conjure up other sort of thoughts for a lot of people. And I think Roma enjoyed that as well, that for people who don’t know the connection with Irish mythology, that they will interpret, their own thoughts with it.
