Enya

I am privileged to do a job I love to do. I would never change any moment from my life.

I tend to listen to the classical composers: Rachmaninov, Satie.

I know every note in every song, the whole history of it, even parts that were there and are gone.

I have had death threats from people with fixations.

I enjoyed the two years I was with Clannad. I enjoyed touring. We toured a lot in Europe.

I don't need a man in my life.

I do promotion when it is necessary, but I always want to get back to the music.

I do a so-called trip into myself: I sit down at the piano and the melody might start to evolve from my playing or then I might start to sing it.

I didn't expect such a huge reaction, but I knew I was doing something different to everything else that was happening at the time.

I could have been more famous if I did all the glitzy things, but celebrity always seemed so unnecessary.

I can only be who I am.

I am really a very shy person. If I appear, it is because of the music, not because I want to be seen.

I told the record company I didn't feel the need to be at red-carpet events. I wanted a career. But I wanted to keep myself intact as a person.

Fame and success are very different things.

I find that music makes people just sit and listen, firstly. Then, they seem to interpret their own emotions with the music and it makes them ponder their own life a lot. And then they start to question: Am I happy in my work? Am I happy in my relationships? What am I striving for?

It's a noisy environment we all live in, whether it's traffic or the workplace, so it's very difficult to think about your life in general. A lot of people are afraid to do that. They like to hide behind their work and not face up to a big problem in their life.

The fans are very, very loyal. They're always saying, 'When is the next album?' They know when I finish in the studio it's got to be a few years before the next album.

I always felt that the music sells by itself. The music has always been the successful aspect on my career, and that means that, to me, I can always still stay very focused on music.

Wintertime for me is a time when I do a lot of my writing in the studio. It's a time I enjoy. And it's very reflective and a very calming time of the year. Throughout the year I gather a lot of musical inspirations, and this is where I bring them to the studio and see what will evolve musically.

It's very easy for me to keep a low profile because the focus I feel is always on the music. Success and fame are two different things. And so I feel the success is always towards the music, which means that I can have a very normal and private lifestyle.

The spring, summer, is quite a hectic time for people in their lives, but then it comes to autumn, and to winter, and you can't but help think back to the year that was, and then hopefully looking forward to the year that is approaching.

I do understand that not everyone is going to sit and listen to an Enya album. When someone says it's not their cup of tea, it's not their kind of album, that's fine by me.

When you spend two to three years working on an album that I feel very happy with the end result, there is nothing I would change. Musically, I have achieved what I set out to do.

I find I'm not one of these composers that are, you know, walking along a beach or walking on the mountainside in County Donegal that's, you know, 'Oh, a melody.' It's more a matter of eventually taking that moment with me to the studio, and it begins to evolve.

The ocean is a central image. It is the symbolism of a great journey.