Heroes: Moya Brennan

Music has always been central to my life in a mysterious way that I can talk about a lot, but can never fully explain. It's like the wind in Christina Rossetti's poem:

Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing through.
Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I.
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.

You know the wind is there because you see what it does, but you can never see the wind itself.

Writing about Moya Brennan is going to be a lot like writing about the wind. Moya makes music, and music is all about experience. You can talk and write about music in a highly analytical and intellectual way, but the real power of music is that it's so immediate. It moves you to a different level of awareness often before you even fully comprehend what is happening, and certainly before you can step back and analyze it.

What is listening to Moya Brennan like?

It's a bit like listening to a mother sing to her child. Her sound is tender, personal, always warm. She seems to have such good intentions toward her listeners. If she sings about painful experiences, it is never to hurt, or to revel in hurt, but to acknowledge the difficulty of life and to heal. Perhaps not coincidentally, Moya started her solo career around the time she became a mother. Several of her songs were written for her children, and her children's voices appear on some of her albums.

It's a bit like listening to someone pray. Not publicly, in a church or cathedral, or as part of a ceremony. No, as if you were walking by someone's open door, and heard them almost by accident, speaking with complete honesty to God or to whoever they think hears them. I think part of why I respond so strongly to Moya's songs is because I feel she is trying to be fully honest, to tell it like she really feels it. That her music ends up being so beautiful and uplifting is, I think, due in equal parts to her talent and her character.



When I visited the Hebrides of Scotland back in 2006, I was lucky to go to a house party where people were playing instruments, dancing and singing the local Gaelic songs. However, I felt very awkward at first. I know a bit about Scottish music and culture, and I've been to big and small concerts and even a dance, so I thought I would feel quite at home. But it was very different to be in such a personal, intimate setting: in somebody's house. I felt at sea in a different culture and language, and unsure how to relate to the people around me, although I wanted very badly to relate to them. At one point in the party, people began taking turns singing, unaccompanied. I found a place to sit on the floor, and got ready to listen. When I recognized one song, I sang along with the chorus, and several people around me did too. I don't quite know how, but by the end of that song all my fear of being misunderstood, or of misunderstanding, was gone. The song had healed me inside. I felt whole, able to dance, sing, laugh, make music, talk, ask, relate. No silly hang ups would get in the way again.

Listening to Moya Brennan is a bit like that, too.



I first heard her in a little theatre in Calgary. It was a sold out crowd but not a big one. I hadn't heard Moya's music or voice much, except for a Clannad CD I'd picked up some years ago. I liked it, but not enough to explore more of their music.

I think the first thing I noticed about Moya and her band when they came on stage were their big, delighted smiles. And they weren't even smiling at the audience, exactly. They smiled at each other, with the goofy, happy smiles of people that share a joke or are doing something together that they absolutely love. I liked the music and the band, but similarly to the time when I sat at the feet of the singers in Scotland, I didn't really understand how it was reaching me. What I saw were people completely absorbed in what they were doing. As they sang, played their harps, drums, and fiddles, I suddenly realized that I was seeing something beautiful. Moya and her band do not look like models. They are well past their 30s. Moya is in her 50s. They are not what you might think of in the conventional sense when I say "beautiful people." But they were beautiful. They were some of the most beautiful people I had ever seen.

Afterwards I bought the live CD Moya was selling ("Heartstrings"), got her autograph, said hello to her briefly, and went home. Then I put the CD in the player and listened. And listened again. And again. I don't know how many times I listened in the first few weeks.



Moya's gentle songs of courage, endurance, faith, and finally joy were perhaps just what I needed at the time. She comes across not as a person who knows it all, nor as a person sells her pain or anger (it is clear she has experienced a lot of both), but as someone who tries to write honestly about the journey.

When I read a bit about Moya's life story, I gained more respect for her. She first became well-known as the lead singer of the band Clannad. In the 70s and 80s Clannad created a contemporary Celtic sound that is now recognized around the world. Sometimes they are referred to as New Age, a label that Moya finds rather limiting and that I think is too flaky for her. Her younger sister Enya also performed with Clannad for a while, but then went solo and acquired a huge audience and great wealth with her own unique fusion of Celtic/techno/classical.

Somewhere along the way to becoming popular and somewhat famous in the way that roots artists are, Moya got into the rock and roll lifestyle and made some poor choices. She wrote about these in her book The Other Side of the Rainbow and sometimes mentions the experiences in interviews. She used drugs, alcohol, was promiscuous. She had a brief marriage that failed. She had an abortion. She finally hit a very low point in life, which was when she rediscovered her faith. Some of that journey is explored in her songs.



I can perhaps appreciate Moya's music more from knowing her life story, but it isn't really necessary to know all about it. You can intuit from listening to her songs that this is a woman who has refined hard experience into character. She is one of those people who can experience a lot but still remain open to the world and all it offers. Her story does have a happy ending, so far: in her late 30s, after giving up on finding love, she met and married photographer Tim Jarvis, and they had two children.



Last year I found this documentary that was done when Moya released her album "An Irish Christmas." It's appropriate to the season and definitely has the best interview footage of her that's available online. Plus, Moya sings the beautiful songs on her Christmas album. Click on the photo to go to the page with the video. Once you get to the website, click the "video" button. It's in English with Dutch subtitles.

Moya Brennan Interview