Loreena McKennitt

Loreena McKennitt (born 17 February 1957) is a Canadian composer, songwriter, singer, harpist and pianist.

Quotes

To be a catalyst is one of my life’s objectives. I’ve been inspired by many people who in turn have been catalysts. It’s very interesting to see the waves of interest come and go in Celtic territory. If I can be a catalyst for other people, that’s wonderful.
- Interview (25 September 1991), published in "Times of discovery" by Anil Prasad at Innerviews

May, 1993 - Stratford... have been reading through the poetry of 15th century Spain, and I find myself drawn to one by the mystic writer and visionary St. John of the Cross; the untitled work is an exquisite, richly metaphoric love poem between himself and his god. It could pass as a love poem between any two at any time ... His approach seems more akin to early Islamic or Judaic works in its more direct route to communication to his god... I have gone over three different translations of the poem, and am struck by how much a translation can alter our interpretation. I am reminded that most holy scriptures come to us in translation, resulting in a diversity of views.
- Notes from McKennitt's journals in the CD booklet for The Mask and Mirror '

I have come to use the pan-Celtic history, which spans from 500 BC to the present, as a creative springboard. The music I am creating is a result of traveling down that road and picking up all manner of themes and influences, which may or may not be overtly Celtic in nature.
- Website notes to The Mask And Mirror

I can see lights in the distance
Trembling in the dark cloak of night
Candles and lanterns are dancing, dancing
A waltz on All Souls Night.

Bonfires dot the rolling hillsides
Figures dance around and around
To drums that pulse out echoes of darkness
And moving to the pagan sound.

Standing on the bridge that crosses
The river that goes out to the sea
The wind is full of a thousand voices
They pass by the bridge and me.

The thundering waves are calling me home to you
The pounding sea is calling me home to you

Suddenly I knew that you'd have to go
Your world was not mine, your eyes told me so
Yet it was there I felt the crossroads of time
And I wondered why.

As we cast our gaze on the tumbling sea
A vision came o'er me
Of thundering hooves and beating wings
In clouds above.

As you turned to go I heard you call my name,
You were like a bird in a cage spreading its wings to fly
"The old ways are lost," you sang as you flew
And I wondered why.

Where the heart moves the stones
It's there that my heart is calling
All for the love of you

An adaptation by McKennitt of the untitled mystic poem by St. John of the Cross which is usually known by this name. Music sample from Quinlan Road

Upon a darkened night the flame of love was burning in my breast
And by a lantern bright I fled my house while all in quiet rest.
Shrouded by the night and by the secret stair I quickly fled.
The veil concealed my eyes while all within lay quiet as the dead.

Oh night thou was my guide
Oh night more loving than the rising sun
Oh night that joined the lover to the beloved one
transforming each of them into the other.

Upon that misty night in secrecy, beyond such mortal sight
Without a guide or light than that which burned so deeply in my heart
That fire t'was led me on and shone more bright than of the midday sun
To where he waited still it was a place where no one else could come.

Within my pounding heart which kept itself entirely for him
He fell into his sleep beneath the cedars all my love I gave
From o'er the fortress walls the wind would his hair against his brow
And with its smoothest hand caressed my every sense it would allow.

I lost myself to him and laid my face upon my lover's breast
And care and grief grew dim as in the morning's mist became the light
There they dimmed amongst the lilies fair.

There is a wonderful old Chinese proverb that I love, "A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving". I think about my personal approach to musical projects much like a travel writer might approach the preparation for a book. You latch on to a certain theme or historical event and follow that into the unknown, while, at the same time, expanding on those themes.

Until the early nineties, I was under the impression that the Celts were this mad collection of anarchists from Ireland, Scotland and Wales. When I saw an exhibition in Venice, I discovered they were a vast collection of tribes originating from Middle and Eastern Europe as far back as 500 BC, and that over the centuries they migrated and integrated with people all over the world. So I've used this cultural history as a creative muse. With The Book Of Secrets in particular, I was interested in beginning with their earlier and more Eastern history

One of the most wonderful and engaging things I've learned is that we are the culmination and extension of each other's histories and there is more that binds us together than separates us, and in discovering this, perhaps our needs are timeless and universal.
I have a very deep interest in religion and spirituality. I like the Sufi perspective, which suggests that it is better to participate in the world than to become detached from the world.

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