It's December. I happen to find out that Enya's latest album, '' And Winter Came'', is available in any SPEEDY retail store. The album cover itself is intriguing: Snowy background with the New Age giant herself standing beside a silver merry-go-round pony. As usual, her ethereal singing never fails - And this time with a brilliant Christmas touch! From holiday bells ringing in the '' Train and Winter's Rain' to the Gaelic rendition of "Silent Night', Enya's voice journeys you through the musing realm of winter( even in Malaysia!) and indeed, portrays before you the festive season in the very essence of the singer herself ...
Alright... Now I'm gonna review on a very powerfully-performed song inside the album - Though as naive or childish as it sounds, '' One Toy Soldier', has its lyric so subtly written. The song vividly interpreted one of the Hans Christian Andersen’s most romantic tales, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and is in itself a musical of the story. The lyric is as follow:
With his drum down by his side
One toy soldier on his own
With his drum to keep the time
He keeps the beet of marching feet
He keeps the beat so true
He's one small toy for one small boy
But his heart is oh so blue
Who can mend my broken drum
Will it be as good as new
I must play when morning comes
I don't, what shall I do?
He keeps the beat of marching feet
He keeps the beat inside
While children sleep, in dreams so deep
There's a secret he must hide
For he keeps the beat of marching feet
He keeps the beat so true
He wants to sing and hopes to bring
Happy Christmas day to you
Da, Da, Da...
He keeps the beat of marching feet
He keeps the beat inside
Someone has come to mend his drum
Now his heart lights up with pride
So he keeps the beat of marching feet
He keeps the beat so true
When morning comes, he plays his drum
Happy Christmas Day to you!
Happy Christmas Day to you!
Happy Christmas Day to you!
Holidays are here again!
Holidays are here again!
Holidays are here again!
Holidays are here again!
The song gives life to the soldier as it arrives at '' He keeps the beat of marching feet, He keeps the beat inside.'' If you read the story or watched 'Fantasia 2000' of Disney, you would probably know how Hans Andersen depicted the tragic love between the toy soldier and the paper ballerina. The toy soldier falls for the paper ballerina, and is cursed by a goblin into an arduous adventure only to be thrown into fire when he returns home. The paper ballerina too flies into the blaze. In the end, all that remains is a heart-shaped clod of tin and a burnt spangle. The meaning of the two lines aforementioned is conspicuous: The toy soldier drums and marches only to catch the paper's ballerina's attention, yet he keeps the admiration to himself. Though as ravishing as he would seem, ' But his heart is oh so blue '. Enya contrasts both the outer and inner self of the persona and construes the bittersweet in her steadfast dreamy nuances. Enya also cleverly hints listeners in the beginning of the song with a succession of ticking sound: a metaphor to the heartbeats of the toy soldier. In the lyric, 'a broken drum', for example, is tantamount to a 'broken heart'; When 'someone has come to mend his drum' , it dawns to the toy soldier that tomorrow can still be promising. The feeling brightens in the outro as the percussion intensifies, the song concludes with ''Happy Christmas Day to You!''. However, the underlying mood still denotes a subtle shade of blues: The original story has a sad ending.
The song is more likely a bittersweet prelude of the classic tale. One would have to self-discover the depth of every each line in the lyric to feel the essence. 'One Toy Soldier' is a powerful masterpiece: how Enya incorporates her romantism into one of the Andersen's magnum opus, how she plays with the moods throughout the song and how she tells story through her singing. In fact, Enya has never failed to surprise. She is a living legend.
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