Annotated By: Serene Kergaye 2/6/14 All Souls Night By: Loreena McKennitt

McKennitts Celtic ballad All Souls Night is an attempt to convey the origins of All Souls Night from Ireland. McKennitt paints pictures of the Northern lights, beautiful images of Ireland and the Celtic traditions through her lyrics and enchanting voice. Using her silky voice, particular instrumental style, literature, and imagery, McKennitt recreates the time and feel of All Souls Night. In some parts of the world, ancient pagan traditions thousands of years old still survive mixed with Christian tradition. Ireland is one of those places. This song is about those traditions that took place at the Samhain festival when the sun was down and everything was dark. Samhain marked the end of the harvest, the end of the lighter half of the year and beginning of the darker half. The Gaels believed that the border between this world and the otherworld became thin on Samhain because so many plants and animals were dying. Ireland being the origin of All Souls Night or Halloween lends its particular style of music to recreate the feel and enchantment of people dancing around bonfires all through the night. McKennitts particularly lulling voice sways the way figures of cornstalks bend in the shadows swaying between high and low notes, attributing to the free flowing of limbs that

danced so long ago moving to the pagan sound. Her refined and clear dramatic soprano vocals are in harmony with drums that are beating quickly as if the dancers own hearts can be heard accelerating. The drums also work to emphasize the drums that pulse out echoes of darkness. Her use of alliteration helps to emphasize each beat of the drum with harsh Bs and Ds such as in the line, dot..dance..drumsdarkness. At the same time the lyrics are poetic as the end of every other line rhymes with the one before it, e.g. around/sound, eyes/rise, high/by, Every word McKennitt chooses further paints the picture of this night. Trembling defined as quivering or shaking, moving as if one is very cold and their bodies moves quickly and involuntarily. Pulse out creates the feel of sounds that are like beats, like a heart beat (pulse of a person). Waltz, an elegant ballroom dance typical from Vienna signifies the tradition of the dance, one of elegant familiarity and not simply dancing arbitrarily. The Green Knight holds the holly bush is from Arthurian legends. The knight is thought to refer to the green man, a pagan symbol of nature, which is much more poetic and symbolic than the mere change in seasons. Her word choice isnt modern but from an older time just like the one she wants the listener to envision. The imagery throughout the song is of lights and dancing coming from the source of a Japanese tradition, which celebrates the souls of the departed by sending candle-lit lanterns on out waterways leading to the ocean, sometimes in little boats. McKennitt uses the phrase I can see the lights in the distance this could also be the bonfires that dot the rolling hillsides that she sees but then the Candles and lanterns are dancing, dancing solidifies that its not one

but two traditions McKennitt is representing. Along with the imagery of the Celtic All Souls Night celebrations, at which time huge bonfires were lit to mark the New Year. McKennitt is very convincing, making the listener see what she wants which is the origins and feel of Irelands All Souls Night. Using her voice and instrument to instigate the feel and sway of the dancing that took place and particular use in vocabulary that relates to the time period, McKennitt combines both to form perfect imagery in the listeners mind.