Video hit Loreena McKennitt

Loreena McKennitt - All Souls Night (Live Concert, Nights from the Alhambra, Spain)

"All Souls Night" derives from McKennitt's merging of the traditions, mythology, and culture of Japan with old Celtic Samhain rituals.

The "bonfires" and "figures dancing" are European, the "candles and lanterns" are from Japanese traditions.

Loreena Isabel Irene McKennitt, CM, OM (born February 17, 1957) is a Canadian musician, composer, harpist, accordionist and pianist who writes, records and performs world music with Celtic and Middle Eastern themes. McKennitt is known for her refined and clear dramatic soprano vocals.

She has sold more than 14 million records worldwide.

Personal life

In 1998, McKennitt's fiancé Ronald Rees, his brother Richard and their close friend Gregory Cook drowned in a boating accident on Georgian Bay. She was deeply affected by the event and subsequently founded the Cook-Rees Memorial Fund for Water Search and Safety in the same year.

At the time of the incident, she was working on a live album of two performances called Live in Paris and Toronto. The proceeds from this album were donated to the newly created memorial fund, totaling some three million dollars.

After the release of the live album, McKennitt decided to substantially reduce the number of her public performances and did not release any new recordings until the studio album An Ancient Muse in 2006.

The lyrics:

Bonfires dot the rolling hills

Figures dance around and around

To drums that pulse out echoes of darkness

Moving to the pagan sound.

Somewhere in a hidden memory

Images float before my eyes

Of fragrant nights of straw and of bonfires

And dancing till the next sunrise.

[Chorus:]

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.

Figures of cornstalks bend in the shadows

Held up tall as the flames leap high

The green knight holds the holly bush

To mark where the old year passes by.

[Chorus]

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