Enya - Orinoco Flow.
Popular has reached one of my favourite Number Ones of 1988, the glorious “Orinoco Flow”. Ireland’s most recogniseable Elven Chanting export paved the way for all the new age dolphin Aquarian crystal videos that would clog up the early 90s Chart Show - or did she? Actually the video to “Orinoco Flow” is a lovely piece of classically beautiful hand-painted animation. Well ok it was probably some Amiga software but the way Enya’s dress scratches itself into a new position trips a switch in my gut and makes me say ‘szwwaaaaah’ in a tiny voice. That and the ship bobbing up and down which makes me think of marathon runners wafting effortlessly around the Cutty Sark to Ron Goodwin’s “The Trap”.
In retrospect a lot of the New Age mysticism I associated with ambient hippy music like Enya seemed very passive - waiting for aliens to descend, letting auras wash over you, accepting your fate that was written in the star sign column of Just Seventeen. “Orinoco Flow” on the other hand is stirring and inspiring and makes me want to sail away on a tall ship with beautiful Enya on the prow. It is a New Age because we are going somewhere different and exciting over the waves! I will discover some uninhabited island near the Falklands for the glory of humankind, find a new species of hummingbird and then commission someone to do a painting of it all for the Tate once I get home.
FROM THE FACT BIN: Director Michael Geoghegan also did a strange bunch of Britpop promos: football montage-tastic “Life Of Riley”, Republica’s seizure-inducing “Ready To Go” and er, Kula Shaker’s “Govinda”. And “Blame It On The Weatherman”!
