Since this blog is also about music, I thought I’d share with you some of the songs that inspired me.
The first in line is *tadaa* Mother Earth by the Dutch [I’m actually not quite sure which genre they are ‘assigned to’ at this point] band Within Temptation:
For me it’s the song that started it all. Sure I listened to music before, but only to those artists that were more or less popular in the charts. Anything that didn’t appear in the charts I didn’t know about.
Then in 2000 there was an anime on telly called ‘X’ and Mother Earth was the opening theme for that anime (I later found out it was the European opening theme). I was hooked immediately to the song, but the story in the anime triggered me, which is why I forgot about the song. Until 2001 that is, when the song alongside the video (see above) was aired on an independent German music TV channel called Onyx. It was during an hour long afternoon program where they only played rock and metal songs. I tuned in one afternoon, and as far as I remember I was alone (for I had control over the telly 😉 ). So far I hadn’t consciously listened to metal at all, and if I ran into the odd song it was mostly because a song from Metallica was in the charts, and of rock I only knew those artists that were – you guess it – in the charts.
Well, when I stumbled into Mother Earth once more I was hooked again, to that date the hardest kind of music that I liked. And if you listen to the song (I highly recommend it) or press the play button on the video in this post and watch the video, you’ll find a beautiful melody with a beautiful, rich atmosphere and something that struck a chord in me. I can’t quite name it, but it makes this song even more magical for me.
If you look up Within Temptation you’ll find they played Mother Earth during their orchestra show ‘Black Symphony’. I only watched this show from DVD, but what really astonished me is how this song sparkles like a diamond with a live orchestra and a live choir 🙂
After my re-encounter with this beautiful song I needed some self-convincing, because deep down I thought I was going against the authorities by listening to and even liking non-charts music, but eventually I went to buy the album Mother Earth, of which this song is the title track. What can I say? I was (and am still) in love! From that moment on a whole new world of music opened up to me 🙂 I dived in deeper into metal, stumbled onto more bands like Nightwish and After Forever, who introduced me to the harder forms of metal, but that is for another post.
And so my musical journey began. How did yours begin?
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Marianne Walker 