My Musical Evolution – Part 378 21st Century Delerium

If you were to ask me which music group comes to mind when I think of those old News Groups days, my word association reflex answer would have to be Delerium. Before the News Groups, I had never heard of Delerium or any songs by them. Remember when I was talking about the news groups in the last post? I was saying how sometimes people would post things that weren’t strictly New Age but were still appealing to the New Age audience. Well I think Delerium is a classic example. The early stuff by Delerium like Spheres is certainly New Age but the music featured on the albums shown above are a blend of New Age and some kind of Techno offshoot.

Euphoria (Firefly) was the first song I heard as sampled from the group. The vocals kind of reminded me of Madonna from the Like a Prayer era. The more I listened to it, the more it grew on me and soon after I bought Best Of Delerium. From there, Aria left me wanting more and soon I had a stack of their CDs. I know that I am probably the exception rather than the rule but here is an example where a song shared on a network resulted in the eventual purchase of 9 Compact Discs by that artist. Two things, I prefer to have the CD on my shelf even if I only interact with it just long enough to rip it into my computer. I like the backup. I also like to support the artists that make the music and this is one way that I can do it. The free share peer to peer networks and torrents aggravate me a little. I guess I feel that if everybody played by the rules, there would be less rules and less effort to try to account for when people don’t follow the rules.

I won’t go as far as saying that Delerium is my favorite group but I can say that I feel that I can listen to them just about any time. If you look at my media library, you’ll find several auto playlists based on Genre, several based on Statistics [most played, recently added], several based on My Musical Evolution and just 4 based on Artist. One of those artists is Delerium.

I haven’t finished backfilling their catalog yet but it is on my list of things to do. I think you are going to like Delerium. I recommend starting with the Best Of or Poem as they are probably my favorites if I had to pick one. See that even when I have to pick just one, I can’t.

Euphoria (Firefly)

Aria

Here are the lyrics. You know I’m a lyrics last guy but these got my attention because of the language and partly because I find the meaning intriguing.

E have a wist, sin e couthe I meen
The children hath by candle leet

E have a wist, sin e couthe I meen
The children hath by candle leet
Her shadewe on the wal iseen
And ronne thereafter all they neet

Bisy abouta, they han, they han ben
And whom they catchen it best wolde wen

E have a wist, sin e couthe I meen
The children hath by candle leet
For no lines that, that they couthe lay
To this world and yesterday

Bisy abouta, they han, they han ben
And whom they catchen it best wolde wen

E have a wist, sin e couthe I meen
The children hath by candle leet
Her shadewe on the wal iseen
And ronne thereafter all they neet

Bisy abouta, they han, they han ben
And whom they catchen it best wolde wen
Bisy abouta, they han, they han ben
And whom they catchen it best wolde wen

Roughly translated it looks like this

Ever since I could remember,
I have known
That children
By candle light
Have seen a shadow on the wall
And have chased it all night through.
Busilly
They have tried
With all their might
To catch it.

And when they most expect to catch it
It shoots most quickly out of sight,
This shadow never shall be caught
In any trap they lay.
This shadow in the likeness
Of this world and yesterday.

I don’t know why but I like it

After All