My Top 10 Favorite Loreena McKennitt Songs
For the mystic, the lover of classic poetry, and the wandering soul
Loreena McKennitt, a Canadian singer-songwriter who writes and produces World music, is my second favorite artist of all time. Although she is primarily known for her arrangements in the Celtic music genre, she has also branched out to World music influenced by various cultures (such as Spanish, Galician, Greek, Turkish, and Arabic).
I have been an avid listener of Celtic music since I was very young, but Loreena takes the genre to another league entirely. Her work is legendary. Masterful. Transcendent. Reverent to the timeless.
She creates worlds within worlds in her music. Her songs aren’t merely songs; they are beautiful experiences. They transport you to another place and time as though you feel like you are witnessing a particular point in history coming to life again. She’s known for doing intensive research and traveling to specific geographical locations before writing each album. Many of her works are also full of literary references.
One particularly rare gift she has is turning beloved classic poems into ballads to be sung — her most notable examples include “The Highwayman” by Alfred Noyes, “Cymbeline” by William Shakespeare, “The Stolen Child” by William Butler Yeats, and…
