feel happier as a result. Enya produced A Day Without Rain in a similar way to her previous albums. She first spends time alone developing melodies and outlines of songs on the piano. These would then be presented to the Ryans; "I'm quite anxious at this point", she said, "because it really is an act of laying your soul bare". While Roma starts to write lyrics to the melodies, Enya and Nicky will work in the studio to develop them into completed arrangements. Working without a deadline from her record label or a set timeline, Enya felt the project was complete after two years, feeling it was time to "step out of the studio ... time for it to have its life out in the world". Songs During the making of the album, Enya found she was questioning herself about her life and started to answer these questions in the new material she was writing. She compared the album to reading her own diary. "Like in 'Pilgrim'," she said, "I was asking myself: So many years have passed, am I happy with the way I'm working? And my answer is that I wouldn't change anything. I really love what I do." "Flora's Secret" is a song that makes reference to Flora, the Roman mythological goddess of flowers. Enya and Roma incorporated some of Enya's experiences from her own love life on "Only Time" and "Fallen Embers". The former alludes to the difficulties and pressures of finding "the perfect love", which Enya has found difficult throughout her career due to her private lifestyle and that her past relationships were not the right ones. A Day Without Rain features a greater use of strings than previous albums, something that was not a conscious effort. The three work by trying any possible idea with the music, and they stick with elements that give the greatest result creatively. Most of the songs on the album were written in the major key, as Enya believed it helped to create a more positive and uplifting mood to the music. A Day Without Rain opens with an instrumental title track, which Enya had also done on her previous four studio albums. It was named after the high amount of rainfall over Ireland in the course of a year. After one particular stretch of consistent rain over a few days the sun came out, which inspired Enya to