album Once (2004)

[Fugazi]

Once (2004)

 

Track list (with relevant threads when available)

1. Dark Chest Of Wonders (lyrics)
2. Wish I Had An Angel (lyrics) 🎞️ official video
3. Nemo (lyrics) 🎞️ official video
4. Planet Hell (lyrics)
5. Creek Mary's Blood (lyrics)
6. The Siren (lyrics)
7. Dead Gardens (lyrics)
8. Romanticide (lyrics)
9. Ghost Love Score (lyrics)
10. Kuolema Tekee Taiteilijan (lyrics)
11. Higher Than Hope (lyrics)

Related tracks (all re-released on the 2021 Remastered edition extra CD #3)

1. Live To Tell The Tale ("Nemo" B-side) (lyrics)
2. White Night Fantasy ("Nemo" B-side) (lyrics)
3. Where Were You Last Night (Ankie Bagger cover; "Wish I Had An Angel" B-side) (lyrics)
4. Nemo (video edit)
5. Nemo (orchestral version, "Nemo" B-side)
6. Nemo (singback)
7. Nemo (demo)
8. Wish I Had An Angel (demo, "Wish I Had An Angel" B-side)
9. Ghost Love Score (orchestral version, "Wish I Had An Angel" B-side)
10. Creek Mary's Blood (orchestral instrumental score, "Kuolema Tekee Taiteilijan" B-side)
11. Creek Mary's Blood (orchestral vocal score)
12. The Siren (single edit)
13. The Siren (live version, "The Siren" B-side) (Note 1)
14. Kuolema Tekee Taiteilijan (live version, "The Siren" B-side) (Note 2)

Live tracks (2021 Remastered edition extra CD #4) (Note 3)

1. Dark Chest Of Wonders
2. The Siren
3. Ever Dream
4. Deep Silent Complete
5. The Kingslayer
6. High Hopes
7. Planet Hell
8. Wishmaster
9. Slaying The Dreamer
10. Kuolema Tekee Taiteilijan
11. Nemo
12. Ghost Love Score
13. Over The Hills And Far Away
14. Wish I Had An Angel

 

Notes:

1. Live recording from Stadthalle, Chur Switzerland February 27, 2005.
2. Live recording from Oberfrankenhalle, Bayreuth Germany February 25, 2005.
3. Live recording from Taubertal Festival, Rothenburg Germany August 13, 2005.

 

 

From the band:

Tuomas:

(from https://www.dprp.net/specials/nightwish0604/part2.php)

Dark Chest Of Wonders
"The first song, Dark Chest Of Wonders is one of our favourites on the album. It's really weird because the mood changes, like every 20 seconds in the song but it goes pretty much close to all the styles in metal. It starts with the hardest riff that we've ever done, then the orchestra comes in with a really funny melody, almost like a 'folkish' melody, then comes the choir and the chorus is real traditional Power Metal. Then comes the 'sea' part with a real Pantera patch in it. So it's a weird combination of everything, but it still holds together amazingly good and it works really well, as an introduction for the whole album.

Yeah this song turned out really well. Its one of those songs where you can hear the real fun of playing in a band. It doesn't make any sense as a song, but it still sounds good as an artist ... the joy of playing."

Wish I Had An Angel
"Then Wish I Had An Angel is going to be our next single. It's something that we haven't really done before, with all the machines and a real 'industrial' touch. It's a song that's there for a purpose, it was also an experiment because we haven't done anything like that before. It was just and experiment, because the name of the song, the danceable beat kind of fits into the song really well and its definitely going to divide opinions among the fans."

Nemo
"So the third one is Nemo, which is the first single track and a very obvious choice to be one, with a very simple structure, catchy chorus, its short enough for radio play ... and so its the easiest choice we ever made. Its not among the very best tracks on the album in my opinion, but it still makes a perfect single track. 'Nemo' is the Latin word for 'nobody', so the song has nothing to do with a fish."

Planet Hell
"Then the fourth one will be Planet Hell. It's one of those real straight rockers on the album.

My personal opinion is that it's a little bit boring to my taste, but it has a real great intro and an outro and it's just like real rocking, hard punching, in between. Yeah, definite live hit, One of the best lyrics actually that is on this album. I'm really satisfied with the lyrics and all that but the song is a good one."

Since the song appeared to be about the state of the world today, I asked if the song was to do with the state of the environment. Tuomas said "Oh, its about everything that's going on in the world today" "9/11?", I suggested. "Not just that, pretty much everything", he replied.

Creek Mary's Blood
"The fifth one is Creek Mary's Blood. It's like this epic half ballad about this American Indian, their culture and especially the genocide of the Indians in the 19th century. Highly inspired by a book called "Creek Mary's Blood". So the title is a total rip-off of this Book. The author is Dee Brown. The same guy who wrote Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee". Also there is this Native American Indian (Mr John Two-Hawks) performing some cedar flutes, Native American chanting, oration in the Lakota language. Exotic song and my personal favourite on the album."

"If you take the drums and guitar and the keyboards out of that song, it fits to the soundtrack of "Dances With Wolves". That was what I wanted it to sound like and I'm very, very satisfied with the result."

The Siren
"Sixth one is called The Siren. Introduces an electric violin solo that we haven't heard before. The whole orchestra and especially the choir parts in this song is really, really good. You really hear the Sirens calling for you and tempting you when the choir does their part. I mean, its really awesome, it's one of the artistic songs on the album. Its not the 'straight rocker' as you call it so you really have to get into it. It really paints some nice sceneries before your eyes when you listen to this song."

Dead Gardens
"The next one is Dead Gardens. This is one of the two songs on the album that doesn't include the orchestra or the choir. This was the first song that I wrote for the whole album actually and the song is about the pain of creation, like artists block, which I sometimes have. Your wanna create something, create music but nothing comes up and you feel extremely pissed and frustrated. I think that we really got that feeling into that song, especially the last minute of that song its exactly what goes through in your head. Very hard riffing and a 'straight rocker'."

Romanticide
"Number eight is Romanticide, which is the other song of the album which doesn't involve any orchestra or choirs. So these are the two songs. This introduces something like Thrash metal riffs of the late 80s or something, so its one of the hardest song on the album as well. "

Ghost Love Score
"Ninth one is Ghost Love Score and as you can tell from the title of the song it's very much like a soundtrack to a movie. Its 10 minutes long and the most ambitious piece of work that we have ever done. The orchestra plays throughout the whole song, there is a lot of choirs and er, yeah its just something that I don't think that we will ever be able to play live without the orchestra."

Kuolema Tekee Taiteilijan
"Number ten is Kuolema Tekee Taiteilijan, the Finish song and the 'ballad' of the album with just the orchestra and choir and vocals. It gives a nice little, exotic touch to the album to have one song in Finnish. Its one of the most... one of the best ballads, actually we ever did."

"We had lots of doubts about it in the beginning when it was just a demo made about that. It was almost going to be included as the B-side of a single at one point but when we heard the vocal performance we thought, "yeah", it's really cool."

Higher Than Hope
"The last one is called Higher Than Hope which is a song, mainly done by Marco, the bass player. Definite ending for the album, so it was the only place to put this on the album. Like a half-ballad, with a real hard and light touch to it ... and a lot of meaning behind the lyrics to it."

 

Tuomas again:

(from http://www.rockunited.com/nightwish04.htm)

1. Dark Chest Of Wonders - There's no sense in this song. I've managed to include all the heavy metal genres into this song. There's also a traditional power metal chorus and some Pantera mixed in it. But it works like this. There's this certain feeling of joy in the song when you first started a band and begun playing. We didn't have that feeling on our last album and this has brought it back. The lyrics are "diibadaaba", you're flying somewhere in the sky with a snowman again, the whole thing's escapism really...but this song came off great.

2. Wish I Had An Angel - This song was an experimental one, we've never used machines before and we wanted to have this Rammstein-thing in at least one song. The difference between the first and the second song is quite harsh. This is the most down-to-earth song we've ever written. Usually we've had all kinds of emotion involved and historical lyrics, but this song got its spark from the Karhu-bar in Kitee. Just read the lyrics and you'll know what it's about. This will probably be the second single from us.

3. Nemo - This is the other single, which isn't about an aquarium fish or the captain of a submarine. This is latin and it means "no one". When I wrote this song I hadn't even heard of the "Finding Nemo" movie yet. So it was a coincidence that they both happened to come out at the same time. But this song was an easy pick for a single because of the catchy chorus and the song structure. The beginning reminded me about HIM a bit, like you said, it's slow and starts from low key. But most of all it sounds like Nightwish.

4. Planet Hell - This is the most weakest song on the album in my opinion. We included this on the b-side of the first single, because otherwise the single would've been too soft. But this song is fast.

5. Creek Mary's Blood - This is my favourites from all the songs I've ever written. It's been so from the beginning and still is. We have an Indian guest here. I've always had a fixation towards American Indians, I've always been interested in their culture and what happened to them is one of man's biggest sins in the last 500 years. The point for this song was that I wanted a real Indian in it. I found John Two-Hawks from the Google (laughs) and we sent him a CD and the song and he decided to do it. The words that he's saying on this song were written by me, but he translated them into Lakota language.

6. The Siren - This is an experimental song, where we altered the mythology. I got an idea for this song from a documentary, which had an old Scottish woman living alone on an island. Each night she'd go to the cliffs and play her violin to the seals. It was really incredible, so I had to write a song about it. This is almost an instrumental, with only a few lyrics. Sami Yli-Sirniö (Waltari/Kreator) plays citar here, so that brings an Indian touch to it. But when you think about the title, it goes to the Greek mythology. A song about Greek mythology with Indian melody about a Scottish violin player...I really like the choirs here. We got exactly what we wanted. This song has the most artistic touch to it on the whole album.

7. Dead Gardens - This is a total Kotiteollisuus-rip off concerning the guitar riff. This is the first song I wrote for the album and it's about the anxiety of creation. When I started writing songs for this album it took me a couple of months that I still had nothing, before I realized I could write a song about this feeling when I have no ideas. And "Dead Gardens" is the result.

8. Romanticide - Don't know what to say about this. The word "romanticide" is cool though, you can't even find it from the dictionary. It's similar to "genocide" and such. Killing the romance...

9. Ghost Love Score - This is the biggest and the most ambitious song we've ever written. There's no sense in this either, the song has different parts and changes its atmospheres a lot. The song was originally called "Ghost Love", but because of the nature of the song I wanted to include the score there too, so people will know what it's about. I had the idea that each song should sound like a five-minute movie soundtrack song. I worked this song to extremes.

10. Kuolema Tekee Taiteilijan - I wasn't sure should we include this on the album, but when Tarja sang her parts we noticed that Finnish language works really well with this kind of a song, and it still didn't sound too pop-like. It's one of the best ballads we've ever done. The cello that was used in the solo cost 3 million pounds and it sure sounds like it too ! But this song was basically written for the foreign people, that's why it's in Finnish. We always want to try new things, that's why we've got a Finnish song here, one with Lakota language and a techno song. And even though this song has only ten rows of lyrics, I wrote them the longest. It was really tough to get it right. This is about my personal feelings, but people can interpret them how they want to.

11. Higher Than Hope - Marco Hietala wrote most of this song and I wrote the lyrics. It was clear that we end the album to this song because of the nature of the song. Marco came up with some riffs and ideas and I picked up something from them. It really works for this album. It's based on a true story about an American fan I made friends with, who died of cancer in October last year.

White Night Fantasy is the B-side of the Nemo-single, and it's really funny. There's different opinions about it, but it sounds like Björk. Tarja almost whispers the lyrics, but I really like the song, it's got a good feeling to it.

Live To Tell The Tale is the worst song I've ever written. That will probably end up as a B-side to some Madagascar single (laughs)...I guess we can use that song, even though we couldn't get it working at all. There's some curse on it or something. But people want B-sides, so...

Then there's the Anki Bagger cover song Where Were You Last Night, which was done tongue-in-cheek. But I liked the song when I was a kid. But the melody and all sounds like us, so I thought we could use it. The lyrics are terrible though. And the point why we did this song was that people usually take us and the music too seriously, whatever we're wearing, what the lyrics are like, etc. Even though it's a good thing and also flattering, sometimes it really gets to you. It's like the football fans, same goes with the music fans, this is only music. So the point here is don't take everything we do so seriously.

 

Marko:

(from https://www.loudersound.com/features/the-10-best-nightwish-songs-marco-hietala-once-dark-passion-play-imaginaerum-endless-forms-most-beautiful)

THE SIREN
“We took a big leap forward when we released Nemo as a single, but I think my favourite songs from the Once album are Ghost Love Score and The Siren. The Siren is a weird piece because it almost has no lyrics and just a few lines, but it still has a vibe of its own. I really like the oriental mixes that we got on this song, and the story about the certain odyssey going on there.”

GHOST LOVE SCORE
“I’m a big fan of old prog rock and this is a song that has a lot of different parts going on, and different atmospheres in different places in order to support the story. That’s why I like this song; there’s lots of variety and the song is always interesting to perform live. My biggest influence from the prog world would be Jethro Tull, but I also love listening to Yes and Genesis and all those bands, and there’s a correlation between the structures and the length of a lot of their songs and this one.”

 

See also: Tarja and Tuomas on Nemo

[Fugazi]

Despite the quality of their music, the videos that Nightwish have made over the years are hit and miss. I'm quite happy with how Music turned out, and eventually I'll post a list of all their videos with links. But for now I just had to share this one, a video for The Siren sponsored by their German label that turned out so really really awful that the band refused to use it.

https://vimeo.com/111347644

It's not one for the faint of heart. 🤢

[Fugazi]

Nightwish masterpiece "Once" will be released as remastered version on August 6th 2021!

This limited edition box includes 4CD Earbook, colored 2LP vinyl studio album (Blue / Grey Cloudy Effect), colored 2LP vinyl instrumental album (Blue / Grey Cloudy Effect), 5 x covercards for each member + poster.

Order yours from the official Nightwish Shop now!

Release date: August 6th 2021
Worldwide edition: 1300pcs

CD 1 Once, studio album
1. Dark Chest Of Wonders
2. Wish I Had An Angel
3. Nemo
4. Planet Hell
5. Creek Mary's Blood
6. The Siren
7. Dead Gardens
8. Romanticide
9. Ghost Love Score
10. Kuolema Tekee Taiteilijan
11. Higher Than Hope

Total running time: 60.10
Re-mastered by Mika Jussila at Finnvox Studios, Helsinki 2020.

CD 2 Once, instrumental
1. Dark Chest Of Wonders
2. Wish I Had An Angel
3. Nemo
4. Planet Hell
5. Creek Mary's Blood
6. The Siren
7. Dead Gardens
8. Romanticide
9. Ghost Love Score
10. Kuolema Tekee Taiteilijan
11. Higher Than Hope

Total running time: 60.06
Re-mastered by Mika Jussila at Finnvox Studios, Helsinki 2020.

CD 3 Once, bonus tracks
1. Live To Tell The Tale
2. White Night Fantasy
3. Where Were You Last Night
4. Nemo (Video Edit)
5. Nemo (orchestral Version)
6. Nemo (Singback)
7. Nemo (Demo)
8. Wish I Had An Angel (Demo)
9. Ghost Love Score (Orchestral Instr Score)
10. Creek Mary's Blood (Orchestral Instr Score)
11. Creek Mary's Blood (Orchestral Vocal Score)
12. The Siren (Single Edit)
13. The Siren (Live Version)
14. Kuolema Tekee Taiteilijan (Live Version)

Total running time: 73.28
Re-mastered by Mika Jussila at Finnvox Studios, Helsinki 2020.

CD 4 Live at Taubertal Festival, Rothenburg, Germany 13.08.2005
1. Dark Chest Of Wonders
2. The Siren
3. Ever Dream
4. Deep Silent Complete
5. The Kingslayer
6. High Hopes
7. Planet Hell
8. Wishmaster
9. Slaying The Dreamer
10. Kuolema Tekee Taiteilijan
11. Nemo
12. Ghost Love Score
13. Over The Hills And Far Away
14. Wish I Had An Angel

Total running time: 74.15
This is a direct soundboard recording, live in the raw.
Mastered by Mika Jussila at Finnvox Studios, Helsinki 2020.

LP 1 & 2 Once, studio album (colored vinyls)
1. Dark Chest Of Wonders
2. Wish I Had An Angel
3. Nemo
4. Planet Hell
5. Creek Mary's Blood
6. The Siren
7. Dead Gardens
8. Romanticide
9. Ghost Love Score
10. Kuolema Tekee Taiteilijan
11. Higher Than Hope

Total running time: 60.10
Re-mastered by Mika Jussila at Finnvox Studios, Helsinki 2020.

LP 3 & 4 Once, instrumental  (colored vinyls)
1. Dark Chest Of Wonders
2. Wish I Had An Angel
3. Nemo
4. Planet Hell
5. Creek Mary's Blood
6. The Siren
7. Dead Gardens
8. Romanticide
9. Ghost Love Score
10. Kuolema Tekee Taiteilijan
11. Higher Than Hope

Total running time: 60.06
Re-mastered by Mika Jussila at Finnvox Studios, Helsinki 2020.

Backstage Rock Shop is the proud home of official Nightwish merchandise.

https://www.backstagerockshop.com/collections/nightwish/products/nightwish-once-remastered-ltd-box

 

Nightwish masterpiece "Once" will be released as remastered version on August 6th 2021. Pre-order your limited edition 4CD Earbook version from the official Nightwish Shop now!

Release date: August 6th 2021
Worldwide edition: 3500pcs

CD 1 Once, studio album
1. Dark Chest Of Wonders
2. Wish I Had An Angel
3. Nemo
4. Planet Hell
5. Creek Mary's Blood
6. The Siren
7. Dead Gardens
8. Romanticide
9. Ghost Love Score
10. Kuolema Tekee Taiteilijan
11. Higher Than Hope

Total running time: 60.10
Re-mastered by Mika Jussila at Finnvox Studios, Helsinki 2020.

CD 2 Once, instrumental
1. Dark Chest Of Wonders
2. Wish I Had An Angel
3. Nemo
4. Planet Hell
5. Creek Mary's Blood
6. The Siren
7. Dead Gardens
8. Romanticide
9. Ghost Love Score
10. Kuolema Tekee Taiteilijan
11. Higher Than Hope

Total running time: 60.06
Re-mastered by Mika Jussila at Finnvox Studios, Helsinki 2020.

CD 3 Once, bonus tracks
1. Live To Tell The Tale
2. White Night Fantasy
3. Where Were You Last Night
4. Nemo (Video Edit)
5. Nemo (orchestral Version)
6. Nemo (Singback)
7. Nemo (Demo)
8. Wish I Had An Angel (Demo)
9. Ghost Love Score (Orchestral Instr Score)
10. Creek Mary's Blood (Orchestral Instr Score)
11. Creek Mary's Blood (Orchestral Vocal Score)
12. The Siren (Single Edit)
13. The Siren (Live Version)
14. Kuolema Tekee Taiteilijan (Live Version)

Total running time: 73.28
Re-mastered by Mika Jussila at Finnvox Studios, Helsinki 2020.

CD 4 Live at Taubertal Festival, Rothenburg, Germany 13.08.2005
1. Dark Chest Of Wonders
2. The Siren
3. Ever Dream
4. Deep Silent Complete
5. The Kingslayer
6. High Hopes
7. Planet Hell
8. Wishmaster
9. Slaying The Dreamer
10. Kuolema Tekee Taiteilijan
11. Nemo
12. Ghost Love Score
13. Over The Hills And Far Away
14. Wish I Had An Angel

Total running time: 74.15
This is a direct soundboard recording, live in the raw.
Mastered by Mika Jussila at Finnvox Studios, Helsinki 2020.

Backstage Rock Shop is the proud home of official Nightwish merchandise.

https://www.backstagerockshop.com/collections/nightwish/products/nightwish-once-remastered-4cd-earbook

[Fugazi]

I'm pretty excited about the whole thing, given the quality of the remastered work on Decades. Also, Taubertal live recording is a great bonus! And extra tracks!

 

Quote

Germany-Rothenburg-Taubertal Open Air-August 14, 2005

• Partial show  🎤🎤🎤 🎞️🎞️🎞️ ⭐

[Fugazi]

Let's compare!

Original:

 

Remastered:

 

In all honesty I hear no difference, of course the YouTube compression algorithms are maybe cancelling some of the improvements on the remaster.

[Fugazi]

I thought I would add here some details about Marc Brueland, the inspiration for the song "Higher Than Hope". This is from an epitaph published on the web page of the comic book publishing company he co-founded. Visit the link for photos.

http://invinciblestudios.com/marc.html

 

MARC CHRISTIAN BRUELAND
Artist and DJ with an invincible spirit

Marc Brueland, a talented artist and popular night club DJ passed away on Saturday, October 25th, 2003 after a seven and a half year battle with cancer. He was 30 years old and lived in San Diego.

During high school, Marc developed an interest in comic books and began to pursue a career as a comic book artist. He wholeheartedly dedicated himself to his goal and honed his artistic skills becoming a top artist in Serra High School's Advanced Placement art program. A few short weeks after graduating he was picked up by the San Diego based animation studio American Film Technologies where he worked first as a clean up artist and advanced to the role of an inbetweener.

After his stint as an animator, Marc once again set out to follow his dream of creating comic books. With two of his closest friends, Christopher Higginson and Rayel Friesen, they founded Invincible Studios, a small press comic book company. The three of them, only 19 years old each, self-published their own internationally distributed comic book anthology, "Three". His contribution to the book continued to draw praise even after he left the series.

With another milestone under his belt, he went back to work in animation and quickly proved to be a superb character animator. He worked at Lightspan Partnership and Aerie Animation on children's educational projects. At only 22-years of age he worked as a lead animator and had started directing his first project, but his career was cut short when he began to show signs of his illness, Fibrolamellar Hepatocellular Carcinoma, a rare form of liver cancer.

At Scripps Green, one of the nations leading Cancer treatment centers, he underwent a radical and high risk surgery to remove a large, tumor from his liver described as "grapefruit-sized" and most likely growing undetected in him since high school.

Living up to his publishing imprint name, he proved to truly be "invincible" himself. Over the next seven and a half years he was plagued by several more tumors and major operations which limited his ability to continue with his artistic endeavors, but never dampening his hopeful and confident attitude.

Despite being plagued by fatigue and chronic pain he was able to contribute a back up story to the popular "Lenore" comic book series by Roman Dirge (for SLG Publishing) and continued to look forward to eventually creating comic books again.

Though unable to work full time as a comic book creator, Marc enjoyed attending the annual San Diego Comic Book Conventions and became an inspiration to everyone he met. Touching the lives of fellow artists and contemporaries.

Not allowing the disease to deter his optimistic outlook, he turned his creative nature to working once a week at local nightclubs as a DJ. His longest tenure being at Club Sabbat, a popular goth/industrial club in San Diego.

While searching through compilation CDs for his DJ'ing sets, Marc stumbled across an album featuring a cover of "Walking in the Air" by the platinum selling Finnish heavy metal band, Nightwish. Remembering the song from his favorite childhood cartoon, he immediately called his mother and shared the song with her. It was a difficult time for the family and the song served as a way to bring them all together once again. Wanting to learn more about the song and the band, his mother, Georgene, began making calls to the record label... and was actually put in touch with the band members. Through telephone conversations, Marc and the band's frontman Tuomas Holopainen became close friends.

Marc traveled to Atlanta to see Nightwish perform at the Progpower concert and meet the band. During their performance, the band dedicated the song, "Walking in the Air" to him and despite the near crippling effects of his illness, he was able to briefly walk out on stage. Marc and Toumas shared a hug and Marc walked up to the microphone and said "That's my brother," to the roaring approval of the crowd, many of whom had heard his story and were moved to tears.

After developing a friendship and inspired by the strength and courage Marc demonstrated in his battle with cancer, Nightwish began to record the song "Higher than hope" for their album "Once" as a tribute to him. The song features excerpts of dialogue from a news interview Marc did after his first operation.

Unfortunately, Marc passed away before he could ever hear his song.

In another sad turn in the story, Marc's Dad Eric passed away on November 11th, 2007 after his own battle with cancer. He had recently gone with the family to visit Nightwish's Tuomas and the Holopainen family in Orange County. Eric passed away listening to his favorite Nightwish song, "Meadows of Heaven" and is buried with his son.

"The hopes were high. The choirs were vast.
Now my dreams are left to live through you"
- from 'Higher than hope'

 

A message from Marc's family

We would like to take this opportunity to express our heart thanks to all around the world who have been touched by the story of our beloved son Marc, either through this website or through the music of Nightwish. As you know, Marc lost his heroic battle with cancer October 25th, 2003. Over these past fourteen months our grief has been unconsoleable. Marc was the driving force in all our lives. His creativity, outgoing personallity and lust for life were infectious. A light has gone out in our lives and we have been left in the darkness wondering why? But through the music of Nightwish's Higher Than Hope, Marc is immortal around the world. The outpouring of compassion from metal fans, comics fans and those who knew him has helped us try to cope with this overwhelming loss. Therefore, in 2005 each time you hear Higher Than Hope remember Marc's courage and also know that his family will always be grateful for all the expressions of love shown us from strangers around the world.

Sincerely,
The Brueland Family

 

Edit: And here's a video with Marc's family shot in 2007 in California during the filming of the Bye Bye Beautiful video.

https://youtu.be/6u8UO1PpzKM?t=834

 

[Fugazi]

Hmm... Once Remastered is out, and apparently quality control wasn't top priority on this one. From what I can hear, there's an audio glitch on Nemo (you can hear it here at 2:58) and there are many mistakes in the lyrics. Come on guys, this isn't rocket science! 🙄

 

[Fugazi]

There's a discussion on Reddit about the problems with this reissue, maybe worth a look before ordering.

https://www.reddit.com/r/nightwish/comments/p0yxss/the_hopefully_complete_list_of_whats_wrong_with/

[Fugazi]

I'm still waiting for my copy of the Once Remaster but some of the extra tracks are available (for now) on YouTube.

"Live To Tell The Tale" is still not growing on me. It had the right ingredients, but something's missing. Perhaps the bridge is a bit uninspired, compared to other NW compositions?

I do have a soft spot for "White Night Fantasy", with Tarja's sweeter than usual voice and rather catchy chorus. I find Nightwish are often surprisingly good when they veer off their own beaten track.

"Where Were You Last Night" is not my favourite cover, but it was recorded in good fun.

"Nemo" orchestral version is smooth and soothing, a nice cure for greatest hit fatigue.

"Nemo" demo is interesting for the different bridge section, including a short guitar lead piece and some different keys.

"Siren" and "Kuolema" live are nice, I don't know yet where they have been recorded.

 

 

[Fugazi]

On 8/16/2021 at 10:56 PM, Fugazi said:

"Siren" and "Kuolema" live are nice, I don't know yet where they have been recorded.

Scratch that, I found it. These tracks were first released on "The Siren" single (2005), and according to Discogs:

The Siren recorded live February 27th 2005 at Chur, Switzerland.
Kuolema Tekee Taiteilijan recorded live February 25th 2005 at Bayreuth, Germany.

 

[Fugazi]

Been checking out the mistaken lyrics in the new Once release... Weird stuff.

On "Wish I Had An Angel" the editor decided to write down the chorus in full when actually only a part of it would be sung the first time over. Same mistake (or lazy attempt to shorten the lyric length) on "Nemo".

On "Planet Hell", a single word is missing. On "Ghost Love Score" a whole line is missing, and they also swapped a word.

"Kuolema Tekee Taiteilijan" was messed up more badly. Two lines are missing, one word was added and an extra chorus was added to the beginning of the song. They thought we wouldn't notice if it's in Finnish?

Finally on "Dark Chest Of Wonders" and "Romanticide" some brand new lyrics were made up. What is the source of that? Pure fuck-up or some sort of early demo lyrics? I wish the band would at least provide an explanation for messing up their definitive album release.

It's not such a big deal, but a label statement about the mistaken lyrics and the "Nemo" sound blip would have been nice.

[Fugazi]

The Story Behind The Song: Nightwish’s Nemo

by Dom Lawson/Natasha Scharf (Metal Hammer), October 06, 2016

https://www.loudersound.com/features/nightwish-nemo-story-behind-the-song

Tuomas Holopainen and Tarja Turunen look back on the song that broke Nightwish to an audience of millions

 

Most successful bands can trace their rise to glory back to one particular moment in time. For Finland’s Nightwish, the undisputed champions of symphonic metal, that moment came with the release of Nemo, the first single to be unveiled from the band’s fifth album, Once. Although they had already established themselves as a major force in large parts of Europe and South America, it was Nemo, released in 2004, that proved to be the band’s major international breakthrough.

As Nightwish celebrate two decades as metal’s most extravagant standard-bearers, we asked founder, creative driving force and keyboard maestro Tuomas Holopainen and former vocalist Tarja Turunen to cast their minds back to the song that brought them worldwide fame. Tuomas explains that it had a painful birth.

“I remember vividly that Nemo is one of the most difficult songs we’ve ever done,” he tells us. “It was really, really difficult to get it to work. We worked with the arrangement for months, just to get the lyrics and melodies completely right. I don’t know why. It was originally two minutes longer and the music was faster, but it was Tero [Kinnunen], the recording engineer, who said, ‘This part is completely stupid. Take it away, and we need to slow this down by about 10bpm.’ We rearranged it again and again. I can’t even remember how it went originally. It must be on one of my floppy discs!”

Many people assumed the song was some kind of tribute to either Disney’s Finding Nemo or Captain Nemo from Jules Verne’s classic novel, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, but the truth is that it was inspired by the troubled emotional state that Tuomas found himself in at the time of its composition.

“It was just about a feeling of not being sufficient enough, a feeling of being a terrible person and fucking up everything,” he explains. “We all get those moments every now and again, those weaker moments in life when you don’t really know who you are. You are without a name, without a direction. That’s where the title, Nemo, which means ‘no name’ [in Latin], came from. It’s basically a cathartic song about myself. I was just a much darker person then than I am now. I would never do a song like that again, but that was as honest as it gets. It was a page out of my diary, and I needed to get those emotions out. I felt so alone.”

We now know that Once would prove to be Tarja’s last album with Nightwish, but today she has fond memories of hearing and singing Nemo for the first time, as the lavish and ambitious record was pieced together during the winter of 2003 and early 2004

“When Tuomas first played it to me, I thought that Nemo was an easy-to-understand song with a beautiful, catchy melody,” she recalls. “I really loved it. It didn’t immediately become one of my favourites, because I generally preferred the longer, more complicated songs in Nightwish, but this song obviously needed to be a single. I always tend to be a little bit more nervous recording a song when you know it’s a single, but the goal is just to get a good take and to make a great song out of it. I had a great time singing it.”

While it seemed inevitable that Nightwish would continue to head onwards and upwards upon the release of Once, it was the release of Nemo and its sumptuous, melodramatic video that gave the band that all-important push into the global spotlight. Costing around €80,000 – a massive amount for a metal band in 2004 – and created in collaboration with Finnish director Antti Jokinen (who went on to direct 2011 thriller The Resident, starring Hilary Swank), the clip received heavy rotation from TV stations around the world. It was a vivid but melancholic portrayal of the band performing amid a snowy, mountainous landscape, Tarja standing out in a billowing red coat. The striking visuals, combined with the song’s irresistible melodies, elegantly augmented by the London Session Orchestra, ensured that Nemo had a vast impact.

“The video was dark, but striking and colourful, and it was very gothic,” she says. “We got a lot of gothic followers after that video! I don’t think Nightwish ever considered themselves to be a gothic band, but we got a lot of appreciation. My friend is a Finnish tailor, and she’s still in charge of many of my outfits. We had this idea for the red coat, a very strong colour against the snow falling. If you think of symphonic metal bands with female singers, they’re usually dressed in black. I was always the weird girl with the weird voice, the operatic vocals, and then I wore this red coat, ha ha ha! I still see girls at my shows dressed like me, so I guess it was really powerful.”

Not everyone was immediately bowled over by Nightwish’s opulent vision, however, as Tarja explains.

“We had an initial ‘No!’ from MTV at the time, because they didn’t want to show a video that was in the snow!” she laughs. “We thought, ‘Why are you showing beach videos all the year round, but you don’t want to show snow falling?’ Some TV stations were not willing to show the video, but it was a big thing for us. Many new people got to know us through that song.”

Released on April 19, 2004, Nemo was undoubtedly the chief catalyst in propelling Nightwish to the greatest of heights. The buzz surrounding the band was already undeniable, but the single’s conquering of the small screen and the then-rapidly expanding online world ensured that when Once was released just under two months later, it rocketed to the top of charts across Europe, and the Finns suddenly found themselves being heralded as 2004’s musical phenomenon.

“I think the biggest news was that it was the best-selling album in the whole of Europe for two weeks,” Tuomas grins. “It was unbelievable. That’s when we said, ‘OK, now we know that something’s going on!’ I don’t really think it got into any of our heads in a bad way. We were just like, ‘Wow! Imagine that!’ There were all these huge names from all over the world and they were beneath us… I thought, ‘What’s going on? OK, let’s just enjoy the ride!’ It was just fantastic. Everybody felt really happy in the band and we’re talking about 2004 now, because 2005 was the worst year for us. But I remember 2004 was just beautiful, the whole year. Everybody was happy with the success and just being happy playing the shows. I remember we played at the Astoria in London. It was the first time we ever played there, and they had a sign outside that said, ‘Tonight! Nightwash!’ I will never forget that! Ha ha ha!”

As Tuomas hints, the overwhelming success Nightwish enjoyed after the release of Once would eventually lead to an acrimonious split with their singer at the end of 2005. But with hindsight, it is clear that the impact of Nemo and its parent album were fundamental to the sustained popularity and commercial potency that the band continue to enjoy to this day. While they had worked extremely hard to realise their ambitions, the reality of becoming big meant that their lives changed at an alarming rate, and Tarja struggled to adjust.

“Yeah, suddenly everyone wanted a piece of us, and it was weird,” she notes. “The venues were huge and that was great, but I don’t know if I got to enjoy that much about it. It was so fast. I don’t know if anyone could really enjoy that. We were in a wind tunnel, you know? We were still young and we’d worked really hard to make our dreams come true, but it was kind of scary at the time. For me to be the only girl on the road, in a way, I was always the one that everyone saw first and wanted to speak to, and the guys would always escape, ha ha ha! There was a lot of pressure involved. It wasn’t an easy time for the band. The success came, but it was hard to deal with it. If you ask me now if I enjoyed it, I can’t say yes, and that’s sad, isn’t it?”

In suitably dramatic fashion, Nightwish and Tarja went their separate ways at the end of the touring cycle for Once. But now that more than a decade has passed, both camps are evidently proud of the music they made together and the longevity they have both achieved due to that remarkable shared success. Nightwish are bigger than ever in 2016 and show no signs of losing momentum, while Tarja’s career as a solo artist also goes from strength to strength. She still sings Nemo, and other Nightwish songs, during her live shows, which says it all about the enduring magic they created all those years ago. Meanwhile, Tuomas is happy to acknowledge that Nemo remains one of the most important songs he has ever written, and a glowing example of how music can change lives and make dreams come true.

“It might sound corny, but you realise that these lyrics and this song are going to be heard by all these people, so in a way it’s sharing the pain and the frustration with the whole world, and that really helps,” he concludes. “When music is so honest, I think it helps the people who are listening to it as well, so everybody wins. That’s the beauty of art in its essence, right there.”