text: Enya noticed a change in her own attitude when it came to recording Shepherd Moons, "the difference ... is that I've mellowed". This was down to the greater amount of time Enya took away from the studio, particularly during "quite difficult" moments, while recording the album in comparison to Watermark. The process, she felt, improved her sense of creativity in the long run. In some parts on the album, Enya recorded 500 layered voices without sampling or replication. When the melody to a song was completed, Roma Ryan would write lyrics to it. Several months after recording and mixing was complete, Enya had not yet listened to the album. "I will find any excuse not to. And honestly, I have never felt so miserable as finishing this album. It's fear – fear that all your feelings and all your emotions have gone into the thing, and when you hear it, it won't live up to your expectations for it."
  Writer Molly Burke wrote about the album's artwork: "Shepherd Moons features Enya in what can only be described as an opera gown she could be twenty or forty but her delicate beauty is intact. There is a sense of timelessness here bathed in the dark but fragile blue of sorrow".
  Songs