text: Watermark firmly established Enya's sound of multi-layered vocals, keyboard-oriented songs, and influences of Celtic music. Enya felt the need to have layers of vocals to add a "human element" to her music as solely using keyboards and digital sampling sounded, to her, "a bit linear and straight". The idea of the multi-vocals originated when Enya was a member of Clannad, her family's Celtic band, in the early 1980s. With Nicky as their manager, influenced by The Beach Boys and the "wall of sound" technique made famous by producer Phil Spector, the two often discussed the idea of layering Enya's voice to make it its own instrument. After experimenting with the concept on Enya the vocals became more established on Watermark, with as many as over 200 vocal tracks were painstakingly recorded for certain sections. In one instance, around 90 tracks had been put down during a period of several days but the two felt they did not sound right, so they erased them and started over. This was the case particularly during the recording of "Miss Clare Remembers", a piano instrumental, when they experimented with the idea of adding vocals but decided against keeping them.
  Songs
  Watermark is formed of eleven tracks, eight of which Enya and Roma are listed on as co-writers. The remaining three are instrumentals solely composed by Enya. She had performed solos as a vocal on Enya, but wanted them played by different instruments on Watermark, and employed additional musicians to play parts that were already written: Neil Buckley plays the clarinet on "On Your Shore", Chris Hughes plays the rototoms on "River" and the rototoms and African hand drum on "Storms in Africa", and Davy Spillane contributes the low whistle and uilleann pipes on "Exile" and "Na Laetha Geal M'óige". Enya sings in Irish, her first language, and English and Latin. She looked back on the album in 2000: "Looking back ... the words are those of loss, of reflection, of exile – not necessarily from one's country, but from those whom the heart loves. It has in its theme searching, longing, of reaching out for an answer. The ocean is a central image. It is the symbolism of a great journey."