Tarja Turunen – “I Walk Alone”

“Whisper to my heart when hope is torn apart and no one can save you.”~ “I Walk Alone” by Tarja

Ohhh holy fire and don’t forget the shredded bacon bits!!!

There’s a song that I’ve been listening to ALL WEEKEND LONG, and it has captured me to the point of going nutty. My poor, poor neighbors.

The discovery was more or less something that “just happened”. Ever since that moment, I’ve been immersed into it.

I was watching a few videos on YouTube made by the very beautiful, Thayze Luck. She has a collection of videos where she is actually swinging her beautiful knee length hair in a windmill as if she is headbanging. The soundtracks that she puts behind it comes from a various sort of different black metal and other metal bands, so you get the feeling of “Yeah! YOU ROCK!!!”.

But I would also find other videos that she had uploaded of her singing different covers of various genres and musicians. The voice that Thayze Luck has is wonderful. Beautiful voice, beautiful hair, beautiful woman.

I found that Thayze Luck lives somewhere in Brazil. I immediately thought, “I GOTTA LEARN HOW TO SPEAK PORTUGUESE!”. But then I would find this cover of Tarja.

I was so taken by the song that I couldn’t even finish watching the cover video and went looking for the original artist and music video. The more I researched, the deeper and deeper I sank and surrendered my curiosity.

Tarja Turunen is from Finland. She is a former member of the band, Nightwish. In which she was the lead vocalist from 1996 until 2005 when she left the band. She went on to a solo career, as it were. And she came out with her first two albums. This song that got to me, comes from her second album, “My Winter Storm”. It was the first single release from that album.

But I couldn’t stop myself. Search after search, and video after video of watching other people cover this song. I think I’ve seen them all. And yes, I did go back and watch the cover by Thayze Luck in its entirety. Such a voice!

I plastered my Facebook page with both the cover that I had originally found and then the official music video. My Facebook friends at the time probably thought I was nuts. Well, they were partially right.

Over and over and over and over again, watching the music video and learning the lyrics to the song. In all honesty, it was creeping me the heck out. The lyrics, the music, and Tarja’s magnificent soprano voice was absolutely captivating me.

Even within the first verse, I was gripped:

“I left a thorn under your bed.”

Umm wow. Just that lyric alone actually inspired me to write some more poetry, but from a darker, more eerie part of me.

I would learn that the video was filmed at Devil’s Lake in  Berlin, Germany. Tarja’s interpretation of various characters such as the Ice Queen, the Doll, and the Phoenix just gave me the shivers. Plainly put, the Ice Queen and the Doll scares the crap outta me. But listening to her powerful voice seemed to make it “all better”.

Haunting lyrics and images + a beautiful voice that has three octaves = AN OBSESSED DAMBREAKER.

I continued to watch live performances of Tarja singing the song and it’s just as magical. Although I did have to laugh a time or two when each individual video showed a few of her stage antics. I think that she really enjoys singing and performing and getting thousands of people to sing along with her, I would imagine is a great thrill for her.

But let’s continue on.

Some of the videos found on YouTube don’t exactly have the FULL length of the song. I would find that there’s about twenty seconds missing from most videos. And I wondered why because I thought that once I heard the missing twenty seconds and it sounded familiar.

More research had to be done! God Bless the Internet!!

“I Walk Alone” was written by Mattias Lindblom and Anders Wollbeck. It was inspired by a musical motif in Requiem by Mozart.

And that musical motif was the missing twenty seconds at the beginning of the song.

Being that it was from the second album, the song “I Walk Alone” was actually released on the 27th of October, 2007 by Universal Music. Wow… what a brilliant idea for Halloween.

But wait, I just discovered it and its now 2012. Where in the world have I been? What was I doing in 2007 that I missed this? And who the heck is Nightwish and how did I miss them as well?

I do have a vivid memory of people posting songs on their Facebook profiles from Nightwish. Why wasn’t I clicking on them to listen?

But I had to stop and think, “where was I in 2007?”. Then I remembered and it all made sense why I had missed it.

So I am nearly five years behind on this one. And as far as origins go, I’m just not sure if Tarja Turunen has toured in the United States before, or if she will ever do so in the future. She’s on tour now in major parts of Europe and Asia. In March she’ll be in Russia and three days after, she’ll swing down into Central and South America.

Close, but no cigar. Oh well!

And yet if this song got stuck in my head for six months, I wouldn’t care. Just throw me in the corner and put it on repeat. I’ll be sure to tell you what size to but the restraints and jacket later.

I’m not sure exactly what I am going to do at this point. I don’t know if I am going to get all of her albums or just buy the single. I’ve heard a few other songs and it is just as beautiful. But I am still undecided.

But I really love this song now.

I would have to give recognition to Thayze Luck for actually recording her cover of it, even if English isn’t her best language. Without her recording a cover of this song, I never would’ve known it existed.

So to Thayze Luck: Obrigado!! Você é muito bonita!!!!!

Now to figure out what in the world to do to settle this obsession.