By This River appeared in the album “Before and After Science” by Brian Eno in 1977. The simple melody and lyrics of this song evokes sorrow and nostalgia. The music was composed by Brian Eno, Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius – the last two being well known Krautrock artists. Brian Eno is an English musician, producer and visual artist. He is a founding member of Roxy Music in 1971. His work as producer includes albums with Talking Heads, Devo, U2, and Coldplay. He has also made many ambient compositions and short pieces of music for films.
Deservedly, the song found resonance among classical and pop artists, there are at least five other versions of it on YouTube. Because this song is not well known, bet you cannot tell just by listening which is the original and which is a cover. Enjoy this original and the variations.
1 – By This River by Brian Eno (1977)
2 – By This River by Mari Samuelsen (2019)
3 – By This River by Martin Gore (2003)
4 – By This River by alva noto & Ryuichi Sakamoto (2013)
5 – By This River by Trio Fibonacci (2020)
6 – By This River by Pascal Schumacher (2022)
The original song had only a sparse piano and synth background as Brian Eno was experimenting with electronics at that time. You can find the lyrics after the videos.
Deutschue Grammophon released an instrumental version by Mari Samuelsen playing the violin accompanied by an orchestra in 2019.
Martin Gore from Depeche Mode sang it with a muted vocal style and added more pop electronics sounds.
My favorite team Carsten Nicolai (aka alva noto) and Ryuichi Sakamoto included a minimalist version of this composition in their album “SUMMVS”. I found also live footage of a performance where Sakamoto was on piano and alva noto provided reverbs and loops at Yoko Ono’s Meltdown Festival in 2013.
Another interpretation was provided by a trio of piano, violin and cello. The strings instruments were played as if there was a dialog between two people.
The most recent version was released in 2022 by Pascal Schumacher. That is 47 years after its original debut; not bad for a piece of music by an ambient composer.
Spotify is another way to enjoy the music and allows you to save the playlist. Although a subscription is required to listen to the full length of each tune, you can play a sample without a subscription.
Click ▶ to play
If one is to interpret the lyrics, the river can be a metaphor for time and the song is about a stagnant relationship. Apparently, this piece of music is known to make people cry or fall asleep.
Lyrics
Here we are
Stuck by this river
You and I
Underneath a sky that’s ever falling down, down, down
Ever falling down
Through the day
As if on an ocean
Waiting here
Always failing to remember why we came, came, came
I wonder why we came
You talk to me
As if from a distance
And I reply
With impressions chosen from another time, time, time
From another time
Brian Eno is well-known for crafting music specifically for short segments within a film. While this song was not commissioned for a film, it was used in the film “La stanza del figlio” (“the son’s room”) by Nanni Moretti. The film was a winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2001.
We have just started a series of posts that reports our discoveries and selections of cover songs and music. You will find them using the tag “versions” on the EXPLORE page or at the bottom of this page. The first post is here – Libertango.
I(Chris) has followed Brian Eno’s music since the late 70’s. In 1978, he released his sixth studio album – Ambient 1: Music For Airports – and coined the term “Ambient Music”. I remember reading the liner notes of this album where he wrote: “Ambient music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular, it must be as ignorable as it is interesting.”
Perhaps, we will write some more about Brian Eno as well as ambient music in general in later posts.