Released in December 1993, the single 'Return To Innocence' became one of the hottest songs around the world in 1994. Inspired by the music from Taiwan's indigenous people, first performed in 1988 in Paris during a cultural exchange, 'Return To Innocence' stayed on the Billboard Magazine's International Top 100 chart for 8 consecutive months.
The Taiwanese song, 'Palang' or 'Jubilant Drinking Song' was performed by aboriginal couple Kuo Ying-nan and Kuo Hsiu-chu along with the other native singers from the Ami tribe, who were said to be Malayo-Polynesian and descendants of the original inhabitants of Taiwan. It was understood the Ami tribe had "a distinct language, culture and history separate from the Chinese."
The band Enigma was founded by German singer Michael Cretu. 'Return To Innocence' was the first single on the album, 'The Cross of Changes'. After he had listened to the 9 songs on the album, Philip Tartler of 'The Free Lance-Star, Fredericksburg, Virginia' made the comment in April 1994, "The word 'enigma' refers to an ambiguous, perplexing statement, and Michael Cretu couldn't have thought of a better name for his band.
"Their new album brought Native American and Middle-Eastern religious wails into the public spotlight. The album works as a full piece of music, a multi-textured and predominantly mellow symphony of the soul. Enigma creates a spiritual musical assault that lulls and opens the mind to Cretu’s lyrics. Cretu’s messages are rather simply put New Age sentiments that encourage love and self-awareness, and discourage hate and destruction.
"Many lyrics are repeated throughout the different songs on the album, reinforcing the idea that the album is all and one, just as Cretu believes God, nature and man are. On 'Silent Warrior', one of the album's highlights, Cretu's lyrics are at their strongest as he rails against the conquerers of the New World who misused God's name for their purposes."
In 2008, Michael Cretu spoke to the 'Bangalore Mirror'.
Interviewer (Karthik): Why did the music of 'The Cross of Changes' steer away from Gregorian chants, considering how successful MCMXC a.D was?
Michael Cretu: Firstly, MCMXC a.D. was an invention within the framework of modern pop-music. There were hundreds who tried to repeat the mixture of Gregorian chants and this specific ethno flute, but it didn't work. After a while, the market was so saturated that nobody wants to listen to this kind of sound anymore. So it was time for a new invention which I did with Enigma II, 'The Cross of Changes', using ethnic voices from all over the world. During the creative process, I never listen to other music. I do not look for a specific sound either. I just listen to my library again and again, and suddenly a sound/voice sounds good to me. This is how I found the famous voice of 'Return to Innocence'.
The 'BBC English' magazine stated, "Many languages have wise words or sayings. In English, they are called proverbs. These expressions are used to give practical advice or convey sensible ideas.
Traditionally, one generation hands on its wisdom to the next. The next generation usually ignores it, and makes the same mistakes again. Then this new generation tries to save its descendants from the same fate by passing on its own ideas. Some of these ideas have become proverbs. Old people are more likely to use proverbs than young. Whether anyone actually follows the advice given in proverbs is another question.
"Let’s take the proverb 'As one door closes, another door opens', which means when a present opportunity, or course of action, is no longer available, we try to be optimistic and say that some new advantage will turn up.
Other proverbs are fatalistic. For example, 'It's no use crying over split milk', tells us that getting upset over something which has already happened, and can't be reversed, is a waste of time. Some proverbs contradict each other. 'Every cloud has a silver lining,' tells us that even when things look bad there’s something good to be found. 'Lightning never strikes twice' tells us very bad luck doesn't come to the same person twice."
In 1934, the 'American Weekly, Inc. Great Britain' reported, "The lighting never strikes twice in the same place is proverbial – but wrong. Certainly there can be no truth in the traditional idea that lightning never strikes twice in the same place. Instead, it seems almost always to strike at least several times in the same place and in extremely quick succession, with intervals of something like a two-thousand part of a second between the repeated strokes.
"The reason why these repeated strokes are not seen is merely that they are too fast for the eye, in exactly the same way that the repeated individual pictures of a motion picture blend in the eye into the illusion of continuous motion. Ancient peoples used to believe that lightning was a hammer of Thor or a bolt from Jove or some other fiery but material object hurled to earth by similar gods in the skies.
"But modern scientists cannot laugh much at these absurd ideas for it turns out that science has been just as completely wrong about many of the real properties of lightning as were the ancient simpletons who went around after a storm looking for fragments of the thunderbolts. In ancient times lightning flashes always were drawn by artists with their branches pointing downward, probably a result of the idea that Jove was hurling thunderbolts from the same spot in the heavens, or perhaps that Jove’s side partner, Neptune, was poking down at the earth the fiery, three-pointed spear or trident supposed to be both the symbol and the weapon of this imagined ruler of the seas.
"The thing that starts a lightning flash and determines where it will strike is not the bright stroke of the lightning itself but a dim, small and almost invisible dart or arrow of electric particles. The traditional 'bolt from the blue' or lightning from a cloudless sky, commoner in fact than it is in the proverbs, probably is this kind of an almost invisible dart with most of the subsequent flashes missing. Most of the new facts about lightning have been learned within the past 2 years (or since 1932) by a device which a distinguished British scientist made for himself in 1900 and carried around the world to different laboratories and on exploring expeditions for 28 years before he got his first chance to use it."
