What does “Yesterwynde”, the name of Nightwish’s new album, mean?

Nightwish’s new album will be called “Yesterwynde” and will be released on September 20th via Nuclear Blast. But what does this term mean? In an interview with Kerrang, keyboardist Tuomas Holopainen spoke a little about it.

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What is the meaning of the title, Yesterwynde?

“It’s a made-up word. There’s this thing called The Dictionary Of Obscure Sorrows. It gave me the idea that if you don’t have an English word to describe a certain emotion, you can just make up your own. This particular dictionary is dedicated to that, like, the feeling of longing for a place you’ve never been. What is that feeling?

And it was something strange, I remember. And this album was born out of a certain feeling that I felt very strongly, but I couldn’t find a word in the human language to describe it. So I started talking to Troy [Donockley, multi-instrumentista] and said, ‘Should we invent a new word? Does this make any sense to you?’

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And he said, ‘Yes, that’s a brilliant idea. What did you have in mind?’ It was something like time, memories turning black and white, sepia, and I said, ‘something from yesterday’. Then he said, ‘How about Yesterwynde?’ This is perfect! But yeah, it’s just a made-up word to describe what the album is about.”

A feeling of longing?

“Not so much nostalgia, but realizing what time really means. Realizing that there is such a thing as time and the past and history. The internet and YouTube are full of these old black and white images, and even music videos, that you see first in black and white, and then they were colored. Have you seen this? It’s the effect I have at the moment. It’s like it comes from another dimension, these are black and white images, then you color them, and it’s there, like if it was filmed yesterday.

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Something happens in my mind when I see this. I thought, ‘This has to be turned into a song or an album somehow.’ Suddenly you feel so connected to past generations and those people you see in these images. They all had their lives, their ups and downs, and they no longer exist except as atoms scattered throughout the universe. And we too will be in that state very soon. So that should give you something to think about.”

Are you just worried about getting old?

“Not at all – on the contrary (laughs). But they’re the ultimate seize the day cliché. That’s something I think about more and more. We’re all going to be dead soon. It’s just a question of what you’re going to do before then.” .”

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