Skip to content
Who's in the Video
Richard Melville Hall, a.k.a. Moby, is one of the most important dance music figures of the early '90s, helping bring the music to a mainstream audience both in England and[…]
Sign up for the Smarter Faster newsletter
A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

Moby cites a piece he calls “God Moving Over the Face of the Waters” as his very best.

Question: What's the best material you've ever written?

Moby: Well there’s a piece of music that I wrote about 12 years ago called “God Moving Over the Face of the Waters”.  And it’s a quiet, classical piece.  And then it was used in the movie Heat – the sort of … – the very end of the movie.  And I’d say out of all the pieces of music I’ve made, that’s still the one that’s closest to my heart.  So …

Question: Why?

Moby:  Mmm …  It has a …   I don’t know.  There’s just something about it that seems …  Like it’s very …  It’s very emotional, at least for me.  And it’s quite powerful, but it’s also very delicate.  And it’s one of those pieces of music where, when I’d finished writing it, I had no idea where it came from.  Like I don’t know where the inspiration came from.  You know, I mean I know it’s a tried cliché, but I really just felt sort of like a conduit.  Like I wasn’t actually the one writing the music.  You know, I was just the weird puppet/conduit through which the music came.

Question:  Has that happened since?

Moby: Yeah.  Luckily …  Well, I mean, my criteria for evaluating my music is a lot different than the criteria that other people would use to evaluate my music.  And from my perspective, I’ve had a lot of instances where I’ve, you know, ended up making music that’s affected me very … on a deep emotional level.  That doesn’t mean that it always affects other people emotionally.

Recorded on: 5/29/07


Related