Tarja Turunen turbulent departure from Nightwish is one of the topics that always resurfaces among fans of the band and the singer. As often happens in this type of dispute, the public takes sides and old rumors are revived, but no one is better suited to address the issue than the people involved. And, in Tarja's case, the song "Diva" is an outpouring of emotion about painful accusations from her former bandmates.
In general, the Finnish vocalist doesn't fuel drama when talking about her former bandmates, preferring to talk about how satisfied she is with her solo career and the support of her fans. Even in the letter published in response to her public dismissal from Nightwish, Tarja promised a press conference about future plans, but was emphatic about the expected content of the interviews: "This doesn't mean you should expect this conference to be an instrument to attack anyone. It won't be," she wrote at the time.
It was in Tarja Turunen's solo releases that fans found messages between the lines. In the album The Shadow Self (2016), the singer's sixth solo release, the song "Diva" addresses how she was referred to by Tuomas Holopainen in the open letter announcing his departure from Nightwish .
Although Tarja has not explicitly stated the inspiration for the song publicly, we can understand the hidden meanings in the lyrics of "Diva" when we learn about the behind-the-scenes story .
Now we can laugh about it.
I don't care about all the burning daggers
piercing me, shaping me,
turning the blade against you.
Right in the first verse of the song, Tarja Turunen talks about someone who tried to stab her with "burning daggers" in the past. Although she still feels the pain from those attacks, the conflict happened long ago to be less painful, making it even possible to laugh about what happened. At the time of the release of "Diva," her departure from Nightwish had been over a decade ago.
I revealed my escape.
Sweet mutiny, the ship was sinking.
Deeper and deeper and deeper.
On top of you.
At the time of the release of the album Once (2004), the biggest success of Nightwish's career, Tarja spoke with Tuomas about her intention to leave the group in the near future. The goal was to record one more studio album and leave the group before even going on a promotional tour. However, when the singer "revealed her escape" and her intention to follow her own path, the founder of Nightwish made his plans to bring forward this departure.
At the time, Tuomas Holopainen spoke about Tarja's decision as one of the main factors in deciding to leave the band. “It was a combination of many different factors: how Tarja felt about the band, her motivations, her values, the fact that the next album would definitely be her last [with the band] and that she didn't want to tour with us anymore, not even after the next album. Why should we continue working with someone with that kind of attitude?” he said in an interview with the German magazine Orkus (via Blabbermouth ).
Now I have the key
Out of the spiraling conspiracy
Just look at me
Just look
Diva, diva, diva, diva
In this part of the chorus, Tarja talks about being freed from a conspiracy that could only drag her down. Considering that everyone in the band handed her their resignation letter after a show and following a group hug, this could be the conspiracy in question.
The song title itself refers to how Tarja was described by her former colleagues: from a "lovely girl," she had become "a diva who no longer thinks or acts like she used to" in the eyes of her colleagues. Instead of being a complimentary term, the word "diva" here is used to accuse her of arrogance and stardom.
In several interviews, Tarja Turunen has spoken out about how saddened she is by this title. "What affected me the most was being called a 'diva'. I don't feel like I'm a diva, and the people who really know me, I hope, agree with me! Maybe I was misinterpreted," she told Metal Hammer in 2022.
When you sculpted your scene,
so delirious, it almost got to me.
I started questioning my sanity
because of you.
Once again, Tarja recounts the difficulty she had dealing with this conflict and how she felt emotionally manipulated, to the point of questioning her own sanity. This passage seems to describe a relationship involving gaslighting , a form of psychological abuse in which the target begins to doubt themselves because of the lies and distortions told by the abuser.
At the time of her dismissal from Nightwish, the band listed a series of reasons for the decision, including conversations in which Tarja allegedly claimed to be more important than the other members, demanded higher payments, and canceled shows for frivolous reasons, such as going to the movies and seeing friends. Furthermore, Tarja's husband and manager, Marcelo Cabuli , was cited as possibly responsible for this transformation in the singer's personality and as a greedy man. "I'm sorry they misinterpreted me so much. I don't recognize myself at all in the way they described me. They mentioned bad things about me, but the fact that they involved Marcelo, my husband, crossed the line," Tarja responded in 2005.
I've tasted the salt.
I couldn't stand all the rats on board.
I walked the plank while the curtains fell
on you.
In the final part of the song, Tarja Turunen explains the difficult solution to resolve the impasse she was in: leaving the scene, like someone throwing themselves into the sea. Even faced with the challenges of drifting in saltwater, this is still a better option than living with the rats on the ship she was traveling on.
The song “Diva” is part of Tarja Turunen’s first solo greatest hits compilation, Best Of: Living The Dream, released in 2023. In a conversation with Wikimetal , the singer commented on the message of this song, which appropriates the adjective used to offend and changes the meaning of the word.
“It hurt me deeply when my reputation was damaged by several false accusations in the past, made by people who had no other way to live their own lives but to do that. But I chose to listen to my heart and follow my dream with music,” she explained. “I love playing the song 'Diva' at my shows and, by doing so, I'm telling people that we shouldn't care about what others say badly about us, just because their own lives are miserable, they are envious or want to be like you. Each of us is the diva of our own lives.”
READ ALSO: Nightwish and all the sentimentality of Tuomas Holopainen in “Dead Boy's Poem”