"River" is an instrumental that was named by Nicky after the music conjured the image of a river in his mind. He knew Enya had the final decision over song titles, but she liked his suggestion and went with it. The track was recorded in roughly ten minutes with Enya playing directly to tape. Nicky spoke about Enya's style of composing for song: "There are five synths midi'd but then she plays chords over these random arpeggiators with notes popping in and out where you don't expect them. Somehow she makes that work". A PPG Wave keyboard was used afterwards for additional sounds.