If Middle-earth had a soundtrack album...

[MatthewM]

Mostly Autumn, a British band that captures a great Middle-earth spirit. They have a female singer and a ripping lead guitarist. They actually did an album dedicated to The Lord of the Rings. GREAT stuff.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by MatthewM

Mostly Autumn, a British band that captures a great Middle-earth spirit. They have a female singer and a ripping lead guitarist. They actually did an album dedicated to The Lord of the Rings. GREAT stuff.

I'm glad you posted that as I was trying to remember the name of this band for months! I was going to check them out on one of these new-fangled downloading whatsit sites (I won't utter the name of the sinister Apple site...) and completely forgot who they were! Interestingly, the singer is married to the former singer in Marillion - named after...?

On the subject of Led Zep, Plant asserts that he did not base any of his songs on Tolkien, that this was just one of many influences floating in the highly charged ether at the time, and I can believe that, what with the mercurial and enigmatic Jimmy Page and his interest in Aleister Crowley etc. Hammer Of The Gods is required reading for any Zep fan who wants to know more.

The other day davem shouted me to 'come and look at this video!' - he'd found a video (Nedgang) by Finntroll on YouTube. This is well worth looking up, as this Scandinavian metal is thoroughly Northern and Middle-earth appropriate to my mind. Also have a look for Tyr, a Faroese metal band who sing about Viking lore and life in English or their native language - I am rather fond of Hail To The Hammer...can imagine Rohirric warriors singing stuff like this. Love it! And many thanks are in order to Mr Eomer himself for recommending these bands!

On the opposite note - try some Vashti Bunyan for the most whimsical yet not at all sickly Hobbitish music around, songs about frogs and dragonflies and living in a gypsy caravan...and you might try Martin Carthy's Rackabello - a rather ace jaunty song about a man killing a Giant's little pig...and I've got but have yet to rip a new CD of ancient Yule songs/carols/wassails/hails to the Green Man by the Watersons & Martin & Eliza Carthy, as performed in Whitby last Christmas...but don't get me started on the area of folk music because I'll rattle on for hours and I shall have Mithalwen accusing me of being a beardy weirdy.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

...and you might try Martin Carthy's Rackabello - a rather ace jaunty song about a man killing a Giant's little pig...and I've got but have yet to rip a new CD of ancient Yule songs/carols/wassails/hails to the Green Man by the Watersons & Martin & Eliza Carthy, as performed in Whitby last Christmas...but don't get me started on the area of folk music because I'll rattle on for hours and I shall have Mithalwen accusing me of being a beardy weirdy.

Mr. Carthy is a brilliant guitarist and is one of those underappreciated masters who influenced an entire generation of folk musicians. I met him in the mid-90's during a Steeleye Span reunion tour (I am sure I was gushing like a little schoolgirl). And Lalwende, if you wish to rattle on for hours regarding folk music, please do so. This is the perfect thread for it.

The aformentioned Steeleye Span is another band who could add to the Middle-earth soundtrack. There are a few songs from The Waterboys you could throw in there as well, particularly on the 'Room to Roam' album (which has one of the best renditions of 'Raggle Taggle Gypsy'), like 'Song From The End Of The World'....

Here is the smell
of seafood pie
a broken tower
on the open sky
a chain of islands
rolling West
in sight of the house
where we are guests

A rambling old river
twist through the fields
ancient names
imprinted on shields
gifts arrive
for a baby girl
born a queen
at the end of the world

Furious music
from an open door
the sound of feet
beating on a stone floor
always the wind
always the form
of an elder God
hooved and horned

The head of the mountain
lost in a cloud
a country woman
soft and proud
into the bay
the horses swirl
for we come to the sea
at the end of the world

[Lalwendë]

Interestingly, The Waterboys' most famous and enigmatic song - The Whole Of The Moon is in part influenced by CS Lewis according to Mike Scott (singer & songwriter - main man in the band...). The lyrics on this are fascinating - the singer tells of things he has done and then counters each with things the subject has done - the latter seems to have lived a cloistered, quiet life but even so, has seen wondrous things and had amazing revelations - there's the line in the chorus: "I wandered out in the world for years while you just stayed in your room. I saw the crescent, you saw the whole of the moon". The song has always fascinated me...

They have used a fair few other literary influences too including Joyce, George MacDonald, Robbie Burns and WB Yeats. Well worth investigating Fisherman's Blues and This Is The Sea.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

They have used a fair few other literary influences too including Joyce, George MacDonald, Robbie Burns and WB Yeats. Well worth investigating Fisherman's Blues and This Is The Sea.

The rendition of Yeat's 'The Stolen Child' on Fisherman's Blues is particularly good. One of my favorite poems from one of my favorite poets. Also, the title 'Room to Roam' is taken from MacDonald's Phantastes, as is most of the lyrics from that song.

[Thenamir]

In the ill-spent days of my high-schooling, circa 1980, there was a group I'm sure no one here has ever heard of (Arkangel, and yes, that's the correct spelling) that made an single album (to this day one of my favorites) named Warrior. The title cut from that album contained a long roll-out at the end -- so long, in fact, that that section of the tune merited its own separate title - "The March of the Ents".

It was a slow marching cadence, with a single rolling snare drum marking the time, punctuated on the downbeats with a bass drum that sounded as if it were 9 feet in diameter being struck by a cave troll on steroids. A thrumming single note bass line accompanies a stirring bagpipe lead (an electric guitar lead is added later to counterpoint the bagpipe), while a quartet of basso profundo voices chants

Ta-run-da! Ta runda-runda-runda rom!

This song became part of what transpired in my brain whenever I read The Two Towers forever after.

As I reflect on the Two Towers movie, I remember thinking that is was practically a crime to omit the marching song of the Ents as it appeared in the book. But of course, that whole affair with the Ents in the movie was a sad travesty of the scenes as written by JRRT,

We come, we come with roll of drum: ta-runda runda runda rom!
We come, we come with horn and drum: ta-rūna rūna rūna rom!

To Isengard! Though Isengard be ringed and barred with doors of stone;
Though Isengard be strong and hard, as cold as stone and bare as bone,
We go, we go, we go to war, to hew the stone and break the door;
For bole and bough are burning now, the furnace roars – we go to war!
To land of gloom with tramp of doom, with roll of drum, we come, we come;
To Isengard with doom we come!
With doom we come, with doom we come!

That scene could have been incredible, and the music something truly glorious. As it was, the only marching scene that comes close is the march of Mordor on Minas Tirith. Sad.

[Thenamir]

I forgot to mention the group Glass Hammer, whose albums are available online at www.glasshammer.com. Two albums of especial note: Journey of the Dunadan, and The Middle Earth Album. The latter I especially like. as it is portrayed as if Glass Hammer was booked for a night's entertainment at The Prancing Pony, complete with an appreciative (and occasionally heckling) audience. After one particular song you can hear a couple of men in the background arguing over a plate of taters...