Tolkien's Music and Themes Across Middle-earth | House of R
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Sauron looked inside you and plucked the very song of your soul, note by note, making himself out to be exactly what you needed, the lost king who could ride you to victory. You gave him everything he wanted and then thanked him for it. Hello, welcome to a very special episode of House of R. It is the episode we were born to make. I'm Joanna Robinson. Joining me today...

She is fleet of foot and sweet of voice. It's Mallory Rubin. Hi, Mallory. Joanna, I've no rest nor comfort. No comfort but song. What a joy to be here with you today for this Music of Middle-Earth episode. Oh my God, Music of Middle-Earth.

Music stuff go. Tolkien and music. This is what we're here to talk about today. We are thrilled to use the flimsy excuse of a Tom Bombadil song in episode four of Rings of Power.

To just really dive into Tolkien music, the music of the films, the music of the TV show, the music of the various adaptations, music inspired by Tolkien. There's just like a lot to get through. Try to put together these notes. We sort of came to the realization that this should probably be like, I don't know, an entire university course. In fact, that entire university course probably exists, but we will do our best to.

to cover this broad topic within a reasonable span of time, but I make zero promises. But I do want to tell you this. Elsewhere in the Ring of Verse, we mentioned it last week, it bears repeating.

The Midnight Boys are doing something called the Whitest Movies Draft. And I hope you all tune in for that. Steve, I'll be thinking of you the entire time that happens. Over on Button Mash, Ben and Jess and Steve covered Astro Bot. That's something you can listen to. And then Mallory and I will be back, obviously, at the end of this week to cover the next episode of Rings of Power. But this is our last episode.

back-to-back Rings of Power sort of Tolkien week because starting the week after that, it's which stuff go. It's Agatha. It's a whole bunch of other stuff that's happening. The Penguin's happening. There's a lot going on. The Midnight Boys will be covering. We will be covering it. Mint Edition is doing some great stuff. Button Mash. All of that. Mallory Rubin. Yes, ma'am. How can folks possibly keep up with everything we're covering in the next few weeks to months to years of our lives? Yeah.

Thanks for asking. Once they figure it out, they should let us know. Here's what I would recommend. Yeah. Follow the pods. Follow House of R. Follow Ringerverse on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts and follow the Ringerverse YouTube channel. You can get full video episodes of House of R and Midnight Boys on both Spotify and the new YouTube channel. While you're at it, follow the Ringerverse on the social media platform of your choosing. The Ringerverse is on Twitter.

Instagram, TikTok. And as you were able to glean quite recently from our Rings of Power mini mailbag, and in general, from the cause that you hear throughout these episodes, the inbox is open. So send your emails to hobbitsanddragons at gmail.com. Jo, back to you in the recording booth. In the studio. Thanks, Mallory Rubin, live on the street. Okay, so listen.

Today, spoiler warning, I don't know what to tell you. Listen, we're not covering anything beyond the Rings of Power episodes you've already seen. That's just true. We will be discussing the events of The Lord of the Rings. We will be discussing some stuff that happens in the Silmarillion. But I don't expect, looking through the notes that we put together today, I don't expect there to be anything tremendously spoilery today.

I'll give you I think I can only think of one candidate. I'll give you a little warning when we come to it. But what do you think, Mal? Right. Like pretty, pretty spoiler friendly episode of Tolkien and music go. Yeah. Music and Tolkien go. I think that's a fair and reasonable framing for the pod. You did great.

Wonderful. Great. Okay. Thank you to all the folks who wrote in to hobbitsanddragons at gmail.com because we did get a number of like very expert, you know, a lot of people are like, huzzah. I love Tolkien and I have a background in music. I'm a musicologist. I've missed that and the other thing. Here are my thoughts. They were all wonderful to read. And I just want to warn you right now, Mallory and I are not music experts.

Yeah. That is not, we don't even have like a minor in music, either of us. So like, we are very just like, like plowing ahead, like Sam plowing into the water after Frodo, nearly drowning, just like with our hearts on our sleeves and just full of love and admiration for this thing. But without, I would say, any particularly strong musical expertise to, to guide us, would you say Mallory? Um,

I would say that you are underselling your prowess and overselling mine. Love that phrase. In setting the expectations super low, I think you've still oversold what I am bringing here. I have zero musical expertise. All I have is a song and a feeling in my heart. But I think that's part of the joy of this. And so I am here today for the vibes and for the sheer fucking pleasure of it. Now, you... Neither of us are musical experts. That's true. You are... You are...

You are a sincere enthusiast of the musical as an art form. Musical, yes, yes. Yes, the incorporation of song and dance into the tales that we love and that move us. And you have done, I mean, you always do a remarkable job of building an outline, gathering nuggets and intel, but even by your usual standards, you have done a...

The reason that you think it could be a university course is because you have put together a syllabus. I mean, this is astonishing. And so I am here to nod along, occasionally hum and probably weep as you bring all this knowledge and wisdom and insight, not only to our listeners, but to me. I am going to learn a lot today and I'm excited. I wore my Green Dragon shirt, which might be a tip about some of the music that means a lot to me. But

But I just honestly, I wish like I miss you every day. We're not together. But this is one where I really wish we were together and I could like hold your hand and we could cradle each other as we as we sang and wept as we did quite recently, which will be one of the fun things to talk about today. So we'll be talking about that.

Yeah, I mean, thank you so much for saying that. I promise we will not bore you with too many facts and figures. We do have a lot of just like mood and vibes and heart and love in our heart to share as well. Also, for legal reasons, we will not be like, we would love to clip every single piece of music that we're going to talk about and play a little bit. We'll have a

I don't even want to call it a smattering like dusting of clips in this episode. But again, for legal reasons, we cannot give you too much or too long. Will we will we be singing? Will we be warbling? Perhaps we will be singing and warbling. Lamentably, I cannot sing. You can. I cannot carry a tune. I am an abominable singer, but I'm not going to let that stop me. I haven't before and I won't today.

Let's go to what I'm calling our opening snapshot. We're going to start with a very simple, very easy to answer, possibly personal question. Mallory Rubin, what's your favorite Tolkien song? Is it easy to answer? I don't know. There are so many great ones. There are so many great ones. So my...

My interpretation of the prompts, because our second category here, spoiler, for the opening snapshot is like favorite musical moment. So I'm going to go with, for the first bucket here, book. I'm going to go text for the first and like adaptation for the second. That was the only way I could wrap my mind around how to possibly narrow these. And we're going to return, we should say, to all of the things that we quickly mentioned here. This really is just like a vibe setter. So won't linger here. We'll talk about more of the reasons why and the particulars as we circle back. But

For the text, I have like two favorites for the Tolkien category here, and they're linked in terms of why. So my picks here are The Road Goes Ever On and Walking Song, because I think they tap into everything that we love to talk about, about adventure, about...

wandering about finding the courage or the reason or the call to leave your front door in the first place. And one of the things that I love about both of them in the text is that they, they, they surface more than once.

in slightly different ways. And so they tap in in that sense to something else we're going to talk about today, which is like how song functions as storytelling tradition, as something that you pass on and inherit. And in that inheritance, it becomes yours in a new way, even if it's just by changing one word in one line in one verse. So I love those tiny little tweaks.

as a rendition moves from, say, Bilbo to Frodo. So I'm really excited to talk about both of those. They're going to come up in a couple spots today. What about you, Jo? It's so funny because obviously mine is linked to yours because I picked something from the films. And so film fans will know it as Edge of Night.

which Billy Boyd as Pippin sings in Return of the King as Denethor is absolutely destroying your personal relationship with the cherry tomato, right? Like that is what that song is. I pick it for personal reasons because I will quickly say that, and I am confident I've said this before on a Lord of the Rings podcast that we like sometime that we talked about Lord of the Rings because I

When I was watching these movies with my friends and particularly one friend in particular, we used to make up lyrics to some of the Howard Shore musical themes. I know that I've told you that before, but just in case people don't know that I used to do that, I used to do it and I still...

Like when I rewatched the movies, I still, those lyrics come through in my head and they're nothing like clever. It's just sort of like the Rohan themes, like you're in the land of Rohan, all the people look like horses, like stuff like that. Right. It's just like, it's very stupid, but it's just like something that we did. We would do, we would sing all the time to each other and we would talk about Edge of Night. Right.

This Billy Boy performance, which is actually like a little poppier than my taste is for like something, you know, he like sort of puts a little pop spin on some of the vowels here that is a little like takes me slightly out of things, but.

It was so profoundly emotionally affecting that that friend of mine and I, we've known each other since fifth grade. We were saying like, if one of us dies before the other, the other will sing this at their memorial. That is like a promise we made to each other and like earnestly said to each other. So I have this emotional connection to it. End of Night, which is sort of like a movie invention. The lyrics are based on

The walking song, the Bilbo walking song. So, you know, home is behind the world ahead and there are many paths to tread. All of those lyrics are from the walking song, just sort of repurposed for Pippin in this moment in Return of the King. So yeah, we have very kind of similar answers here in this first prompt. Yeah. And then the second prompt is favorite musical moment if it's different from song. And so tell me in which direction you've taken this question in.

I'm sticking with song, but I'm going with songs here that are all from adaptations and feel to me like they have to exist in that form. When we think about and we talk about adaptation, we love that. We love when a story that we've been reading on the printed page makes its way to our screen and we can share it in a new way with new people.

The music of the wider Lord of the Rings universe. Like there are songs in the books, as we just discussed mere moments ago here, that I love. But like they, when I think of them, I think of the movies first now. And so I'm going to give you my quick power ranking of my top five. I think all of these will come up today. So I'll save all of the reasons why as we go. Here's my top five. Great. The Green Dragon from Return of the King, which I have sung to you on a podcast more than once before. Yeah.

Love it. Edge of Night, also from Return of the King. Gollum's song, not actual Gollum's song, like end credits, but like his juicy sweet. Juicy sweet, yeah. Incredible. Wandering Day from Rings of Power and Now and for Always, which is new to my life as of mere weeks ago when we got to see the musical together and I think it's just astonishing and I've listened to like basically nonstop since. So that's my top five. I know all of those will be coming up

today. And so I can't wait to explore in further detail why they're so meaningful. What about you? What do you have here? I do think even though I didn't pick it for a favorite Tolkien song, I do think now and for always, like if I had to pick one song, I

on a desert Island from Tolkien's, like the entire catalog of everything we're gonna talk about today. Dilson two on repeat. It would be now. And for always from the, from the Lord of the Rings musical that we just saw in Chicago, we're going to talk about it a little, little further down, but I did want to pick, I wanted to pick a piece of score. Yeah. Because we're gonna talk about Ben McCreary's work on the rings of power. We're gonna talk about Howard Shore's work in the Peter Jackson films. I think the,

concerning Hobbits, aka the Shire theme. The best, yeah. You know, just from the very beginning of the first movie when it's just sort of like, you know, you're just like, you're just swept away. And then every time you hear it after the Shire theme, when we're out on the road and things have gotten like dire and upsetting, but we're thinking about...

That good tilled earth and that home, that thing worth preserving and fighting for. And the Shire theme comes through. It means so much. Reorchestrated a couple different times. So it's less like jaunty and peppy and more wistful and full of longing. Yeah.

I think that is a masterpiece, even though my friend and I have never written any words for it. And then I think the other Howard Shore moment I want to highlight is you take the Rohan theme, which is so identifiable and I love. And the Gondor theme was actually a little harder, I think, to identify and hum. It's less hummable. Yeah.

But they sort of gradually grow towards each other as we move from Two Towers into Return of the King. And by the time you get to the ride of the Rohirrim, when Theoden is like, duh! You know, and they're all, you know, they're all riding. The Gondor theme and the Rohan theme become one. And that's just like something that a composer can do.

that it feels like genuine magic to me. I don't know how they do that. We're going to talk about some tricks that Barry McCreary has done in the Rings of Power, but that's just something, you know, and, you know, Rumi Javadi would do it all the time on Thrones, sort of like repurpose one person's theme into another to create something new that is a blend. And I don't have a great ear for it, but I just think it is a completely magical thing that composers could do. So...

I love that. That's a fantastic pick. And I think...

More broadly, even beyond music, we talk about this just with sound, right? With the immersive quality of sound in these stories that we love. When you hear, sure, the Imperial March, but when you hear a lightsaber fire up or the breath through Vader's helmet, the way that a cue like that can instantly port you into a feeling, what it felt like to see that for the first time, what it feels like to talk about it with your friends. Concerning Hobbits is...

just a perfect thing to highlight at the top here because not only does it, like you're saying, just I love that description of like it, it carries you away. It sweeps you into the story like that beautiful Bilbo line. It is no bad thing to celebrate a simple life. It feels like it's able in notes and tune to convey

they, the truth of that, like the heartbeat of the story. And it's just like, as soon as you hear it, whether or not you're sitting down intending to watch all of the extended editions for your holiday tradition, like, I don't know, a couple people on this particular recording session might, if you just heard that out in the wild, it would evoke that feeling in you. And like, that's magical. That's incredible. Yeah.

All right, this is a section I'm calling Dramatis Personae, but you can call it whatever you want. We just sort of want to talk about the main suspects of the musicians and artists that we are here to talk about today, starting first and foremost with the creator, the Iluvatar himself of this world, J.R.R. Tolkien, who loved a song and a verse. There's 10 songs in The Hobbit, 10 songs, verses. There's 60...

It's a lot. In Lord of the Rings. 60 is a lot. That is voluminous. But Tolkien, like us, no musician himself, right? Comes from a family of piano makers, would sing in church, but much to his own dismay, was largely unmusical. I got a couple juicy quotes from some letters. The Tolkien letters, always a treat of joy. Yeah.

Quote, anyone who can play a stringed instrument seems to me a wizard worthy of deep respect. I love music, but have no aptitude for it. And the effort spent on trying to teach me the fiddle in youth have left me only with a feeling of awe in the presence of fiddlers, end quote.

Incredible. Do you feel similarly, Mallory? I do. I actually genuinely do. Like there are some, there are some, there are many skills in this life that I do not possess. And there are some that fill me, not even like with envy, but just with longing. Like I think often, like would I be a happier person if I could just inject that particular thing into my life every day? And I can't, how sad. And music is definitely one of them. Like that's part of why I love listening to music so much, even though I know nothing about it and I'm not capable of generating it myself. Yeah.

Um, I was like a kid who would like sit on the couch and just like line up pillows and like bang them. Like I had a drum set, you know, like I always wanted to be able, um, to be more musically inclined and I just can't. So yeah, this is a, this is a real like it me letter from Tolkien. Is that what that mean means? Is that how it works? Yeah. They crushed it. Good. Honestly, good stuff. Here's another, uh,

letter quote that I'll read to you. Quote, I have little musical knowledge, though I come of a musical family, owing to defects of education and opportunity as an orphan. Such music as was in me was submerged until...

I married a musician or transformed into linguistic terms. Music gives me great pleasure and sometimes inspiration, but I remain in the position in reverse of one who likes to read or hear poetry, but knows little of its technique or tradition or of linguistic structure. So end quote. So Tolkien, uh,

His wife, Edith, was an accomplished musician. We'll talk about that much more later. This is a very key part to all of this. But in terms of transforming that sort of... Such music was in me, he says, was transported into linguistic terms. The great musicality of Tolkien's prose is something that is part of enjoying his work. So...

You take even something like, you know, you just said the it-me-meme. You take something as basic as a meme, and you take things like they're taking the hobbits to Isengard or Boyle mash and put them in a stew. A reason that these things become musical memes is because...

the way that Tolkien, who sort of famously created several mythic languages before he wrote his epic, like he made the world to fit the languages that he created. That is a musical ear, even if it isn't like, you know, singing solo in the church choir kind of musical ear. It takes a...

And you're for vowel sounds and rhythm and meter and all of that. And he is just incredibly a master at that. This is really like a cousin of the professor constantly repeating that he's like not here for allegory. Like, are we sure you don't have the capacity to create beautiful music? Are we sure? Exactly.

Another person we're just going to give a little brief intro to, Bear McCreary. Mallory, what do you want to say about our guy Bear, who's composing the music for the Rings of Power as we speak? I would say that Bear is like on the Mount Rushmore of people who have scored my life, basically. Like if I think about, honestly, if I think about the things that I spend like a lot of time watching, I mean, Battlestar Galactica, as we've mentioned before, is like...

Maybe my favorite show ever. It's certainly in the top five. And his composition for Battlestar is just... It unlocked so much of that show and world to me. I really need to dial up a Battlestar rewatch. It's been a minute. Walking Dead. God of War?

Ringerverse is a God of War family, and this is a God of War household, though I have never played a moment. But it is a big part of my household because my husband plays a lot. You guys can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that they inserted Bear's likeness into, I think, the most recent iteration of the game. And I think, I heard this in an interview, I think I'm right, that he plays a dwarf character.

And he says that he like identifies as a dwarf. When you see him, he's got like the long hair and the beard and stuff like that. And he's just sort of like a very dwarvy of nature. Like it's just sort of is my vibe. Anyway, sorry. We'll have to count on Steve to confirm or deny the Gadavor nugget that you just dropped, but I love it. Outlander, Black Sails, which is...

a show that you absolutely adore and I have not seen in full, but really enjoyed the part that I have seen. And obviously bear, the reason we're talking about him in the context of this spot is that he is the composer for rings of power. And that has been a, uh, a task, not only of pure creation, uh,

but of evolution and continuation in a way that is so fascinating because he has simultaneously this wealth of prior music that he is building on, but also

and what he can do because of the IP rights, Joe. You love to walk us through rights shares. What do you want to tell us about this? Legal documents. He loves Howard Shore. And Howard Shore is involved in Rings of Power in that he wrote the music that plays over the opening credits. Howard Shore composed that. But contractually, given the dense IP rights that Amazon negotiated, which is separate from the IP rights that Warner Brothers holds,

He can't use any, like he can't riff off the Howard Shore music in creating the Rings of Power music. But we'll talk about it a little bit more specifically later, the way he found little loopholes and ways around that. But it's not like he can take the way that sometimes we'll hear John Williams' Star Wars scores inside of a Star Wars TV show or a riff on it or something like that. He can't do that.

though he has closely studied the Howard Shore music. And something that he said in some of the interviews that he's talked about is like, there are ways in which the Howard Shore music was useful to him, I think in terms of like, I don't know, various instruments associated with various cultures, the Harfoot's sound Celtic and the sound, you know, the drums in the deep for the dwarves or whatever it is. But then he was like, there are ways in which it was unhelpful. Like for example, Elrond's theme, the Elrond that we meet in,

in Lord of the Rings as, as composed by Howard Shore is so different from the young optimistic sort of like hopeful Elrond that we meet in Rings of Power. So there are ways in which, and you know, it was helpful in ways in which it was unhelpful, but something that he's talked about that I find so interesting is he's aware of the whole arc of the story in a way that like, you know, even Rumi and Javadi didn't have the whole, um, blueprint when he's doing Game of Thrones and stuff like that. Um,

Bear McCreary knows where we're landing with certain characters. So this is where the, like, I guess minor spoiler is coming, kind of, so you can skip ahead if you want. Mm-hmm.

Knowing where Elrond is going to be at the end of The Last Alliance of Elzen Men, which is going to be the end of the series, or knowing what's going to happen with Elendil and Isildur at the last Alliance of Elzen Men informs the way he composes their themes in the first place. Knowing that eventually that youthful, optimistic Elrond theme is going to have to sort of meld into something different eventually.

When Elrond is standing about Doom, looking at what happens with the One Ring there. So that's just something that he is very consciously playing with as he kind of had to crash create, I think, 17 different themes for season one of the Rings of Power. Yeah. Do you have a favorite theme from Bear from Rings so far? I think we're going to talk about it a little bit more later. There's one that I'm very impressed by. Any stick out to you?

I think that my pick will come up again as well, but I'm a, I'm a, where the score is concerned. I'm a Southland said, if not where the story is concerned. Yeah. The Southland's theme. I absolutely love gorgeous. Howard Shore. We've mentioned him a few times. I mean, absolute legend in the, in the, in the world of, of film scores in general, sounds the lambs, the fly, blah, blah, blah.

And his work on Lord of the Rings got him four Grammys, three Oscars, two Golden Globes, and a bunch of other awards. Not bad. Fairly decorated for his work here. But we want to shout out a couple other people involved in the movie's music.

because he did the score, but a lot of the actual songs that are inside the films came from a group called Plan 9, who, for the purposes of their work here, call themselves the Elvish Impersonators. Yeah.

And they wrote tracks like Flaming Red Hair, which is the tune that plays at Bobo's birthday that Frodo does his iconic little chicken dance to. The Green Dragon, which will come up again. The Elvish Lament, The Passing of the Elves. Eowyn's Lament for Theodred and the Misty Mountains in the Hobbit film. So those sung through songs.

come from this group Plan 9 just a little fun fact that Flaming Red Hair that tune that they play at Bilbo's birthday was originally they think the original title is Flaming Red Hair parentheses on her feet which is just I have no notes tremendous Hobbit title absolutely

But also, like, do you have a favorite of the three? You already mentioned the Gollum song that closes out Two Towers. But between maybe the Enya track that closes out Fellowship, Gollum's song, which closes out Two Towers, and then Into the West, which closes out Return of the King, which won Fran Walsh and Annie Lennox an Oscar. Do you have a favorite? Yeah.

I like them all. Okay. Probably Into the West. I think it's one of those things where just when you hear you've come to Journey's End, the emotion is so deeply rooted at that point in the story and the shared experience. It's just soul-shredding. And there's such a... I mean, I find Gollum's song at the end of Two Towers to be like...

A surprisingly effective encapsulation of hopelessness. Yeah. It's a tough listen. Yeah. And we will weep to be so alone. We are lost. We can never go home. That's brutal. And obviously like so many of the best rings, musical numbers spoken or otherwise, it's

creates some sort of net around multiple characters. So, like, after watching Two Towers, you get to the credits and you hear that, and how can you not be thinking about Sam and Frodo having the conversation about whether Gollum can be saved and Frodo saying he needs to believe that he can be and Sam basically saying that it's...

It's not going to happen. It's too late. There's no redemption for somebody who is in that state and who the ring has taken. And Frodo's like, oh boy, right? So I think that one actually, for where it's positioned in the story, is maybe the most...

rich, but into the West is the one that kind of like emotionally hits me. I think the most, how about you? I'm a may it be person. Love it. I mean, again, that's only here. No bad choices. And you're perfect. Like match for middle earth. And I just thought I may, I think may it be so beautiful. Uh, I, I like, it gets stuck in my head all the time. That's, that's the one for me. I think honestly into the West. Yeah. Uh,

Because we watch them all in one day, sometimes I'm into the West Coast. I'm a little tired. Yeah, that's totally fair. Whereas maybe it's still morning and I'm like, here we go. We're on to part two. You're just on 11sies by then. Exactly.

Okay, that was the Lord of the Rings musical, which was playing at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater. It's going on tour. I believe it's going to New Zealand and possibly also Australia next. Should we go see it again in New Zealand? What do you think? Yeah, let's go to New Zealand. Let's do it.

This is the Shire? Who says no? I'm going to shout out the names of people responsible for this musicale. A.R. Rahman. I hope I'm pronouncing this correctly because there's a lot of umlauts here. Vartina. Christopher Nightingale. Sean McKenna. Matthew Warkus. Or Warshus are the creatives here. This was a film. This is a show that debuted in the U.K.,

super well-received, kind of went away for a little while, and then this is sort of a new staging of it. And inside the new staging, which is what we saw in Chicago, there is this...

I don't even want to, it's not a gimmick. I've seen a couple other theater companies do this. Nehi Theater Company does this a lot where like all the actors play instruments as well. And those are sort of incorporated into the show. So every time a song kicks up, your characters will pick up a mandolin, you know, an accordion. In this particular instance, probably,

And Pippin is walking around with a cello, like with this like neck pillow on the cello so that he can carry it around the stage. Like, or stand up. It was a cello. It wasn't a bass. Like it was, that part was really incredible. So Mallory and I saw it. I want to hand it over to you, Mallory, but I will just, I'll give my like,

Log line review was just like, I do think this is a mixed bag. It's tough to cram three books, three movies, however you prefer to think of it, into one stage show. Fellowship takes up the entire first act. And you and I sort of looked at each other in a panic at intermission about like, how are we going to wrap this up in act two? As far as the music goes, I think they absolutely crushed all of the Hobbit content.

All the Hobbit content is some of the best stuff I've ever seen or experienced. I cried throughout. And then I will just say, again, I think it was sort of like a mixed bag for the other characters. And doing a lot of war on stage is hard. So I will talk about specific songs, but Mallory, I want to hand it over to you to talk about your experience watching this musical with me, your dear friend. Yeah.

I had a very meaningful experience seeing this with you. It was incredibly cool to get to go to Chicago and see this before the end of the run. I like the Lord of the Rings musical was not a part of my life before our pal, Brian, like introduced it to us on the pre rings of power season one pod. We did with Brian on just like our favorite Lord of the Rings moments. And yeah,

You kind of then explored it immediately. I came to it later. And so this was like really new for me getting to see it in person.

And the overall, my assessment overall is very much in lockstep with yours. I think the second half was less successful because of how much was being crammed into it. It's, you know, when you're doing Helm's Deep in like 45 seconds with four characters, you are where you are. But overall, I had a wonderful time and I thought it was really cool and great and interesting. And first of all, we got to meet so many wonderful bad babies who came over to say hello and that was a joy.

That was a delight. Genuinely meaningful and cool. So Mallory, who is way more often recognized than I am and also lives in LA where that happens a lot more than it happens anywhere else, turned to me at one point and she was like, this is a lot even for me. And I was like, well, think about where we are. We're at a Lord of the Rings musical. I feel like this is the bad baby Mecca. Of course, we're going to run into a high percentage of our listeners here. It was lovely. It was.

Absolutely delightful. We met two different people named Michaela and that was wonderful. And the like, so in terms of the, I don't have the vernacular for describing musical productions, much like I don't have the capacity to talk about

Music, period. But the immersive nature of the production in terms of how the cast moved through the seats was, I thought, quite engaging in general, but led to some particular highlights because of where we were sitting. We're like a column being introduced by hanging from a rope.

directly over your head and swinging into the story. That was really memorable. I would also like to shout out listeners of House of R, the bad babies know, listen, I'm susceptible to new crushes forming in real time. I didn't know we were putting this on the record. I just want to shout out Jeff Parker and Elrond and other members of the company. And just, I was like, wow,

And he was often stationed right next to us in the audience when he would sing our... Mallory, last time we were in an office, too. The actor playing Elrod in Sour Mug. Great stuff. A number of other things. Yeah, I thought everyone was great. Gala was incredible. Absolutely astonishingly good. He was so good. Unbelievable.

The set was cool. Like the way that the knot in a tree would become the eye, et cetera. Uh, the, the repurposing of, of, of parts of the stage and the space that was all really neat. Um, I'm excited to talk about our shared favorite musical number. Do you want to do that here? Do you want to do it now?

Let's do it right now. So the three main Hobbit songs, or four if you count Gollum and Smeagol, which why wouldn't we, is The Road Goes On, which is a reworking of an iconic Tolkien verse. The Cat in the Moon, which is essentially a pub drinking song, very similar in the vein of The Green Dragon and stuff like that. I thought that was really charming.

And then there's Now and For Always, which I had already burned a hole in my Spotify playlist replaying this before we saw it. And I had warned Mallory. I was like, there's one song. I was like, I'm probably going to cry throughout, which I did. I did cry through the whole thing. Even though I stand by my It Was a Mixed Bag review, I still cried through the whole thing. It was very moving. It was very emotional. Yeah.

uh, now and for always, which is Sam and Frodo. And in this production in the original staging, it's just Sam and Frodo. Uh, and then sort of Gollum listening to them alone out on the road. Let's like, think of them sort of camping in the two towers, sort of like that's, that's a stretch of the story that we're in. Um,

In the production we saw, they brought in all the other hobbits sort of there as almost like ghosts to sort of, not ghosts, but just sort of a memory of the Shire to sing and play instruments along with them. Like Rosie Cotton is sort of just like right over Sam's shoulder as they're doing this. And it's just, it encapsulates the lyrics of this song. First of all, let's just like listen to a little bit of it.

Sit by the fire, lights glow. Tell us an old tale we know. Tale of adventures strange and rare. Never to change, ever to share. Stories we tell will cast their spell. Now and for always.

So the premise of the song is very much Sam and Frodo in Two Towers talking about being part of a story, part of the same story. What kind of story would we be in? That sort of stuff. And so Sam talking to Frodo about...

You know, the Shire and Frodo and his bravery and like Frodo correcting him and saying like, actually, I'm quite cold and tired and all sorts of stuff like that. But sit by the firelights glow. Tell us an old tale we know. Tell of adventures strange and rare. Never to change. Ever to share. Stories we tell will cast their spell now and for always. And then the part that makes me.

ugly weep is when Fredo has his verse about Sam, of course, which is just uplifting and devastating at the same time. Mallory, talk to me about your relationship to this song. I thought this was absolutely exquisite. Just beautiful. Like, I have not stopped listening to this since we saw the production, prepping for the pod. I was listening to it basically nonstop last night. Um,

First of all, it's just beautiful as a piece of music. Like it's gorgeous. And then in terms of the substance of it,

It's like this is a love song, right? This is a song about the central relationship in your life. And that can come in many forms. And in this case, it's friendship. And that's beautiful. And it's about fellowship. And it's about sharing your life together. I think the opening lyric, which then recurs, sing me a story. Like it reminds me of so many...

that I love in books that are like an invitation, right? You know, I've talked before about that, like on the Cold Grey Tuesday, our story starts at our and how it brings you in and invites you to walk in with them. And like, sing me a story from,

This idea that the song is the story, that this is how we are seeking to capture something that feels like impossible to define in real time. And then that will be the way people understand it later is incredible. And like you called out the two towers connection to the power of stories, like we're in the same tale still, it's going on. Don't the great tales never end? Like what a beautiful way to tap into one of our favorite moments, period, in the entire world. Yeah.

and adventure. Like this just feels inextricable from some of the core themes that we love to explore in the world. Wouldn't retreat just followed his feet. It has everything. It has everything. And the way that like the, this was one of the really cool things for me. Cause I'm, I'm listening to it on, on Spotify and it's, I'm,

I'm thrilled. Yeah. It's gorgeous. And it's having the same emotional effect on me. But there was something about getting to see it, right? Like getting to see the way that Sam and Frodo looked at each other and like that recognition and appreciation. It's that it's a dangerous business, Frodo idea. And then also that adventures, they must be shared idea. It's like that doesn't mean the same thing if they're not there together to say that to each other and to encourage each other. So I thought this was honestly...

Like, it's hard to... When you are playing inside of a universe...

built by a master. Now, this was one of the things we talked about a lot in season one, both in terms of kind of the meta narratives around rings of power and also then some of the particular things like the idea of subcreation and Tolkien really encouraging and embracing and loving the fact that people were going to continue to build. This feels very emblematic to me of the power of that, right? That this is something that somebody else made that feels

totally of a piece with the core of the original. I just thought it was beautiful. So it's like three verses, right? There's a Frodo verse that Sam sings to him. There's a Sam verse that Frodo sings to him. But it starts with Sing Me a Story of Heroes of the Shire.

you know, there's lyrics like Harfoots who planted and store folk who plowed, bred to endure slow but sure, fallow hide blood in your veins makes you proud, like all this stuff. This is, that's so Tolkien. There's so many songs in Tolkien that are like, let me tell you about the dwarves. Let me tell you about the goblins. Let me tell you about this culture. Let me tell you about that culture. Let me give you a little intro, a little, you know, um,

hobbits for dummies like this is what i'm gonna do in this song for you before you oftentimes before you even meet that culture inside of the story you get the song first and then you and then you get to know the elves tra la lying or whatever so like that's um it's a it's a perfect song and then it has actually a genuinely beautiful reprise in this gollum smiegel song that comes right after it that like is you know it's not as like

played on repeat in Spotify, but in terms of the emotionality of Gollum, who was once Smeagol, basically that song captures Gollum's conversation with himself that Andy Serkis absolutely knocked out of the park in the two towers and stuff like that. But it starts with him saying,

singing this song because he too was once a hobbit you know and so it's just sort of like the longing that he has to be part of that story to be one with them and then the ways in which he feels like he never can be um is is very emotional i genuinely cried so hard into mallory's hair that she had to like wipe the tears i was not wiping the tears i just play with my hair a lot that's part of why

She had to wring the salty brine out of her hair because I had wept too hard on top of her little head that was perched on my shoulder. Soaking up every droplet. The serum of friendship in a story shared. I loved it. It was like we were kind of like nuzzling and my head was on your shoulder. Yeah.

In like the little neck nook. It reminded me of Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. That description of like the way that people fit together. Yeah. And just sitting next to each other. It was so meaningful. It was really lovely. I had a great time seeing this with you. I will cherish the memory. Truly. Thank you to Chicago Shakespeare for inviting us in and for seeing us where they did. I feel like they really gave us the full Gollum experience. It was great. So that was...

And if folks have a chance to see this, I really think that the highs are worth everything else. And yeah, shout out to the performers playing, I would say, Gollum, Sam, Frodo, Mary Pip. We love the Gimli. We thought the Gimli was great. So, you know, we had a really good time. That brings us to Led Zeppelin. Yeah.

Honestly, one of the first things I ever remember learning about sort of the impact that Tolkien has had on the wider pop culture is through Led Zeppelin and other prog rock bands that sometimes was called like Hobbit rock, essentially. Something like Ramblin'. There's like a number of Led Zeppelin songs. Something like Ramblin'.

where an elusive hot babe stands in for the one ring, right? And they sing, "'Twas in the darkest depths of Mordor I met a girl so fair, but Gollum and the evil one crept up and slipped away with her." This idea that Tolkien was not cool when it came out,

And then became this sort of like counterculture, you know, icon. The Frodo lives graffiti and buttons that people would wear and stuff like this. But this is all part of it is this sort of like how it invaded the rock scene. And then it has just like continued to linger in the imaginations of various sub-creators, if you prefer. There's, of course, Leonard Nimoy as a famous...

Bilbo Baggins song. Did you watch any of this video, Mallory? What was your experience? Again, this is much like a God of War house. This is a big Leonard Nimoy house. Adam's favorite ever, maybe. This was not something I was aware of before. It's like Leonard Nimoy as Spock singing about Bilbo Baggins. I don't know how to explain it, but it does exist and you can Google it.

There's a lot of metal music. Someone sent us over a website that is like an exhaustive list of all the music inspired by Tolkien and Lord of the Rings. And there's a lot of metal of every persuasion. It was like black metal, death metal, doom metal, blah, blah, blah. But they love Middle Earth in the metal scene in general.

And then, uh, Finrod, a rock opera. There's a number of like non English language rock operas, but I think Finrod, uh, which is a Russian rock opera, um, which incorporates Galadriel, her brother, Finrod, the story of Baron Luthien, all this sort of stuff, uh, inside. Did you watch any snippets of, of this particular YouTube clip Mallory? Uh,

Yeah. Incredible stuff. Also think the title is just no notes. Great stuff. We always love any excuse to spend time with our guy Finrod. I mean, maybe there should be more operas created around Finrod and his hair. What do you think? I would love an English translation of that. I don't know what the legalities are, but I would love to see an English translation of Finrod, a rock opera. There's many versions of it on YouTube that you can watch and they're like, all have tons of views on them. This is like, this is a thing that I've just learned about for this podcast. Um,

And then we got an email from a couple of listeners. Liz and Colin wanted to make sure that we mentioned this one. Symphony number one, The Lord of the Rings by a Dutch composer named, I think it's Johan de May. Liz did provide me a pronunciation guide, but I forgot to put it in the notes. Anyway, I

It has several movements inside of it, but Liz wrote us something about the Lothlorian section that I'm going to attempt to read and not bungle because it goes beyond our capacity to talk about music. But I thought somebody who knows what they're talking about when it comes to music should be represented on this podcast, and that's Liz. So Liz is talking about the Lothlorian movement, and she's talking about the rhythm.

This is something I have a basic understanding of, right? There's different meters that you can put in a song. Yeah. And she says here, quote, there are three simultaneous figures, the familiar triplets that underpin the previous 6-8 section, newly appeared duplets which form the foundation of the current 9-8 meter, and lastly, alternating eighth notes whose repeating pattern completed the earlier 6-8 but no longer fit perfectly within 9-8.

Meaning this rhythmic figure must play out over twice as much time as the other two. Do I know what any of that means? This is Joanna speaking. No, but I am struggling to follow along because of this next part. Liz writes, it must literally borrow time from the future in order to complete its cycle evenly. One might even say we're hearing, quote, things that were, things that are, and some things that have not yet come to pass, end quote.

This disorienting tangle of time, or rather times, is suddenly brought into order by the entrance of an exquisite new melody, which soars atop them all, providing a binding effect to the disparate rhythms. Take it on the whole, it's a wonderfully mystical representation of Lothlorien's otherworldliness described in loving detail by music rather than words. Thank you, Liz. Thanks for everyone who...

went along with me trying to like not bungle that. What a cool observation. So cool. I listened to the symphony also while I was sort of like putting, it's beautiful. It's not one that I was familiar with. Again, Colin also wrote in about it. It is absolutely beautiful. Again, I lack the musical brain to be able to like dissect all the cool, fun tricks that are in here, but thank you to Liz for, for doing that for us.

And then our listener Ryan wrote in about a band called Silverstein, which is sort of pop punk, not really exactly 100% my vibe. But just like literally two weeks ago, they put out a song called Skin and Bones where in the middle of the track,

the lead singer just recites some of Sam's speech from Two Towers and I just like that it's just like it's always happening it's constantly always happening we're in the same story Jo yeah the Tolkien is just constantly finding its way into all kinds of musical genres I love that and then last but not least we got

several emails about this very important album that came out, I think in the 50s, maybe 60s, Donald Swan's official poems and songs of Middle Earth that the composer wrote in collaboration with Tolkien during his lifetime. So this is the one that, this is the music that Tolkien had like the most active hand in. Our listener Andrew says that Tolkien specifically hummed the tune for Namarié to Swan and said it was similar to like a Gregorian chant

melody. And Amaria is a song that in the books Galadriel sings as the fellowship is leaving Lothlorien. And then Hannah described this in a way that we got a few emails like this, of like, this is how I experienced the music of Tolkien's world growing up. And this is what Hannah wrote. In the LP version, side one is Tolkien reading some of the poems. And side two is a song cycle composed using Tolkien words by Donald Swan.

It's beautiful. It makes me think of my dad, who introduced me to the work of the professor at a young age, can't get other versions of these songs to work for me as these were embedded in my brain as a kid. Interesting. Right? So growing up with this Donald Swan, officially sanctioned by Tolkien. And it's fun. You can find it on YouTube if you like. And it's fun because...

And Tolkien, hearing Tolkien sort of himself, the professor himself, like read these verses in the first half of this album is like, is a really fun experience. That's awesome. I love that idea of like your first exposure to something like imprinting on you and being this fixed sacred thing, no matter what else happens.

what else comes across your doorstep as we continue to make these stories and play in this world. That's really interesting. Oh, lovely. Everybody has their stories about this. Yeah, I love that. And I think, you know, we talked about the Ralph Bakshi animated or the Rankin and Bass animated. Like, there are these various animated versions that were the only thing that existed for a while until Peter Jackson came around. So I think a lot of people grew up and sort of imprinted on that music. We'll talk about that a little bit later on. But like,

Yeah. What was the dominant musical representation of this world when you were growing up? It's like we talk about, what's your pride and prejudice? Or what's your this, that, and the other thing? What was the one when you were growing up? And the Jackson films loomed so large, obviously, they just became sort of monoculture swallowing events. But people had relationships with this music before. People will have relationships with this music after. And it's beautiful. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Okay, the rest of the thing is the thing, the document, the outline that we're doing today is divided by cultures. And it's not that the songs that Tolkien's put in his work are easily understood.

sort of boxed in by a culture because I don't think you can, you know, songs created by elves will then be like adapted by hobbits or songs about men will be written by elves and this, that, and the other thing. It's all sort of blurring together. So when we talk about the sort of remaining themes that we want to talk about, it's sort of just a convenient way to group them. But I think there are ways in which they connect to each culture sort of very specifically, but I just want to make it clear that I'm not saying,

This is what Elfsong is. This is what Mansong is. This is what Hobbitsong is. This is what Uruk-song is, etc. So that's what we're going to do for this time here. Makes me think of Manflesh. Manflesh. Mansong. Mansong. Let's start with the elves. We're not going to start with the creation of the universe, which is probably where we should start, but we're not. We're starting with the elves. But this is something, you know, Bear McCreary will...

point out the different approaches that he has to each kinds of song on rings of power, what kind of voices he uses, what kind of instrument he uses to really help you identify the specific cultures. So ethereal female vocals for elves. Sounds about right. That's what bear does for the elves here in the,

you mostly, as most of the dwarves who travel with their own instruments wherever they go, seemingly, the elves are usually in the book mostly just singing, like singing together, one clear voice sort of rising above the others, stuff like that. But it's mostly just like the beautiful instrument of the elf themselves that comes through. And anything you want to say about Elfsong?

You know, I think of like in the Jackson films in fellowship when Frodo and Sam have first set out and they hear this sound. Yeah. What could it be? And it's like, what else? And I always love that moment because it's a combination of story, sound and visual that like tells us something that we wouldn't be able to totally understand absent the symphony of those things together. Right. So like,

the sound is like holy and that makes sense based on what we are witnessing and the visual manifestation the way the light plays across the screen in those scenes and you like kind of can't quite make out like the keen shapes through almost like the the halo effect of like the

sunlight and this like mist of some unknowable magical thing. I love that moment and what it tells us about the elves and about the passing of time and the movements of the ages and the way that like one culture can glimpse something true and foundational about another and like achieve some level of understanding, even if they don't actually have access to the,

full substance of it. I love that. And then like, I was thinking about with the elves. I mean, this is true in general, I think in rings of power, it's, it's, it's a, it's a through line and rings of power across one and a half seasons so far. But I was thinking really about how like present this is at the beginning of the series and with the elves, like with Elrond and Galadriel there's, and Nori too. I mean, it's not, it's not just the elves, but like in those early episodes in the, in the premiere of the series, um,

characters are constantly evoking the idea of song to explain a feeling, right? Like those things are not, you can't, you can't convey the feeling without talking about music. Like I was thinking about how Elrond says to Galadriel, I heard said that when you cross over, you hear a song, one whose memory we all carry and you were immersed in a light more intoxicating than any sensation in Middle-earth. Like,

He sums up what Valinor means to the elves for us, the viewer, by talking about the feeling of song. And then like on the other side of it, when Galadriel is like getting the put up your sword speech and trying to convey to Elrond why she can't, why she doesn't feel ready. She invokes music too. She says where song would mock the cries of battle in my ears. And like, that's a way for her to convey to him and for us to understand that

Like, if you couldn't appreciate that song, if you couldn't actually tap into that feeling that Elrond is describing, then what would Valinor be for you? And so Rings of Power feels so engaged, like, in this text and in how music can help us and the characters talk about something core to life and, like, a shared experience or something that we're, like, yearning for. Yeah.

You know, Nori talks about song, right? Where the sparrows learn the new songs they sing in the spring. Like, this is how the characters are explaining how they relate to their world. That's the beginning of the series. So going through your beautiful outline, like, I was thinking of those moments and the language of the show and how these things, you know, the elves are a way in. But like you said, then it kind of bleeds across character sets, frankly, in a way that only, like, kind of heightens the theme. So I loved thinking about that. Especially, like, we think of characters like...

and then Frodo and Sam and Mary Pip to a certain degree. I was listening to Corey Olson, the Tolkien Professor podcast, one of my favorite Tolkien podcasts. Corey is just incredible. But he was talking about this idea of Bilbo Baggins' counterculture inside of the Hobbit community, that he is this sort of radical,

uh, you know, it's like his adventuring walking songs. Like we don't go adventuring for hobbits, but we do it for Bilbo Baggins. And so like these young hobbits, Frodo and Mary and Pip and Sam sort of following in, in Bilbo's footsteps, but Bilbo's intensive curiosity about the elves and his excitement about the elves, which again is something that other hobbits would be suspicious of. But Bilbo's curiosity is often like via song. Um,

songs that he's written or co-written or adopted. Um, so I want to talk about, uh, a pair of characters that don't show up in, uh, ranks power and don't show up in Lord of the Rings, but are nonetheless like two of the most important characters that Tolkien ever wrote about. And that's Baron and Luthien. And these are characters that are in the Silmarillion. Um, if you are a fan of the Jackson films, you will have seen Viggo Mortensen sing about them. Um, um,

or talk about them. They're sort of like proto Aragorn and Arwen in that she's an elf maiden and he is immortal and she chooses a mortal life and we'll get into that, all of that. But the reason these are two of the most important characters that Tolkien ever wrote about is they're essentially an author insert. Luthien, this beautiful elf maiden, is his wife Edith and he is Beren, the mortal who like worships her. And they're

those names are on their tombstone, right? Like they died and it says Edith and, and, and then it's like, says Luthien. And I, I want to like cry thinking about it. So when he's talking about his wife, um,

In a letter to his son, he writes about Edith, his wife, her hair was raven, her skin clear, her eyes brighter than you have seen them, and she could sing and dance. And there's this one memory that he had of his wife singing and dancing in the Hemlock Grove that he thought about when he was at war and all this sort of stuff like that. And to him, it's this image of like...

and what's worth fighting for and this sort of idea of like the healing nature of song and being in her presence. So that's how he describes his wife.

To his son. This is how he writes about the elven maiden Luthien. Quote, when winter passed, she came again and her song released the sudden spring like rising lark and falling rain and melting water bubbling. He saw the elven flowers spring about her feet and healed again. He longed by her to dance and sing upon the grass untroubling. Her song...

releases the spring and this is the only so this is like the story of how he saw her baron saw luthien and fell in love with her and like mildly stalked her but then won her heart okay cool and then um yeah luthien song is like a superpower that is that is how it manifests for the rest of their story when he goes off adventuring and she's not like uh goes off to fight she's not allowed to go with him and

Her song allows her hair to grow into a cloak of invisibility so that she can follow him. Iconic and incredible. Hairy wishes. Her song defeats Morgoth and his evil army, if only temporarily. This is the quote.

down-crumpled orc and balrog proud. All eyes were quenched, all heads were bowed. The fires of heart and maw were stilled, and ever like a bird, she trilled above a lightless world forlorn in ecstasy, enchanted, born. So if you think about Gandalf,

with the full force of all of his power, barely able to defeat the Balrog. And then you think of Luthien with one song. It's like, I got some bars for you. Crumpling an orc and making the Balrog bow to her, essentially, because of her gorgeous song. That song she sings to try to rescue Beren. Unfortunately, sad story, he's already dead.

She is so upset. She lies down and die. Classic story. Then she is put in front of essentially like the gods and sings for them the story. And this is the song itself basically brings about the resurrection of her lost family.

love. Quote, the song of Luthien before Mandos was the song most fair that ever in words was woven and the song most sorrowful that ever the world shall hear. And as she knelt before him, her tears fell upon his feet like rain upon stones. And Mandos was moved to pity who never before was so moved nor has been since, which is like, end quote, which is just like iconic, like

Orpheus and Eurydice and like Hades and Persephone being moved by Orpheus's song except it ends a little happier for Baron and Luthien because essentially they're like well we can't we can't give him life eternal and she's like don't worry

I choose a mortal life. And they live together, a mortal life, happily ever after. And this is how they died with a song. Quote, and long ago they passed away in the forest singing sorrowless. So this is like to Tolkien in one of the most important stories he writes at the center of the Silmarillion. The story of him and his own wife.

Music is the superpower again and again and again that gives them their happy ending. What do you think about this depiction of song? I think it's gorgeous. I was going to ask if you thought Laris was a big Lord of the Rings fan because of all the foot stuff that recurs in so many corners of the world. But I won't actually ask you that. I think the paragraph...

that leads into Aragorn in the text sharing a very long song and sharing this story. I've always thought

the tie to Baron and Luthien, and then what this passage tells us about the role of music to Tolkien in this world, in this universe that he built. It's a nice little summation of it. I will tell you the tale, says Strider, in brief, for it is a long tale of which the end is not known. And there are none now except Elrond that remember it or write as it was told of old. This is the key part here.

It is a fair tale, though it is sad, as are all the tales of Middle-earth. And yet it may lift up your hearts. Like...

There's something so devastating and tragic about all of these stories that people are sharing with each other and passing down or experiencing themselves, but we turn to them for hope, right? And they turn to them for hope. And that feels like it's just like capturing an essential quality and essence in not only how Tolkien deploys music in his world, but what he's trying to do by telling the story in the first place. So I love that.

I love that so much. It reminds me of like something we talk about a lot is this idea in, in, we were just talking about this, I think in last week's episode in fellowship or, or in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the way in which the fellowship is walking through the ruins of a previous civilization. Yeah.

Right.

The last couple things I want to say about elves and music is to say that a couple things that Bear has said about both the Elrond theme and the Valinor theme that I really wanted to point out is really interesting to me. Elrond's theme carries a lot of the classic elvish hallmarks that Bear uses to denote elvishness throughout the Rings of Power.

But there is a, what he says, he says, quote, his harmonies wander between major and minor because he feels lost in the shadow of his father and brother. This idea of Elrond, when we first meet him in the first episode, Elrond Halfelven is what his theme is called by Bear McCreary. You're not allowed to come to the meeting. You're Halfelven only. Like you're not, you don't fully belong here. You're a bit of an outsider. And that is, that,

theme has not been hit quite as hard as season two but but maybe we should sort of be on the lookout to excavate it but this idea of elrond as both inside and outside of his own culture and similarly the theme that bear makes for valinor and again i do wish we could play all these clips for you but legally we cannot but like the theme that he creates for valinor

where he says, quote, the Valorant theme is classically elvish ethereal choral music, but there are unexpected progressions to make it sound far away, a place you can reach for, but can never touch. So that's the kind of stuff that if you have an ear like mine, you're never going to know, but probably, hopefully can feel inside the construction of a musical score. So, yeah. Same. Can't know it, but I do feel it. Last but not least, I have to mention...

the infamous yeah tra la la lolly song in the uh rankin and bass 1977 hobbit which is from the book this song is called in the valley ha ha and if you just want to have a good time the elves would appreciate that i not bring this up but i have to bring it up uh because such lyrics as to fly would be folly to stay would be jolly tra la la lolly ha ha um in the valley ha ha

Wonderful. Just need you to know it's a close Chulkin adaptation, but it also just does not give you that like sort of majestic ethereal vibe that the elves are always going for. It's a little different. So this has not made your Spotify rap you're saying?

Um, no, but I do actually, I do have a Tolkien playlist that I've been working on for the last couple of weeks that is just like me cherry picking my favorite, like, tracks and various, like, properties and stuff like that. Will you share it with me? Of course, obviously. Will you share it with the bad babies? Uh, let me, let me perfect it. Like the old Andy Greenwald, here's our, here's our holiday watch playlist. I could do that. There we go. We couldn't get through a pod without me mentioning the watch. Chris and Andy are guys. I had to do it.

Speaking of men, let's talk about songs for men. Okay. Yeah. Two Southlanders, if ever there were any. You already sort of alluded to this in the passage you read about Aragorn, but this idea of like songs...

as the way we preserve history. We talked about this also in Now and For Always, the song for the musical that we like so much. This idea of the story living on inside of the songs that we sing to each other. This idea of the oral tradition outside of the written history. So Tolkien, of course, when he made... As you know, I think Rings of Power could use a touch more of the oral tradition, but...

We will get to the deep throats a little later on in the notes, Mallory Rubin. But Tolkien is inspired by Beowulf, Strigan and the Green Knight, Norse epics, The Odyssey, The Iliad, all these grand epics in verse when he makes this story. And if you read something directly pulls from the example that my

history of the english language professor like to bring up when i was in her class i think chiefly just so she got an excuse to talk about tulking was this uh it's either ninth or tenth century old english poem the wanderer and this is how the wanderer starts or a part of the wanderer goes uh where has the horse gone where has the young man gone where has the treasure giver gone where have the seats the feast gone where are the hall joys so talking it

directly lifts that into the lament for the Rohirrim, which in the movie, Theoden recites as he's being armored for battle. And in the book, Aragorn recites to Gimli and Legolas before they get to Rohan as sort of a, like, this is what Rohan was. Yeah.

And it makes it all the more chilling when you get to Rohan and Theoden is in the state that they find him in. Right? But this is what Aragorn says, where now the horse and the rider, where is the horn that was blowing, where is the helm and the hobbark and the bright hair flowing. So that's a verse, but it's a song and it is the part of the

Now I can't even say it with a straight face oral tradition. I'm sorry. I apologize. Tolkien is living it. So, like, the existence of song in Tolkien is a crucial way for characters to give us exposition, music to pass down myth and history through the generations. And this is something that I am putting under the man flesh, the songs for men umbrella, because...

elves, you know, to your point of that passage you read about Aragorn, he's like, only Elrond remembers, blah, blah, blah. Elves have these long lives. They were there. They could talk to you about it. Men have shorter lives. They have to create these songs so that their stories live on down the generations because they will die, but stories will live on via these

So I like how this comes up specifically with the Rohirrim in the books. Aragorn, in describing the Rohirrim in Two Towers, says, quote, they are proud and willful, but they are truehearted, generous in thought and deed, bold but not cruel, wise but unlearned,

writing no books a little illiterate writing no books but singing real songs after the manner of the children of men before the dark years right so we don't we're not writing stuff down but we're singing our our history forward into the future right and theoden into towers uh and this is a this is a

part from the book that is adopted to a slightly different place in the movie. But Theoden says, when dawn comes, I will bid men sound Helm's horn and I will ride forth. Will you ride with me then, son of Arathorn? Maybe we shall cleave a road or make such an end as will be worth a song if any be left to sing of us hereafter.

right so this idea of like deeds worthy of song in the Peter Jackson films it's like make such an end as as worth remembering but in Tolkien it's worth a song if any be left to sing of us hereafter this is like of I mean we talk often about the the way that

rings influenced what George R.R. Martin then did with A Song of Ice and Fire or the things that, you know, what was Harry Cornstack's policy to Joanna? The things that Martin sought to do differently. Yeah. But like in that respect, you can feel so directly like point A to point B, how songs made their way into A Song of Ice and Fire and like then Game of Thrones. Like I think of...

there's the desire to be remembered in song. You think of something like Theon's last stand that winter fell before his own men turn on him, right? Like we're going to, we're going to do something worthy of being remembered in that way, a song passed down. But then like, you also think of the like, what is not in the songs, right?

You know, Robert's like iconic. Like they never tell you how they shit themselves. Like they don't put that part in the songs, right? Like what doesn't make the songs? What's the ugly, dirty, smelling, foul part of history that we don't sing about? And so I like thinking about how these two worlds relate to each other in that way as well. I love that. That is something that George would think about that Tolkien would not. For sure.

This idea of like, are we worthy of song? Will our story be preserved in song? It's not isolated to men. The elves think this way too, no matter how long their lives. In the Silmarillion, Feanor, have you heard of him? Of the famous Feanor. Feanor, by the way, we haven't talked about this a ton, but Feanor, like, not a great guy. Not, not, like, Celebrimbor's like, Feanor, what a guy. And we're like, it didn't work out super well for Feanor. That's not the example I would follow. It's our first note ever for Celebrimbor. Yeah.

Who we otherwise think is doing great. Our last. Okay. This is what Feanor said. They have been doomed. The doom of the Noldor. They have been doomed for their action. Kinslaying. Have you heard of it, Mallory? Speaking of Dora the Mermaid. What I have heard is that no man, and I mean no man, is as accursed as the Kinslayer Joanna. So Feanor and his, they're Kinslaying all over the place, right?

And they've been doomed. And Feynman says, therefore, I say that we will go on. And this doom, I add, the deeds that we shall do shall be the matter of song until the last day of Arda. He's like, well, at least they'll sing about us. We might be doomed, but they will be talking about us. So that's half the battle. This season on Naughty Yotta Island. When we were new, they spoiled me. They even gave me a phone. But then it's like I didn't exist.

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Aragorn, who's like, we look to Aragorn as Tolkien's idea of like ultimate sort of virtue example of manliness. And we talk about Aragorn at the healer. We've talked about that a lot. Aragorn the singer. It's a thing, right? He and Arwen have their meet cute when he's singing about Beren and Luthien. He sings a song of mourning in the book after Boromir's death. He's welcomed to the throne of Gondor with fanfare and singing. Like this is our guy, our king loves to sing.

He's a singing king and he loves to do it. One of his many charming qualities. You brought up the, I want to talk about Sam really briefly here because as you mentioned this idea of like, it's all the same story. We're in the same tale still and it's going on. Don't the great tales never end, right? In that passage, he's like talking about Bill Bowen's song and all this sort of stuff like that. But I wanted to bring this up here because we got a lot of emails about the 1981 BBC radio dramatization. Yeah.

of Lord of the Rings that was quite popular and has some people you might have heard in the cast. Ian Holm, who went on to play Bilbo for Peter Jackson, is Frodo in the 1981 BBC radio dramatization. And Bill Nighy of Love Actually fame or wherever you prefer your Bill Nighy, plays Sam. And we actually talked about this in season one of Rings of Power. This is the first time I was made aware of this song.

But he sings the fall of Gil-galad in that radio dramatization. I really recommend you look it up. It's beautiful. For into darkness fell his star, in Mordor where the shadows are. Don't stop, Sam. That's all I know. I learned it from Mr. Bilbo when I was a lad. Our listener Rich wrote,

As a teenager in the 90s, I used to fall asleep listening to this on cassette tapes. My absolute favorite part, which I still sing to myself all the time, is when Sam sings The Fall of Gil-galad as Strider and the Hobbits are making their way towards Rivendell. Molly, what did you discover in your prep for this pod last night? I was searching for YouTube videos of Bill Nighy's performance.

and stumbled upon a little clip of Charles Edwards and Benjamin Walker listening to it, like as they're being interviewed, sharing a headset and listening to it. And there's this great, like, Oh, it's giving me goosebumps moment from our guy, Kelly Brimbor. And then Ben Walker, who is musical prowess. You outlined on our season two episodes, one, two, and three deep dive, um,

Just starts like rocking out, jamming out. Yeah. Knows every word. Yeah. Ready to perform. And that was just like a sensational, fun little discovery. That was really cool. And it's like, again, fun to think of how like we're not the only ones who stumble across these things and get excited and have some sort of emotional response. Like the people who are now making Rings of Power have that kind of like response too. So I just thought that was delightful. Yeah.

Yeah. Ben Walker, who was like, I had never heard. He was like so excited. He's like, no, I've never heard it. Like listening to Bill Nye saying these are the lyrics from this song. Gil Gallad was an elven king of him. The harpers sadly saying the last whose realm was fair and free between the mountains and the sea. And there's more. But.

They don't say anything about Gil Gallad's lack of sideburns or his meaty, chunky ears. Maybe we can make some new lyrics. Our listener, Ed, this is another just sort of like really beautiful, I grew up with this, I love this email. Ed wrote...

As a native of South Birmingham, having grown up around a lot of the places that inspired some of Tolkien's work, Sarah Hole Mill, Moseley Bog, the old Joe Clock Tower at Birmingham Uni, it's the music of the radio dramatization that I associate with childhood fantasies of hobbits, elves, and wizards more than anything else. It's beautiful. I love that.

I love that. Yeah, there's Ian Holm as Frodo doing The Road Goes On, which is just also worth listening to if you want to. Again, if our legal department would let us, we would put all this music in this podcast. Okay, that brings us to, oh, I don't know, the creation of the universe. Iluvatar, the Ainar, our good friend Tom, our good friend Sauron, who was once Halbram, but is now Anatar.

Molly, what do you want to say about the creation of the universe in Middle Earth and music? Joanna, our old pal, the Sil. Yeah. Sil Marillion has entered the chat once again.

You dug up this beautiful passage that kind of captures this idea of how like for Tolkien, once again, this creation of myth, this creation of a world is inextricable from music, is a musical one. So Iluvatar lived alone, sung into being the Ainur. Have you ever sung anything into being?

Not yet. New goals. I say, I say. What would you sing into being if you could? Oh, right now, a really crispy, icy LaCroix. How about you? How many cans do you have with you right now? An iced coffee. I have two. Like a cold brew of some sort. I have two cans, but they're both like down to their last inch and probably kind of lukewarm. So.

Now I'm thinking back to our time in the studio together and there's the mountain collection of cans over the course of like a four hour House of the Dragon recording. The time I like knocked over several cans and they just sort of like hit all the way down. Anyway, no free ads. What are you going to say about a Louis Vuitton music? No free ads. No free ads for LaCroix. Quote, then the harpists.

and the lutenists and the flautists and pipers. The organs and the countless choirs of the Aenor began to fashion the theme of Iluvatar into great music. And a sound arose of mighty melodies changing and interchanging, mingling and dissolving amid the thunder of harmonies greater than the roar of the great seas.

Till the places of the dwelling of Iluvatar and the regions of the Ainur were filled to overflowing with music. And the echo of music. And the echo of the echoes of music, which flowed even into the dark and empty spaces far off. Never was there before, nor has there been since. Such a music of immeasurable vastness of splendor. Do you think that this informed the splendor line in Westworld? Uh...

Yes. What a way, what a place for your brain to go. Also, I love when you read passages, Mallory. I know that all of our listeners do too. I love when you read passages. I love when you sing to me. It's great. Great. Great to have an excuse to read passages and sing to each other. Joanna, would you say that this is fellowship? That this is fellowship? This is fellowship. In some. This is beautiful. This is alliance of various people raised in harmony. What is harmony if not fellowship persisting? You know, so...

That's the beautiful harmony that Eru Iluvatar and all the Ainur make when they make the earth. Then Argaim Morgoth. Yeah. Argaim Morgoth. Yeah. Formerly known as Melkor. Yes. It's like... The artist formerly known as Melkor. The Flame Imperishable. That sounds great. I want a little piece of that. Give me some of that Flame Imperishable. And as he tries to steal it...

He creates a discordant music that classes with the divine music of the Ainar. This is the opposite of fellowship. Quote,

And I read that quote so that I can read this part of an email from our listener, Tim, which I love. Tim wrote, it is the most elegant, natural, and believable reasoning for why evil is created. Music needs the minor notes to make beautiful songs. And so the creative universe needs Melkor, aka Morgoth, to build a real and complete world. Gorgeous. Balance on the force. You love it.

So this idea of the creation of Earth via song is not something that the Rings of Power overtly does, but we see it reflected in the opening credits, the way that the Earth is moving around in patterns to the vibration of song. That's sort of meant to evoke the creation of the world via music that Tolkien writes about. And then Bear McCreary has said that he...

He begged and pleaded for JD and Patrick to give him a black screen for longer than most TV creators would be comfortable with at the beginning of season one, episode one. So you could just see darkness and then a children's choir to invoke that creation of the world. So they don't show it, but this is sort of Bear's idea of how to invoke it at the very beginning of Rings of Power, which...

I love that. Brilliant. Love. Speaking of gods and music and sort of like big sort of mythical existence, let's talk about Tom Bombadil as we promised we would. Please. Yeah. I didn't get enough of the Tom talk. Like, I can't believe we get to talk about Tom Bombadil on these pods now. What a time to be us. This is a thrill. Let's hear a little clip of the song.

Oh, springtime and summertime and spring again after. Oh, wind on the waterfall, heavenly laughter. Bamber Crew is very emphatic that Tom Bombadil's song be more than just, quote, whimsy.

And Rufus Wainwright, who sings the version that played over the closing credit in episode four, Rufus Wainwright, who I love, who comes from a long line of folk singers, his dad, Loudon Wainwright, was a huge part of the folk music scene out of Canada, et cetera, et cetera. In the making of video for this song, he said, quote, when you sing a folk song,

You have to be 100% dedicated to interpreting that song as truly as you can because it's been handed to you over the years by your ancestors, end quote. Which, like, what could be more Tolkien oral tradition than that, right? I love this idea that, like, Tom Bombadil is a big, like, Woody Guthrie and Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan fan. Like, genuinely love it. Yes.

I already, I loved Rufus Wayne Rowe already. I was a huge fan of like his album, Want One, Coffee and Cigarettes, like, sorry, Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk, like all of that sort of stuff. Like I really love his music. Sweet cover of Hallelujah from Shrek. Yes. Genuinely great. Genuinely great. There's this great song, Want One, I think came out, I want to say like 2000, 2000.

something like that would be my guess. He's got a great song in there that's just this beautiful ballad and it's called and the chorus is My phone's on vibrate for you and it's the most beautiful song with the most like what are we doing here lyric that I absolutely love and I recommend. Anyway, there's already covers of the Tom Bobadil song which has only existed for like a few weeks on YouTube. There's a beautiful cover by this woman with like a

Oh, I don't know the name of this kind of drum, but one of those like beautiful folky handheld Celtic sort of drums that already exist. Should we make a cover? Yeah. No, I think out of respect, we should. You said yes at first. I did. And then I thought about it and I was like, oh, no, it'll be a bit like Melkor. I think let's go back to that description. I'm talking about me in this moment. Yeah.

Little harmony, but rather a glamorous unison of many trumpets braying upon a few notes. That's how I think my cover of the Tom Bombadil song would go. What instrument would you play? I usually stick to like a triangle or a maraca. Wow. Okay. How about you? A percussive egg, you know? I'm still inclined toward the drum. We're sticking to the percussion is what you're saying.

I think so. Yeah. I would try the guitar. I'd love to hear you on the guitar. I had a guitar at one point. I never learned how to play it, but I had it for like years. Oh, me too. Years. I had my dad's guitar and then I had another guitar and I had them for years and years and years with the intention that I was going to. And finally I gave, I gave them away to someone who actually played the guitar. Okay. Our listener, Jessica, about this idea of using like a folk, a folk song for Tom Bombadil. This is what Jessica wrote. And I really loved this email.

The idea of folk music, not the high formal music of the church elves holding older mysteries and truth, also comes out in Tom Bombadil, who sings songs that, like Tom himself, are old and mysterious and relate to the woods and trees and seasons and stars, all very pagan. Tom Bombadil himself reminds me of the character found in British song and folk tradition John Barleycorn.

and anthropomorphize spirit of the grain that must die to make beer and bread. Yes, very Christ-like too. This even in a way lends to the idea that Tom is a Luvitar slash God or a Jason or even older. He is the pagan earth that remains as the foundation of the far green country, content to nudge and watch, but not there to interfere. He is the old pagan God forgotten by some, and he, like God, communicates in song.

I love that. I love that email. Gorgeous. I love that. Anything else you want to say? Bad babies are coming through. I know. Unsurprisingly. With some incredible submissions today. Our good friend, Tom.

Yeah. Anything else you want to say about Tom? I'm excited to see what else they do with Tom in the rest of season two here. I've yet to watch Beyond episode four, so I'm hoping we get more musical moments with Tom and just more moments that tap into and capture this idea. I'm genuinely like we talked about at length in our deep dive, but if anybody's not caught up on the episodes yet and just dipped into this pod anyway, that long-awaited screen debut was...

just a source of bliss for us. And so I'm, I'm curious to see like what the, the volume and like calibration of Tom's,

screen time is moving forward and how musical it is. But I'm genuinely like, I can't wait to find out. It's one of the things I'm most intrigued by the rest of the way for season two. I was certain he was going to be a one episode character, but this does not seem to be the case. So that's exciting. I feel like where we left it in episode four, it's like, can't be. So I'm like, do we just have one more episode? Is he going to stick around beyond that? I have no idea. It's exciting. I am going to drop like a little soundtrack spoiler. So skip ahead if you don't want to hear it.

There is a track on the season two playlist that's Daniel Wayman, who plays a stranger, and Rory Kinnear, who plays Tom Bombadil, singing this song together. And so I don't know if that's something we're going to get on the screen or if it's something they just did for... But it's so beautiful. Daniel Wayman is such a beautiful voice. So I hope that's something we get to see on the screen. Okay, while we're still here with the godlike figures, we got to talk about our guy, Sauron.

slash Halbrand and the ring they win. And this is where the trickiness of Bear McCreary blows my hair back. It's just incredible. Because Halbrand's theme is Sauron's theme backwards and vice versa. And that's something he did in season one. And he said it took him like a gajillion years to get it right. And, you know, so you don't know it unless you know to look for it. He was like, I wanted to...

It's sort of like palindrome-ish, the way that he sort of constructed the theme. But obviously not exactly a palindrome, otherwise it would sound the same backwards and forwards. But...

He's like, it was just like a little musical puzzle that he wanted to put in there. He wanted to make it not so obvious that like the people who are sort of pouring over the score for clues would figure it out. He said some people sort of started to like, you know, towards the end of the season, but he's like, but it took them longer than it might otherwise have. So I was proud about that and stuff like that. So that was really exciting. But yeah,

This is what he said about the process. Quote, I changed one note in Halbrand's theme, lowering it by a half step. This creates a majestic major third in a place where Sauron has a sinister minor third. I also tweaked the timing of the fourth note, giving Halbrand a little folksy rhythm where Sauron's plays and a steady, ominous marching rhythm. Sauron is a shapeshifter. As he changes shape to manipulate the surroundings to his own ends, his music is going to have to adapt.

What I think is really cool is they've already conditioned the audience to expect that, end quote. And he also says, and I'm just paraphrasing here, that Sauron's theme marches around and around in concentric circles, or as Bear would prefer you call it, rings. Ooh, love this. Yeah, so this idea, I mean, I don't have the ear for it. I haven't dug into the way in which Annatar's theme would connect to Sauron's theme, but I'm excited for Bear to accept it.

Explain to me how and like the way in which we might see that change again in season three and again in season four and all of that. So this is fascinating. That's really cool. I love to learn about how these story beats are incorporated into the score. That's awesome. Remember when River Cartwright played Sarah? I still can't get over that. That was incredible. Jack Clowden, Mr. Tree. Mr. Saoirse Ronan himself. Exactly. The one and only. Yeah. Um,

Another fun fact is that Galadriel's theme and Sauron's theme are not the same, but Bear wrote them to be, quote, easily confused for one another, which is, again, just very fun. And by each other, easily confused by each other as they sit on a log. Bound to each other. Looking at each other, thinking about each other. And then as for the ring theme, which you hear in full, like with lyrics sung by Fiona Apple in the season finale, it's also very close to Sauron's theme. And we hear little

of it throughout the season before we get the full ring thing. We hear it when Celebrimbor first sweeps into Linden. It's just the funniest moment when Gil is talking to Elrond. He's like, we've decided you're going to go to a reggae and that's what you're going to do. But I'll explain it Lord Celebrimbor. And it's just the same.

What if, like, what if when Gil asked Elrond, like, are you familiar with Celebrimor's work? He had been like, who? And then Celebrimor had already been standing there. Like, that would have been a tough foundation to build a relationship on. Do you know what would have happened? Celebrimor would have flung himself off that cliff and washed up in the Grey Havens. That's what would have happened. Oh, man. I'm even away from matching Panor's legacy than I thought.

God damn it. All right. So yeah, when we first, okay, so in season one, episode one, 17 and a half minutes in is where we get the title card because there's a lot of Galadriel backstory, right? So season one, episode one, Rings of Power, 17 and a half minutes in, we get the first, the Rings of Power title card. That's when you

first hear a couple notes of the ring theme. You hear it again when Celebrimbor's like, what's that? What are you talking about me? Hello, I'm Celebrimbor. In season one, episode one. And then also when the Mithril first appears in season one, you hear a little snippet of it again. And that's the kind of stuff that, again, I don't have a great ear for, but I love to go back and listen for when someone points it out to me. And Bear says he wanted it to be sort of seductive and dissonant. You know...

And the thing I will say about, I don't have a great ear for those like hearing little snippets of themes. I'm not great at identifying them. But if you put lyrics to them, I can. So now that I've heard Fiona Apple sing three rings for Ellen Kings, like that whole thing, when they play the ring theme now underneath something, I could hear it because I can hear the lyrics sort of being sung to it. So that's a really handy thing. And so that's...

That Wandering Day is easy for us to identify in the background of certain things. And now Tom Bombadil's song will be easier for us to identify because you've got those sort of lyrical associations. Great shout. Anything else you want to say about Tom, Sauron, Eru Olivatar? Okay. We're closing in. Home stretch. Uruks. Uruks and goblins. I just want to shout out two things really quickly. One, there's a song called Where There's a Whip, There's a Way. Okay.

that the orcs sing in the animated film. And it's a jam. It's a bop. And Bear McCreary was asked if he would ever try to like

incorporate that he's like i i would love to he's like i actually kind of love that song i'd love to figure out a way to allude to that somehow so so stay tuned to see if where there's a whip there's a way makes it into uh rings of power somehow and then there's the goblin song from the hobbit clap snap the black crack uh that you know similar to sort of the

the where there's a whip, there's a way it's teaching us about it's teaching us about goblin culture. Um, yeah. Before we meet the goblins, we hear this song and way down in goblin town. So, uh, you know, that was very much on my mind watching the, um, Dr. Who holiday special. And the, uh, actually, no, it was the first, it was church of Ruby road, right? We get the baby bones butter song. It's like, I still have some thoughts on that, but yeah, the, the, the goblin, uh, uh, musical number was, uh,

Very top of mind watching that, Hussien. It's interesting, too, to think of, like, you called out on our last deep dive for episode four,

You know, these orcs, like, they love a drum. And it's interesting, too, like, you know, when is music a private thing or a way to, like, share something with someone close to you? And then when is it, like, this is like a loudspeaker. This is a megaphone. Like, this is about instilling fear and announcing your intention through music.

Music. And so, you know, again, there's that like Melcore idea, right, where you have to have kind of like the dark underbelly of it so that the other stuff shines even more brightly in contrast. The orcs, they want you to know they're coming. Like they're not trying to sneak up on you, right? It's all about making you afraid. Doom, doom, doom. I love it. All right. Speaking of drums in the dark and the deep. Yeah. Let's talk about dwarven tunes.

Fantastic. Again, McCreary is legally not allowed to sort of explicitly interpolate Howard Shore's music from the films, but he gets around the legal restrictions. What he says about the dwarf music and Rings of Power is he's like, if you look at Howard Shore's dwarven music, those are the dwarves in exile.

both in The Hobbit and in The Lord of the Rings, where dwarves longing for the glory days of the dwarven kingdoms, whether it's the treasure stolen from them in the Lonely Mountain or thinking about Khazad-dûm and the Mines of Moria, stuff like that. So there's this longing for this disconnection, this isolation, but

Whereas we're meeting the dwarves in Casa Dune at the height of their power, right? So this idea, this is what Bear says, quote, Shor's music felt dark, noble, and sad with repeating celli and basses. It's cello and bass, plural. Celli, I don't think we often say that. Celli. In contrast. Celli, that's great.

Quote, in contrast, viewers of the Rings of Power will visit the Minds of Moria as the mighty city of Khazad-dum. I wrote a theme for this location that similarly emphasizes Chugging Chelly.

and bases energized with a clang of metal hammers against anvils. This is no melancholy dirge, but instead a rousing patriotic anthem for the dwarves at the height of their civilization. And of course, we cannot talk about dwarves in music without talking about Disa and the literal resonance communion with a rock that she shows us in season one and then is dramatically unnerving

traumatically lost and broken in season two this so this idea of dwarf song in rings of power as a way for the dwarves to connect literally connect to the earth around them versus the dwarves in um lord of the rings the hobbit who are disc or who are lost and wandering um i really love that contrast

I love that too. It's like, again, it's that like sing me a story idea, the idea for in rings of power that we're accessing through DISA and the resonating that song is life. Music is life. The idea that the mountain sings in order to convey something that it is alive because it can sing because it can communicate in song and commune through music and

Like, in the beginning of season one, just this explanation that we got from Disa, sing to it properly. Each of those parts will reflect your song back to you, telling you its story. Like, she's speaking about a mountain, about rock, about the earth, but to the... And this gets back to what, like, you know, this idea...

from the top of the pod about what a musical tradition tells us about not only the connections between the cultures as we forge fellowship in Middle Earth, but about each culture. Like, the mountain is alive for the dwarves, right? It is inextricable from what life and existence and ritual is. And so that, I just thought, was such a beautiful summation. And then you swing to the dark bookend, the closing. Like, your app closed. You couldn't stream anymore. Like, oh no! Your air...

your AirPods died. You didn't recharge them. Right. And the way that Papa Duren said in the second, in the second episode, the beginning of this season, whatever the cause, the bond is broken. The hand of darkness has closed around cause of doom. Like if we think about what happens, the sun shafts falling and shattering darkness had literally blanketed Cassandra.

Khazad-dum already. But it's only when they realize that they can't resonate anymore, that they can't engage and interact with the mountain and song, that he reaches that place. The darkness, the hand of darkness has closed around Khazad-dum. I love that. And this is, I mean, this goes back to sort of what we were talking about in terms of, we talked about this a lot in season one, this idea of like,

The very distinctive cultures, the Harford and their migration, the dwarves and their connection to the rock, the leafy boughs of Linden, all this sort of stuff like that. And then the fact that Sauron, yes, seeks to, quote, in his own warped mind, heal Middle-earth, but he is looking for homogeny, similar to the way we talk about the Empire spreading out and creating homogenous, faceless...

fascistic, whatever. He's not looking to celebrate and lift up the individualistic cultures of Middle Earth. He's looking to subjugate and rule them all and bring them under his command. And so the way in which we assume that Sauron or at least Sauron via the explosion of Mount Doom and the Rings of Power is directly responsible for the collapse of

the light shafts in Khazad-dûm is a way for Sauron indirectly or directly to isolate the dwarves from something so core to their identity and their culture. And that core bit of their culture and identity is connected to song. So silencing their rock song is an insidious move. So then we get something like

The Longing in Far Over the Misty Mountain Cold, or a.k.a. The Dwarf Song, a.k.a. Thorne's Song, a.k.a. The Song of the Lonely Mountains, or shortened to simply as Plan 9 does, The Misty Mountains. The most famous Dwarven tune. The High Point, by far, is not even close of the Hobbit trilogy for me. And...

In the book, as I mentioned in the book, the dwarves seem to travel. Blunt the Knives is not the highlight for you? Blunt the Knives is 1B. 1A, that's 1B. And then it's all downhill from there, personally. But in the books, the dwarves travel with a full orchestra. And I just want to read this part. Fili and Kili on fiddles. Dori, Nori, and Ori on flutes. Bomber on a drum. Biffer and Bofer on clarinets. Dwalin and Balin on viols. And finally, Thorin with his golden harp.

In the film, however, it's just this beautiful blending of bass voices that invoke deep, dark places. This is the quote you've been waiting for, Mallory Rubin, from

The Hobbit, as Tolkien wrote it. And suddenly, first one and then another began to sing as they played deep-throated singing of the dwarves in the deep places of their ancient homes. Well, yep. You know? Deep-throated? Sure. I mean... Deep-throated singing from the dwarves. Killy is involved in a romantic subplot, so... Oh, my God. Hot dwarf who fucks Killy. All right. I love this. Misty Mountains is... I mean...

That is just like a haunting... So beautiful. Both Blunt and Ives and Misty Mounds, like, if memory serves, we get both of those full musical numbers within the first, like, 35 minutes of the first movie, right? And you're like, this is going to be the best movie ever. Guys, I love you. You're the best. Never change. Always be you. That sequence in the film is just so, like...

One of the things I love about it is when we cut to Bilbo and he's like separate, right? He's listening. He's in his room. And so you have this idea of witnessing and trespassing upon this deeply private thing, which like we're talking a lot about

music as a shared experience, but it still achieves that because he is able to gain a new understanding after having some access to this. And then for the dwarves, it is, of course, this deeply shared thing. And you can feel so palpably just the weight

Of their history and their grief and their longing for home. Like we've been talking a lot about this idea of home and the pull of home. And that is what they're singing about here. And so you understand it crystallizes something about their need.

like their specific need and what is driving this pursuit. And like, we hear it from Thorin before the song just spoken, right? They dreamt of the day when the dwarves of Erebiara would reclaim their homeland. Like this is about, and obviously it gets more complex from there, but in some level it is about giving this group of people a place again where they belong, like allowing them to rediscover that. So it's gorgeous. And obviously it's just beautifully performed. Yeah.

I absolutely love this song so much. To your point, I love everything you just said about home. That's definitely on my mind. And also this idea... The songs in The Hobbit versus the songs in Lord of the Rings. The songs in The Hobbit are much more closely connected to actual plot. Whereas in Lord of the Rings, it's more atmospheric. And so in The Hobbit...

And Thorin's like, we must away or break of day. Like, this is what we're going to do. The dragon stole our treasure. Like, you know, the drones are rolling, like all this sort of stuff. And then Bilbo's like, and the song's over and Bilbo's like, so what are we doing? Right. And Thorin's like, I just literally just told you. You're not listening. Yeah.

and then he explains it right he sings it first and then he explains it and so that happens time and time again in The Hobbit that you like something is sung and then it is explained and it's sort of like a double a double dip and we'll get to in our last section which we've reserved for our beloved Harfoots and Hobbits like um

Do you have to read every song in The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings? Certainly, there are plenty of people, often in the early times, or maybe in later reads, because they've already been through it so many times, who skip the songs entirely. That is a very common Tolkien reader move. And we'll talk a little bit about whether or not you do, but oftentimes, especially in The Hobbit, he will repeat everything.

what he just told you in song in, in prose, uh, just in case you weren't listening. I love this quote from Richard Armitage, uh, who plays Thorin Oakenshield, um, who has a beautiful voice, uh, about the way in which he needed, he felt like he needed to sing the song. He says, quote, there's something religious about the sound, but it needed to come to be right from the gut, right from the core. It's something very personal. So I love that. Great stuff. Let's talk about hobbits.

And Harfoots. Wonderful. I mean, this is the best. This is where we shall leave you, but we have a lot to say on it. Okay. So Bear McCreary following in Howard Shore's footsteps and just sort of like, I don't know, it feels a natural thing. We're using Celtic instruments to give you the sound of the Harfoots, similar to concerning Hobbes the Shire.

in the Howard Shore score is very heavy on the pipe and the drum. Let's start with The Road Goes Ever On, which is something that you were sort of referencing at the beginning. Do you want to talk about... You alluded to this, so I want you to talk about this. The slight tweak in lyrics between the way in which Bilbo performs a song and the way in which Frodo performs a song. Yeah, so you get...

You get to confront The Road Goes Ever On multiple times across the books. Our first exposure comes in The Hobbit. Bilbo is returning to the Shire. Roads go ever, ever on over rock and under tree by caves where never sun has shown by streams that never find the sea.

Over snow by winter sown and through the merry flowers of June. Over grass and over stone and under mountains in the

moon. Roads go ever, ever on under cloud and under star, yet feet that wandering have gone turn at last to home afar. Eyes that fire and sword have seen in horror in the halls of stone look at last on meadows green and trees and hills they long have known, yet feet that wandering have gone turn at last to home afar.

Like, again, it just captures sort of everything that we talk about with, like, and this is the story of a hobbit who had an adventure, right? So then in Fellowship, we get it from Bilbo again, setting off. And then Frodo, as the hobbits are beginning their journey.

adventure. They're like little tweaks, right? Like eager becomes weary and like the language is changing in small ways. But like, I'll read the passage from Shalaship here because this, this spoiler, it builds toward one of the lines that we quote the most often. And so in the context of this pod, it's worth calling out how this is that stems right from the recounting of the song. And then in the middle, there's this fascinating exchange about

the sharing of the tradition and the passing on of the tradition. Frodo was silent.

He too was gazing eastward along the road as if he had never seen it before. Suddenly he spoke aloud, but asked if to himself saying slowly, the road goes ever on and on down from the door where it began. Now far ahead, the road has gone and I must follow if I can pursuing it with weary feet until it joins some larger way where many paths and errands meet and wither then I cannot say.

That's very wandering day, that line. The passage continues. That sounds like a bit of old Bilbo's rhyming, said Pippin. Or is it one of your imitations? It does not sound altogether encouraging. I don't know, said Frodo. It came to me then.

As if I was making it up, but I may have heard it long ago. Certainly it reminds me very much of Bilbo in the last years before he went away. He used often to say there was only one road, and we should note here, road is capitalized, right?

that it was like a great river. Its springs were ever, and every doorstep and every path was tributary. It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door, he used to say. You step into the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to. And then it returns again in Return of the King. So the fact that that passing of the song was

Bilbo, Frodo, their adventures, their relationship to the ideas in that song because of the experience that they're having. Can you even remember who you heard it from or what it meant to them now that it means something new to you? And there's like little tweaks and repositionings along the way. Hobbit, Fellowship, Return of the King, it's there with us and it's there with them the entire way through the story.

So I just love that. And again, I think it's a dangerous business road going out your door probably comes up along with the Sam quote. I mean, those are top fivers in terms of key lines and ideas that we return to. So to see how that ties to The Road Goes Ever On is incredible. What a cool thing to see how these pieces all fit together. I love it. Love it. The way that song is then interpreted in the musical that we mentioned earlier, there is a great...

The road goes on, which is not the same lyrics, but the same spirit. But the verse that Frodo and Sam share where it says, see the road flows past your doorstep, calling for your feet to stray like a deep and rolling river. It will sweep them far away is very much that idea of the road is a river. Yeah.

You already, as you say, the connection between The Road Goes Ever On and Wandering Day could not be clearer. J.D. Payne, who wrote the lyrics, I mean, J.D. and...

Patrick are such students of the language of this, of these books. And so like JD writing the lyrics for wandering day and just drawing from the clearly from the inspiration of the road goes ever on. Um,

Wandering Day, not a Bear McCreary invention. The song was composed by Plan 9, the people who wrote the Green Dragon and Misty Mountains and all those other songs that we like in the Lord of the Rings movies. And then JD wrote the lyrics. So that is where Wandering Day comes from. But I really like this idea that, you know, you mentioned it's eager feet for Bilbo and it's weary feet for Frodo.

And this idea that a song that when you first hear it can sound like jaunty and uplifting and then can turn into something else as we go on. So this journey we've gone on with Wandering Day, a song that we just absolutely loved in season one, made us cry thinking about it. It has a mournfulness to it because it's Poppy's mom's song.

And Poppy's mom is dead. So again, this is like a connection to a beloved family member who is gone. The music itself is a way to connect. But when we were watching it, it felt very like uplifting, a call to adventure, just like a really sort of rousing song. Yeah.

As we find out in season two, this idea that I'll trade all I've known for the unknown ahead. We love that lyric. We love what that means. It's the best.

But when the mournful, like, instrumental version of it kicks in behind Nori in episode four, when she's talking about not having a home, the endless wandering starts to feel, like, devastating. And then, like, again, eager feet become weary feet. Like, you know, the wander that feels like an adventure starts to feel like a chore when all you long for is home. Yeah.

And, you know, so if you think about, you know, Bilbo had those feelings. Frodo had those feelings. Frodo never got to go home, really, you know, and Bilbo similarly. So it's just something that's my mind. I did want to read this one personal email we got from our listener, Leanne, that really emotionally affected both of us about Wandering Day. Leanne wrote, the first time my partner and I watched that scene, we turned to each other and said, wow. And we immediately backed up and watched it again. Same, Leanne, same. Yeah.

Leanne goes on to say, since then, we have used the music as our wedding song, bride walking down the aisle, karaoke, motivation while backpacking, and my favorite, the song we sing to our six-week-old son before bed. To me, it is a song of heart, loss, strength, pain, discovery, and faith. The night before I went in to be induced, we sang this song before bed and it brought me to tears. I trade all I've known for the unknown ahead, going willingly and boldly

into our next adventure without the promise that it will be easier fun, but with the assurance that it will be worth it. So Leanne, thank you for sharing, man. That really got a little moving. Oh my God. Um, man, boy, I love this. This is, this is so wonderful. Like I, I was to the, to the, to the point about, and I've loved that we're tracking this and returning to this across season two, like,

how home and the appreciation and yearning for home, but also the desire to leave and the call for adventure are how they connect to each other and not only don't feel in conflict, but kind of heighten each other. Like, you know, I was thinking in fellowship when, when Frodo and Sam finally reach Rivendell and, you know, Frodo's like, Sam's packing up. Right. Frodo's like, I thought you wanted to like see the elves. I did more than anything. Yeah.

I do. But, like, what does Sam really want then? Like, to go back home. What leads to Frodo almost cascading to his death before they realize they're actually only, like, two feet above the bottom? Sam wants him to catch that salt from the Shire, right? Like, it's a piece of home. It is special. And...

So, like, the ability to see and appreciate home and the way that Frodo, when they're in Rivendell, is like, you know, I spent, like, all my life in the Shire just, like, wanting to go see other things and do other things. It's very Nori. Nori's very coded in that way. And then, like, when Nori, like you said, is having that moment with the goond and, like, we don't have a home and the tears, like...

Both of those things can be a part of your experience. Like the desire to go explore and experience something new and then how, if you get the chance to do that, it impacts how you feel and think about the thing you already knew or the thing you want to find next, right? And of course then how you're

how that informs the experience that you're having with somebody else. So like, you know, we've talked before about like the, the painting and like part of the reason that like I wanted that I trade all I've known for the unknown ahead lyric to be there, but the pick the visuals, like, so that's a, a Poppy Nori lyric. It's a rings of power lyric. Yes.

But like the images are Frodo and Sam, right? And like, it's that idea again, like we're in the same tale still. And that like their journeys and their experiences, even though they're so specific, you know, like that strange and rare idea again from now and for always, like the idea that something can be so particular to you, but also part of the shared truth is really like top of mind when you're thinking about and listening to Wandering Day. And I think like,

I think one of the reasons that I love I Trade All I've Known for the Unknown Ahead so much, in addition to just how beautiful it is and how moving it is and how without even having to like consciously interrogate it, it just taps into something in your heart when you hear it and like your soul when you hear it and how it connects to that, oh, alone is just a journey. Now adventures, they must be shared idea from the finale in season one that we loved so much with Nori and the Stranger. It's like,

I've been thinking about this a lot and I'm like, I think actually the thing I love about it so much is that like, I don't actually feel like I live my life that way. Like, but I, but I wish I did. Like I wish I could. Right. And so like you, you feel the pull and the call, but then you're like, wait, if I had the call, like when I heat it, when I answer it, it's like so hard to do that. And then that connects to the, you know, the Bilbo Frodo, like walking out your door idea. So the way that all of these things feel like they're building on each other,

I just think is incredible. And it's part of the reason, in addition to just actually enjoying Rings of Power, that I'm so happy we have Rings of Power and have a reason to keep thinking about these ideas and meeting characters who bring them into our lives simultaneously in new ways, but also ways that feel like they've been a part of our experience as Rings fans from the moment we first encountered them. It's just, it's like really a gift. It is a gift.

I love everything you just said. And I love, I mean, like Wandering Day. And I would say this about, I've listened to the Tom Bombadil song like a million times since it first dropped on Spotify. And like those have become along with some of the other Hobbit-y songs we're about to talk about, Green Dragon or the dwarf song Misty Mountains, like tracks that are just like classics. And, you know, and I would add to those,

Things like Reigns of Castamere, Jenny of Oldstones, like these songs that sound impossibly old. Speaking of. Okay, so can you skip songs? You can. If you want to. But the songs in the text are a way for Tolkien to see some of his most important themes in before he really wallops you with them later.

So a good example of that, and one we like to talk about, we like to talk about the payoff a lot. The setup is early on in Fellowship and Rivendell, Bilbo and Aragorn have written a song about Elrond's dad, who you may recall is a star. Tough beat for Elrond. Erendil, right?

And they wrote a song about, you know, a rendial mariner or whatever. And the lyrics are forever still a herald on an errand, an errand that should never rest to bear his shining lamp afar. The flamifer of westernness. Flamifer, by the way, means lightbearer. Not just a fun thing you might call your friend Jennifer. Lucifer also means lightbearer, of course. Flamifer of westernness.

So what seems just like a passing bit of fancy lyricism that actually Tolkien reworked from an earlier poem he had written, he just sort of like reworked and he's like, actually, it's about Elrond's dad, the star. A person who is a star is sort of like an early concept that Tolkien had, right?

But it's so important when that the light of that star is like the one thing that keeps Sam going in Mordor. In this passage, we love to quote, quote, for like a shaft clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end, the shadow was only a small and passing thing. There was light and high beauty forever beyond its reach. So that's a, it's a beautiful passage, but,

on its own. But when it comes as this sort of payoff of this tale, we heard tell back in Rivendell and this idea of Elrond's good old Elrond's dad, just bearing that lantern back and forth across the sky, being this one point of hope for Sam and in the darkest place, the darkest hour. That's why these songs have a bit more meaning than just sort of like, Oh, yada, yada. Here comes another song, you know? So yes, absolutely. Oh,

Let's just wrap up with just like a couple more Hobbit songs, shall we? Yeah. For the Hobbits, the song is their culture as much as anything else. And it has less to do with like,

of passing a story on, even though I just said that thing about Erendil and the star that Bilbo co-wrote. That's a co-pro, though. The hobbits themselves often sing about just like sort of the joy of earthly things, of a good meal, a frothy mug of ale, a juicy fish, the open road, whatever it might be. These are the things worth living for, according to the hobbits, and how could we disagree? Right.

We simply could not. There's this great part in the musical that we saw. It's Mrs. Bracegirdle's plum cake, right? They reminisce about it like several times. They're like, oh, a piece of Mrs. Bracegirdle's plum cake. Like that's home to us. That's what's worth living for. Gollum's Juicy Sweet song. Yes. It's so heartbreaking to me.

Because he's...

He's so enjoying himself. He's being spied upon. He's about to be like captured. He's so enjoying himself. And it's just such a Hobbity song. It's such a little Hobbity song from this little twisted husk who once was a Hobbit. And that is kind of devastating. Like it's funny. It's heartbreaking. But it's heartbreaking at the same time. It is a banger. The rockin' pool is nice and cool. So juicy, sweet. Sweet!

Um, Adam sings this all the time around our, our house. He sings, he says, uh, sweet and juicy and sings so juicy, sweet, like all the time. It's like his favorite rendition. And it's a very memorable scene in the movie that I cherish and adore. Um, on the, on the, the point about just like what,

kinds of songs hobbits sing and what that represents about the type of life they appreciate and live i'll i'll read a uh this is actually this ties to walking song so it's a nice way to just hit walking song once more before we wrap too like this is from fellowship it's before the sharing of the walking song here's the setup they began to hum softly as hobbits have a way of doing as they walk along especially when they are drawing near to home at night with most hobbits

It is a supper song or a bed song, but these hobbits hummed a walking song, though not, of course, without any mention of supper and bed. Bilbo Baggins had made the words to a tune that was as old as the hills and taught it to Frodo as they walked in the lanes of the Water Valley and talked about adventure.

And I love that idea that... As old as the hills. Mm-hmm. There was... To go all the way back to that sort of Donald Swan LP that Tolkien sort of collaborated with, where he's like, this is what this song would sound like, this is what this song would sound like. One of the songs that he sort of... One of the songs that he hummed outside of Namarié, he just put...

the lyrics to a classic old folk song. And so he just used this song, which is as old as the hills, just like an old classic folk song. He's like, it should sound like, you know, I think it's the Fox, the Fox song, the Fox went out on, you know, that whole song. Um, so, uh, I love, I love that as old, uh, tune as old as the hills, but new, new lyrics to it. Incredible.

You want to talk about the Green Dragon, Mallory Rubin? Yes. Yes, I do. And I want to talk about Pippin more broadly in talking about the Green Dragon because this is part of why I love it. Okay. The Green Dragon. So...

This very memorable rendition comes, of course, in Return of the King. We are back at Edoras after Helm's Deep, and we are celebrating. Like, celebrating life. Everyone's drinking. There's joy. Gimli and Legolas are playing a very amazing drinking game. It's just like...

It's a celebration of life, but more than that, it's a brief and ultimately fleeting return to normalcy. Yeah. Right? Like, it's just a minute where they can be as they would have been before. And one of the things I love about it is that it calls back very nicely to the bookend moment in Fellowship when we see Mary and Pip...

Dancing and singing at the pub to heal my heart and drown my woe. Rain may fall and wind may blow. Which comes, of course, from Ho Ho Ho to the bottle I go from the text and is adapted from that. And then so we zip forward to the Green Dragon moment in Return of the King. And everyone is cheering. Everyone is watching as Mary and Pippin sing and dance and drink.

You can drink your fancy ales. You can drink them by the flagon. But the only brew for the brave and true comes from the greed dragon. And I love everything about this. First of all, it's a banger. It is great. Absolutely. Okay. This to me is a perfect encapsulation of what we've been talking about, about cultures and traditions, right?

is simultaneously shining for what they are and melding. Because this is such a Hobbit moment and a Hobbit thing and a Hobbit song and a celebration of what the Hobbits love and hold dear, like we were just talking about. And then to watch the people of Rohan take this in and for that to be a source of shared joy. And then for like...

my favorite moment inside of the Green Dragon musical number and one of my favorite moments in the entire trilogy, you get that beat where...

And like, it gives me a chill every time I watch it. And every time I think about it, when Gandalf and Pippin lock eyes and Pippin stops singing for a second, he has to kind of be pulled back into the song by Mary. And like the entire world passes between Gandalf and Pippin in that moment, the entire world, like everything that they have gone through together, everything that is still yet to happen, including just a couple scenes later with the Palantir, everything in Minas Tirith, right? And,

it is just like

The two characters could look at each other and you could feel something similar, but it feels to me every time I watch it like it was unlocked in full because it took place inside of that song. And what that song was telling us about where Pippin came from and what he used to care about and what he still cares about and wants to find a way to celebrate and enjoy again and share with other people again. And so that's why it's my favorite. And I just love it. And then even though Edge of Night...

is so, so distinct in terms of the pace and the rhythm and the energy. They feel like they're related articles to me. Obviously, they're both in the same movie. They both are in Return of the King. They both involve Pippin. But I always think when Denethor says, can you sing Master Hobbit?

And like, we've had so many moments where we've watched Pippin sing and find joy through song and through sharing song and music. And he says, well, yes, at least well enough for my own people, but we have no songs for great halls and evil times. And like the withering look that he gives Denethor there and the way that you mentioned the cherry tomato and just the juice like dribbling down his chin. And this is this like,

doomed, forsaken person who has failed to like appreciate his own son and doomed his own son. And like, then you have Pippin who was, is like, you know, the comic relief and like the joke and the source of frustration so often in the beginning of the story. And like, he's the one then who can see it clearly. And like, I just love that. Like it makes me, it makes me really emotional. And like,

I think when we're watching that, then we have to think of fellowship and what Galadriel's message to Pippin is, which is you will find your courage. It's just beautiful. I love it. But also, that's so gorgeous. And when you cry, I cry. But the cost of that too, because all of that comes. And then you have to think about the four hobbits back.

at the end with their mugs of beer, but like, it doesn't taste the same. You know, it's, you know, they've gone, yes, they survived Helm's Deep, but there was still more, or rather, they were over in Isengard, but they've survived in order to

see something even harder to understand that pulls them even further away from the people they were when they set out on that adventure. And so do I believe that like Pippin and Mary, you know, and Sam on his wedding day or whatever would like sing joyful drinking songs again? I do, but like there is, you know, there is something that comes with it and that brings me to sort of the final beat that I want to hit, which connects very closely to what you said about Pippin. So I'm so glad you said that, which is this idea that like

Tolkien hates an allegory. Yep. Just as we think about things like the fellowship between Merry and Pippin and Sam and Frodo, who were not close friends before they went out to war. Like the little Lord Princeling Frodo Baggins, the rich boy and his gardener is who goes off to war, but they come back brothers. And that's, you know, that's a story of...

stratified British society and wartime. You go off to war with your gardener and you come back brothers having survived something. But before that, you were sort of locked into, I mean, you still go back into your sort of various stratified places in society, but like that, that fellowship, that camaraderie across, you know,

class boundaries that were so inaccessible in British society at the time and so inaccessible to someone like Tolkien, those boundaries get erased in the trenches in World War I. And so...

The connection between song and the trenches in World War I, I think, is an important thing that even if Tolkien would prefer we not think about, I'm going to think about anyway. Because what songs are they singing in the trenches? They're not singing mournful dirges. Some of them, I'm sure they did sometimes, but there were comical songs, there were satirical, ironic songs about how much, oh, what a lovely war, right? We're having just the best time and stuff like that.

But there's also these just tremendously earnest songs that remind us so much of the kind of songs that Tolkien gives to the hobbits. You know, so like...

It's a long, long way to Tipperary is very much the road goes ever on. Yeah. Right? It's a marching song. Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile is like an extremely popular World War I song. Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile. We're off to war. Like that's, you know. And then...

Keep the home fires burning. The lyrics of that song, keep the home fires burning while your hearts are yearning, but your lads are far away. They dream of home. There's a silver lining through the dark clouds shining. Turn the dark cloud inside out till the boys come home. So like,

That idea, home and what's worth fighting for, being at the core of the wartime music that exists around the war that, you know, and if you look at World War I in the music or World War I in the poetry, the trench poetry, if you go to like a Westminster Abbey or whatever, you will see these poems etched into the wall that came out of this horrific experience. Yeah.

the history that lives on in verse the idea of home that lives on in in tune all of this sort of stuff is part of what shaped tolkien into the person he is even though he would uh prefer you not uh raise it when talking about his beautiful fantastical world that he's created um

All of that is just top of mind for me when we think about music and Tolkien and what these innocents sing on their way to war. And that's all I have to say about Tolkien and music. And it has been a true treasure to go on this journey with you, The Rogues of Aran. What a blast. What a joy. Yeah.

I love doing this. I'm sure we missed plenty of things. This is by no means a comprehensive journey through Tolkien and music, of course. We could have spent two to three hours just on metal alone if we wanted to. Metal and a taste of the Middle Earth. But that was our sort of light and breezy tour through the subject. If we miss anything or if there's anything you want to add, hobbitsanddragons.gmail.com is always open and available to you. We'll be back

Later this week with episode five, will it have music in it? Who's to say? We'll be thinking about it, though. I mean, it'll have a score in it. So we'll be thinking about Bear the whole time for sure. Thank you, as always, to Steve Allman for his work on this episode. Thank you to our general rank with pal who told me exactly how many and how many seconds of each song I was allowed to legally put inside of this podcast.

Thank you to Jomie at Dinner On for his work. I miss Jomie. I don't get to see him on these calls and I miss being around him all summer. I miss you, Jomie. Thanks to Jomie at Dinner On for his work on the social. Thank you to Cameron Dinwiddie who's doing our video editing today. We so appreciate it. Please make sure to capture every single glistening Mallory Rubin tear because they are precious to me and to all of us. And we will see you very soon back in Middle Earth.