Joni Mitchell Music References to J.R.R. Tolkien
Plus A Templar’s Tale Concept Album - Rick Wakeman Inspired Prog Rock
This recent American Songwriter article described four “Fantastical Music References to J.R.R. Tolkien.” Three of the four were among the more commonly discussed classic rock songs that were inspired by Tolkien:
“Ramble On” by Led Zeppelin
“The Wizard” by Black Sabbath
“Rivendell” by Rush
The fourth was “I Think I Understand” by Joni Mitchell. Here is the description from the article:
We’re as surprised as you are that Joni Mitchell is a Tolkien fan. The famed folk singer/songwriter penned “I Think I Understand” back in 1969 for her album Clouds. On the surface, the references to The Lord Of The Rings might seem a bit cryptic or vague. However, Mitchell herself introduced the song at a music festival that year and said that the books “left a big impression” on the singer and resulted in this stunning piece of work.
“A few years ago I read a trilogy by an Englishman named Tolkien,” said Mitchell at the Mississippi River Festival in 1969. “It left a big impression on me because there are so many different ways that you can read your own things into it… And get your own hope and light and everything from it.”
The Joni Mitchell website has a longer quote from her introduction at the festival, which provides more details on how Mitchell was inspired by the character Galdriel:
"My favorite character, of course, was a lady wizard by the name of Galadriel. And when the travelers came to her kingdom before they had to venture off into very dangerous places and everything, she gave them a vial of light and she said 'take this vial and whenever you're in a dark place take it out'.
"Well, being into metaphors a lot myself I decided that what she probably was giving them was a memory of a beautiful time and with that interpretation and her hope and her memory, well... I borrowed a phrase from him... 'the wilderland' which was a place they had to go through. And the wilderland is just like it sounded, it's a wilderness and full of all kinds of hoary monsters and things. Just like life.
"So I call this song, I Think I Understand, Fear is Like a Wilderland."
You can hear Joni’s introduction and Tolkien explanation starting at 47:27 of the following video, which is the soundboard recording of the 1969 concert:
Joni Mitchell’s publishing company at the time was even called Gandalf Publishing Co! Back in 2008, her first husband, Chuck Mitchell, told the story of how they set up their music business, which used many Tolkien references:
1965, Summer. We'd been married a couple of months, got our first out of town gig at the Jongleur in Jacksonville Florida, and set off with 3 guitars and a tiple and the rest of our baggage in my 1956 Porsche 356A coupe, which was about the same shape and size as a watermelon seed; well, maybe a little bigger, the size of the first space capsule. Nope. I don't know how we did it, either.
We had a dandy time, with adventures too numerous to tell, and we met Anne and Jack Williamson, who liked our music and subsequently offered to invest in our future. At that point, we talked with my attorney friend Armand Kunz and, after some letters and phone calls, we all agreed to set up a little business, with a part for publishing, a part for recording, and a part to oversee both of those parts, which I guess we can call the production part.
The Williamsons put up the money, Armand created the business, and Joni and Chuck, mostly Joni, wrote songs.
I'd been reading J.R.R. Tolkien and got Joni into Middle Earth, in between gin rummy, curtains, and songs.
We liked Tolkien's magic. We wrote him letters and got his permission to use names from his books for our bits of business.
We named the publishing part Gandalf, and the recording part Strider (aka Aragorn, Viggo Mortensen's character in the films. Viggo was 7 at the time, and had nothing to do with our decision.)
We named the production part Lorien; which, I believe (as verified by wikipedia) is short for Lothlorien, the forest realm of the elves in Middle Earth. Our realm was the fifth floor, Verona Apartments, corner Cass & Ferry, Detroit, Michigan.
Of all that small but well crafted business, the only bit still extant is Strider, which is the name of my record company, such as it is. Back in 1969 Los Angeles artist John Solie, who did the cover and miscellaneous other drawings for my album Dreams & Stories, also made a label of a little hippy guy with a guitar and a cool dab leaping over the word "STRIDER" (as well as the center hole of the old LP record). Surrounded by vines.
Actually, Gandalf is still extant too, but only as a vessel for Chuck Mitchell songs. When Joni and I split up, which was a year or so before we actually got divorced, all of Gandalf's holdings of Joni Mitchell songs were transferred to Joni's publishing company Siquomb, which was part of her legendarium that she invented at some point after (or maybe before, it depends on who's telling the story) she stumbled on, and then out, of Middle Earth.
Once the Joni Mitchell songs were gone, and the tenement castle abandoned for a converted garage in Coconut Grove, and one thing and another, the Lorien part of the business had no reason for being any more, and it evaporated, kind of. What had been all formal and business-like became lower case acronymns, aka's and dba's.
And that, my children, is how the story goes.
Let’s end with one last Joni Mitchell connection for fans of tabletop roleplaying games. In her book Will You Take Me as I Am: Joni Mitchell's Blue Period, author Michelle Mercer says the Joni Mitchell song “Sisotowbell Lane” has "the atmosphere of Louisa May Alcott's 'Little Women' crashing a Dungeons & Dragons game." I’m not sure I know what that means, but I get a kick out of it. You can listen to the song yourself here (and feel free to explain the metaphor to me!):
A Templar’s Tale Concept Album
Here’s an upcoming music release that might appeal to fans of classic prog rock and tabletop games like Pendragon or Knights of Camelot. Nova Cascade guitarist Colin Powell will be releasing a concept album called A Templars Tale under his A Multitude Of ONE artist name on the 7th of February. Here is Colin’s description of the project:
A Templar's Tale is my most ambitious album to date and has been in the works for over 12 months.
The music harks back to Classic 70s Progressive Rock and is a concept album, along similar lines to Rick Wakeman's King Arthur and Journey to the Centre of the Earth - complete with a narrator.
The narrator is Sir Geoffrey de Beaumont, a fictitious Templar, who recounts the Templar's Tale, interspersed with songs sung by myself and epic orchestral and choir arrangements, as well as more traditional rock instrumentation.
The album comes with a 44-page illustrated medieval-style booklet that contains the lyrics and background information.
The last song on the album is called “The Legacy of the Templars” and has been released as a preview single:
You can pre-order the album from the A Multitude of ONE Bandcamp page.