Tolkien Music

Plus An Epic Quest for a Lost Tolkien Song: Mayhayron

There is a long tradition of including references to the literary works of J. R. R. Tolkien in music. For example, this Mental Floss article lists eleven songs inspired by Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, including “Ramble On” by Led Zeppelin and “Rivendell” by Rush.

Similarly, this Decibel magazine article profiles the following 5 metal bands with names that originated with Tolkien:

• Morgoth

• Cirith Ungol¹

• Gorgoroth

• Amon Amarth

• Burzum

And these articles don’t even mention Gandalf, Gandalf, Gandalf, Gandalf, or Gandalf’s Fist.

In 2004 I went to the ProgPower USA V² festival in Atlanta, GA. At the event I picked up a promo CD featuring songs from various metal bands. For a short while after the festival, I had the CD in heavy rotation as I was obsessed with one of its songs that was filled with references to swords, elves, and Sauron. When I started Critical Hit Parader, one of the first things I wanted to discuss was this song. Unfortunately, I had lost the CD and could not remember the name of the song, the name of the CD sampler, or even the band name. I could still remember its Tolkien subject matter and infectious vocal melodies, but no internet searches helped me find the track.

Recently, however, I was going through boxes of CDs in preparation for an upcoming Contrarians episode. To my surprise, I found the CD! The name of the album is Power from the Underground Vol. 2 and the song is “Broken Sword” by Mayhayron.

Here are the lyrics:

BROKEN SWORD
Exactly As I Feared - Old Prophecies Fullfilled
Blood Of Numenor Was In Vain
The Last Alliance - Our Hope And The Shield
Broke, And Elendil Has Been Slain
Isildur's Death, Brought Great Discord, Alliance's Like Elendil's Sword

The Men, The Elves, The Dwarves - We Fight The Evil Force
With Axe, With Sword, With Bow - But Sauron's Power Grows

Isildur Had To Fail, His Mind Was Weak,
Evil Temptation Was Too Strong
Visions Of Great Might And Power Did The Trick,
He Kept The Ring, He's Chosen Wrong
Discord In Realms Of Men And Elves, Prepared The Doom For Ourselves

The Men, The Elves, The Dwarves - We Fight The Evil Force
With Axe, With Sword, With Bow - But Sauron's Power Grows

The Ring, It Speaks, It Wants To Be Found
Mount Doom is Boiling Underground
The Isengaard's Betrayed Our Cause
And Nothing Will Be As It Was

The Men, The Elves, The Dwarves - We Fight The Evil Force
With Axe, With Sword, With Bow - But Sauron's Power Grows

Three Thousand Years The Ring Had To Wait
For Its Creator To Arise
While We Are Weak, His Strength Is Great
It's Time To Pay The Final Price

The Nine Have Left, Have Left Their Darkened Lair
They're On Their Way To Claim The Ring
Now It's Time To Fight, No Time To Despair
Even If Gondor Has No King
Isengard Betrayed Our Cause, Nothing Will Be As It Was

The Men, The Elves, The Dwarves - We Fight The Evil Force
With Axe, With Sword, With Bow - But Sauron's Power Grows
The Men, The Elves, The Dwarves -The Fellowship Is Formed
With Axe, With Sword, With Bow - This Quest Will Carry On

It turns out that the version of the song on the CD was for a demo album. It was later rerecorded for the band’s only full-length album Still Want It Heavy. Here is the demo version:

You can listen to the released album version at 27:21 of the following video:

The band is from Poland, and from their Facebook page, it appears they still play live shows. After browsing their timeline and working with Google Translate, I think an interpretation of their band name may have been combining the names of the bands Mayhem and Iron Maiden. But I may have misunderstood.

Bilbo and Spock

The Mental Floss article mentioned above references the song “The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins” by Leonard Nimoy. If you have never seen this video for the song, stop what you’re doing and watch the following:

Knowing that such a thing exists make me feel like the world is a better place. Or at least a weirder one.

1. I discussed Cirith Ungol and their legendary Michael Whelan album covers in a previous Critical Hit Parader newsletter.

2. My friend Bob and I traveled down from Chicago and saw amazing performances by bands such as Pain of Salvation, Weapons of Mass Destruction (unofficial Savatage reunion), Into Eternity, Adagio, and Dreamscape.