Tolkien's Music and Themes
Plus Silverstein, Stringed-Instrument Wizards, and Rush
On a recent episode of the House of R podcast, Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson provided a 2 plus-hour dive into “Tolkien's Music and Themes Across Middle-earth.” Most of the episode was focused on the music within the J.R.R. Tolkien books and movies. Starting at 45:35, however, they discussed Led Zeppelin and other Tolkien-inspired rock music. Here is the full video:
One of the bands they mentioned at 50:58 is Silverstein, who have recently released a new song called “Skin & Bones.” In the middle of the track, there is a narration of this well-loved quote from Sam to Frodo:
"Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something, even if you were too small to understand why."
Here is the official video for “Skin & Bones”:
Returning to the “Tolkien's Music and Themes Across Middle-earth” video, at 18:30 Jo and Mal discussed this J.R.R. Tolkien quote (from his letter 142, December 1953), which I love:
"Anyone who can play a stringed instrument seems to me a wizard worthy of deep respect.”
This definition made me think of a few musician wizards. First, Roy Smeck was a banjo, guitar, and ukulele player who was nicknamed “The Wizard of the Strings.” Check out the proto-tapping in this video!
Next, Rory Gallagher, the legendary Irish guitarist, has an album called “Check Shirt Wizard.” The nickname comes from his propensity for wearing a plaid flannel shirt while performing electrifying, mind-blowing guitar on stage.
And this gives me another excuse to post a picture of the Rory Gallagher Magic the Gathering card that my kids made me for Father’s day:
Lastly, Levi Nunez from Loot the Body donned a wizard outfit in this photo shoot for the band’s profile in the Critical Hit Parader zine:
As covered in last week’s newsletter, Levi has a current Kickstarter for Against the Cult of the Hippie Commune, an adventure for Dungeon Crawl Classics. This week, he released another video for one of the songs included in the soundtrack for the adventure. This one is for the track “Keep on the Grass”:
Learn more about the project and pledge your support at the Against the Cult of the Hippie Commune campaign page.
To conclude this tour of J.R.R. Tolkien-related music, themes, and tangents, let’s end with some Rush. Each morning, the One A Day Rush newsletter sends an email “featuring a different Rush song.” Last week, the newsletter covered the Tolkien-inspired “Rivendell.” Here is an excerpt from the One a Day Rush author, Lara:
“The song sounds like something Pippin might sing as the four hobbits camp in Old Forest or in the eponymous Rivendell, as bumblebees gambol about the flowers and sunlight dapples through the trees. A song he might once again sing as he watches Frodo and Bilbo and the last of the elves board the ship bound for the Grey Havens.”
I encourage any Critical Hit Parader readers who are Rush fans to check out the full Rivendell article and subscribe to the One a Day Rush newsletter here:
If we are talking LotR-inspired Rush songs, I will choose The Necromancer over Rivendell 10 times out of 10. Pretty pastoral songs are not what I want from Rush, and just seems so out of place amongst a bunch of rocking tunes. But at least it led me to this one-a-day Rush substack, to which I just subscribed, so thank you, Matt!
I don't know if you are following the current Tales from the Smoking Wyrm Kickstarter, but it includes Trevor's new pad of Vital Signs character record sheets for DCC. Trevor is a Rush superfan. It might be fun to poke his brain about their influence on him.