Zappa's Tolkien Tapes & Other Tolkien-Music Connections

Plus New Dwarf Metal from Wind Rose & Damn the Man, Save the Music

In May 1971, Frank Zappa and the Mothers appeared on the radio station WABX and performed a song featuring band members (and ex-Turtles) Flo and Eddie reciting poems from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings accompanied by acoustic guitar and various percussion. The song starts at 2:54 in the video below and includes a melody that would later be included in the Zappa song “Magdalena.”

Flo and Eddie begin by reciting the poem “The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late,” which Frodo performed at the Prancing Pony.

At 7:10 they go into “The Stone Troll” poem that Sam sang while resting with the other hobbits and Strider by one of the troll statues from Bilbo’s adventures. Lastly, at 9:00 they transition into the “Song of Nimrodel” that was sung by Legolas.

Recently, I have seen several other music-related connections to Tolkien. First, a musical version of The Lord of the Rings is coming to the Chicago Shakespeare Theater. I’m intrigued by the way in which the actors have to play all the instruments:

Michael McBride, the Chicago-based music director, said this is one of the most unusual experiences of any theater production at this scale. “Yes, the actors play instruments throughout the entire show. So there is no additional band or orchestra. It is all created by the actors in front of your face.”

You can buy tickets from the Chicago Shakespeare Theater website.

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Also, a Far Out article concerning “Who is the “lady” from Led Zeppelin’s song ‘Stairway to Heaven’?” discusses a Tolkien-related fan theory answer to the question:

Plant was known to have a keen interest in Celtic and Norse mythology, as well as being an admirer of high-fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings. Indeed, he has admitted to “talking about CS Lewis and Tolkien”, the novel’s author, elsewhere on Led Zeppelin IV.

As such, there’s a Zeppelin fan theory that the “lady” in ‘Stairway to Heaven’ is actually Tolkien’s half-elven character Arwen, who was portrayed by Liv Tyler in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings film trilogy. They point to various lines in the song’s lyrics, which appear to be cryptic references to Arwen’s story, such as her “spirit is crying for leaving” when torn between going with the elves or staying with the mortals.

“There are two paths you can go by,” Plant tells her, perhaps in reference to the journey undertaken in the novel. “The piper’s calling you to join him,” he continues, apparently referring to the pipe-smoking wizard Gandalf.

Next, a recent article on the “exceptional design behind human singing,” references The Lord of the Rings:

Most singers can entertain, amuse, or impress their listeners, but the attraction of a great singer lies in the ability to sweep away an audience, catching them up with the passion of lyrics and melody. In the mythical context of Middle Earth, developed by J. R. R. Tolkien, his description of Frodo’s response to hearing Elves singing in Rivendell captures this sentiment.

“He stood still enchanted, while the sweet syllables of the elvish song fell like clear jewels of blended word and melody.”

Lastly, if any of you are Tolkien fans with £150,000 - £200,000 in disposable income, I hope you were able to score some of Tolkien’s calligraphic poems in Elvish at auction last week!

New Dwarf Metal from Wind Rose

The Italian power metal band Wind Rose have announced their next album will be called Trollslayer and will be released on the 4th of October. They have already dropped the first single from the album, “Rock and Stone.” The video for the song is a collaboration with Deep Rock Galactic, the video game “featuring badass space Dwarves.” The band describes the tune as “the ultimate anthem of Dwarf Metal,” and you can check out the video for yourself here:

You can pre-order the new album from the official Wind Rose store.

Damn the Man, Save the Music

I encountered another music-themed tabletop RPG thus week. In Damn the Man, Save the Music from Turtlebun, you play “a crew of '90s indie record store employees trying to save your store from impending doom.” Created by Hannah Shaffer and Evan Rowland, the game is “inspired by movies like Empire Records and Dazed and Confused.”

The game won an IGDN award for Best Rules in 2018, and is available in both PDF and printed formats. H/T to Thomas Manuel’s Indie RPG Newsletter for putting this game on my radar.