I have been wondering this for a long time and if the SDMB can’t help me knowhere can.
In the song ‘All Along the Watchtower’ by Bob Dylan (and Hendrix) the final verse is as follows
All along the watchtower
The princess kept the view
While all the women came
And went bare feet servants too
Outside in the cold distance
A wild cat did growl
Two riders were aproaching
And the wind began to howl
This verse is very similar to the chapters of RoTK;
The Watchtower - Gondor castle walls etc
Princess - pippen or his guard friend whose name escapes me
Women came and went - houses of healing women
Cold distance - mordor
wild cat - nazgul
two riders - faramir and gandalf
wind began to howl - typical tolkein-esque description
I know that LoTR was quite a big influence in the 60’s to a lot of people and i find it quite believeable that Dylan would be inspired by the book.
Another song which contains lyrics lending themselves to LoTR is ‘stairway to heaven’
There’s a feeling I get when I look to the west,
And my spirit is crying for leaving.
In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke through the trees,
Look to the west, Grey Havens etc
Spirit is crying for leaving - elves so forth
Smoke rings - obvious,
through the trees - any of the eleven forests
AND
And it’s whispered that soon if we all call the tune
Then the piper will lead us to reason.
And a new day will dawn for those who stand long
And the forests will echo with laughter.
call the tune - not sure, possibly the many songs,
piper - gandalf?
those who stand long - those who stand up to mordor etc,
forests will echo with laughter - basic idea of peace being restored and the forests becoming light and free, unlike fangorn during end of the third age.
Thats just my thoughts, but they just seem to have so many parellels, i’d be interested to hear what everyone else thinks, or if they know of any songs with similar lyrics.
“All Along the Watchtower” was inspired by verses from the Bible, and any resemblance to Tolkien is, I believe, coincidental.
P.S. It may be widely-held misconception that Hendrix wrote “AAtW.” He did not. It was entirely Dylan’s composition. Hendrix only covered it.
Donald Swann was an English music-hall composer of yesteryear. You’ve probably never heard of him. I would never have heard of him either, except that he set seven Tolkien poems to music. The Road Goes Ever On: A Song Cycle was published in, IIRC, 1967. Swann also recorded the songs with vocalist William Elvin (some name, huh?). The style of music and singing would not appeal much to rock-‘n’-roll headbangers. It would sound very corny to our ears. But you can hear the songs, re-released as part of The J.R.R. Tolkien Audio Collection. Tolkien himself consulted with Swann in the composition of “Namárië.” The book also was important in Middle-Earth publication history because it contained lengthy annotations by Tolkien to the text of “Namárië” giving valuable information about Valinor, the Valar, and the Elvish languages. Information that was otherwise unavailable before the publication of The Silmarillion a decade later, so to Middle-Earth geeks the Road book came as a descent of manna from Heaven, as it were, drops of water to the thirsty fans in the desert. Robert Foster drew upon this Road information in writing his Guide to Middle-Earth.
In the first edition, Foster also revealed the astonishing tidbit that the original Elves first awoke in the vicinity of Lake Baikal!!! Foster claimed that Tolkien had revealed this in a private communication. The official version of Elf origins published in the Silmarillion had them “awakening” in Cuiviénen, far to the east of the area shown in the maps, far east beyond Rhûn.
…
I ain’t tellin’ no lie.
Mine’s a tale that can’t be told,
My freedom I hold dear;
How years ago in days of old
When magic filled the air,
T’was 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.
Her, her…yea.
Ain’t nothing I can do, no.
…
Pink Floyd’s The Gnome, (written by Syd Barrett) always struck me as either being about The Hobbit or LOTR.
*…I want to tell you a story
About a little man
If I can
A gnome named Grimble Grumble
And little gnomes stay in their homes
Eating, sleeping, drinking their wine
He wore a scarlet tunic,
A blue green hood,
It looked quite good
He had a big adventure
Amidst the grass
Fresh air at last
Look at the sky, look at the river
Isn’t it good?..*
Blind Guardian has an album called Nightfall in Middle Earth, which is a concept album based on The Silmarillon. Many Tolkien themes show up in their other works, including the songs “Lord of the Rings”, “By the Gates of Moria”, etc.
There is are whole Web pages out there somewhere that catalogs an astonishing number of songs and albums inspired by Middle-earth. The aforementioned Led Zepplin songs are there, of course, but sorry, no Bob Dylan.
Now, Hob Dylan is another story. Author of great Middle-Earth songs like “The Third Age It Is A-Changin’,” “Stuck on Top of Orthanc with the Minas Blues Again,” and “Like a Seeing-Stone”…
Zeppelin made frequent references to the Misty Mountains – there’s “Misty Mountain Hop,” of course, and they mention them again in the song “Houses of the Holy.”
*In the middle of the earth in the land of the Shire
lives a brave little hobbit whom we all admire.
With his long wooden pipe,
fuzzy, wolly toes,
he lives in a hobbit-hole and everybody knows him. *
Theres a video of the song, that I’ve seen on the net somewhere, I can’t remember where though. I’m sure Google would turn it up.
ObGeek: Yes, I know it’s about The Hobbit, but Bilbo is in LotR:FotR also.
hmm ive never heard those led zep ones, i’ll have to check them out though, cheers, i certainly think the ones i posted could be, but the ones you lot posted definatly are. thanks, any more?
This is a fairly obscure reference, but Jefferson Airplane recorded a song called “the Farm” that is an ode to west coast back-to-nature communal living. One of the verses goes something like this:
Here comes my next door neighbor/
Comin’ down the road ridin’ on his toad called ‘Lightning’/
Yeah the toad’s name is Lightning/
And if you give him sugar, you know he’ll whinny like a bullhorn /
Yes he will
Later on, the main character of the song (Grace Slick) mentions “saddling up her frog” and riding back to her farm. Thus implying that every one is a tiny hobbit-sized person.
It’s a pretty subtle reference, but it is a nod to the fact that most of the communal hippies of the time were inspired by Tolkien’s books. Basically, every one was indulging a fantasy about being hobbits and living the good life in Middle Earth’s Shire far away from “the War.”
