Middle-Earth Music, after all these years

[Lush]

My definitive Tolkien song, other than, you know, the Howard Shore/Enya/etc. crew (whom I adore), is Led Zeppelin's "Battle of Evermore." t can be interpreted in many ways (it has a reference to "the angels of Avalon," for example), but overall it's a LotR song. "Queen of light" being Galadriel, for example ("took her bow and then she turned to go" - passed the test, and departs from Middle Earth), etc. And the sound, oh man, the sound - the mandolin is terrific. And the lyrics:

The pain of war cannot exceed
The woe of aftermath,
The drums will shake the castle wall,
The Ringwraiths ride in black, ride on!

And it's a song that's still being sung today. I'm pretty sure that Plant was singing it just this year with... uh... Alison Krauss, I believe.

There is a great piece of work by a Finnish composer Toni Edelmann who composed a host of songs from the LotR to a Finnish theatre production of the book in 1989.

Yes! Yes! I'm pretty sure they used to have a few available streaming back when I was still in high school!

And, you know, coming back to the Shore thing - my mobile ringtone is "Concerning Hobbits."

[Eönwë]

Originally Posted by Lush

Led Zeppelin's "Battle of Evermore." t can be interpreted in many ways (it has a reference to "the angels of Avalon," for example), but overall it's a LotR song. "Queen of light" being Galadriel, for example ("took her bow and then she turned to go" - passed the test, and departs from Middle Earth), etc. And the sound, oh man, the sound - the mandolin is terrific. And the lyrics

Yes, they did use LOTR stuff. This thread talks about it in more detail.

[Lush]

Yep.

[MatthewM]

I completely forgot about this amazing English band called Mostly Autumn. They are very inspired by Tolkien and back when the movies were coming out to theatres they released an album called Music Inspired by the Lord of the Rings. The album is truly great. Does anybody else have it? This band definitely captures the spirit of Middle-earth, especially in songs such as Goodbye Alone , Out Of The Inn , The Riders Of Rohan , and To the Grey Havens. Those are my favorite tracks on the album...

Has anybody else heard of them?

[Knight of Gondor]

For my part, Howard Shore's music still very much occupies the top of the charts when it comes to music from Lord of the Rings.

David Arkenstone released an album, something about music from and inspired by Middle-Earth. It's been ages since I've heard it.

Interestingly, there's a famous group no one has heard of called Within Temptation. They have not specifically tailored any of their songs to Lord of the Rings (that I know of) but if you search on YouTube for "within temptation lord of the rings" and check out some of the options that come up, I think you'll agree the music fits rather well. The group calls their genre "symphonic/gothic metal" which is a very unique category, shared perhaps only by groups such as Nightwish, Epica and Evanescence. I've heard samples of the other groups, wasn't as impressed. There's still a very limited number of songs I enjoy from their discography, but many of their songs mirror the epic tragedy and bitter struggles of Middle-Earth.

And I'm not just saying that because I made one.

Here are some other recommendations:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=lN2PR8vuPGA

http://youtube.com/watch?v=_6iL6kkACZ8

http://youtube.com/watch?v=nn3agxH3Qyg

http://youtube.com/watch?v=w5PQOcyY4Mo

http://youtube.com/watch?v=djhmQtw70v0

http://youtube.com/watch?v=LMdMPwH38Ts