Culture
22 Jan 02

Lord Of The Strings

From Middle Earth to middle eight – music and musicians inspired by Tolkien

Steve Peregrine Took.

The bongo-playing partner of Marc Bolan in the original, acoustic T Rex, took his name from a hobbit (that’s a hobbit called “Peregrine Took”, not “Steve”).

Led Zeppelin.

The noise boys were much influenced by Tolkien, as evidenced by ‘Ramble On’ on 1969’s II and ‘The Battle Of Evermore’ and ‘Misty Mountain Hop’ on 1971’s IV.

Bo Hansson.

The original of the species. Sweden’s Bo recorded his Lord Of The Rings prog instrumental album way back in 1970 when it was neither profitable nor popular.

Toad The Wet Sprocket.

One of Sam Snort’s favourite bands, the fragrantly named ensemble featured the classic ‘Hobbit On The Rocks’ on their In Light Syrup album.

Clifford T. Ward.

The recently departed English singer-songwriter paid homage to Middle Earth with the songs ‘Mr Bilbo Baggins’ and ‘Gandalf’.

Enya.

The choice of woodland sprite Enya as the composer of a couple of songs for the Lord Of The Rings movie soundtrack came as a great surprise to those of us who had our money on Shane MacGowan.

Mordor The Boozers.

Their CD The Broken Bottle Cries, containing the track ‘Tolkien Tale’ is a collection of Swedish drinking songs. Be very afraid.

Marillion.

Fish’s band originally wanted to go the whole hobbit and call themselves Simarillion but compromised after a run-in with the Tolkien estate.

Turner & Kirwan Of Wexford.

Now better known as Pierce Turner and Black 47’s Larry Kirwan, the duo recorded a track called ‘Frodo’s Theme’ as a part of a three-piece suite on the 1977 album Absolutely And Completely. To repeat: a three-piece suite about hobbits at the height of punk rock. Whew.

It has been estimated by the compilers of the Tolkien Song List that some 641 artists have recorded 900 works inspired by Middle Earth, an inordinate number of them, for some strange reason, being tracks by death metal groups from Russia, Finland and other points east. The list, particularly since the release of the movie, is growing every day and you are invited to keep up with it – or even add to it – on the web. Alternatively, of course, you could go out and get yourself a life.