Metal and Myth: Tolkien-Lore in the Branches of Rock/Pop Culture 9 October 2008

I wrote this for my Tolkien elective. This was fun to write, but why do I always think that 3,000 words is such a pushover until the night before? the source requirement was pretty – really – cazh so I used geeky cites from the Tolkien underworld, which are the best possible sources for ascertaining geeky stuff on the Tolkien underworld anyhoo and way fun to surf. there are some real weirdos out there.

Metal and Myth

Tolkien included a poem called “The Sea-Bell” in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil that told the sad history of a certain hobbit who, once upon a time, picked up a seashell and was called to distant shores. He spent his life wandering to find the far-away waves, and, when at last he came home, he was shunned because he had run after the bell that only he could hear. Tolkien himself was like this out-cast hobbit. For much of his life, his fairy stories were misunderstood and it does not seem as if even his wife could hear the call of the Sea-Bell that inspired him to discover the world from which it came; so it is that he was indubitably a self-proclaimed hobbit and also that he was a lone visionary for most of his life. Curiously, after his death, entire cultures have formed to follow his vision with different ways of translating the music into ordinary life.
Tolkien’s ability to communicate the feeling of exile that most of us feel, the longing for distant shores and the strangeness of home, rang true with an entire generation and even created an entire class of people who, while identifying themselves with Tolkien’s Middle Earth, completely changed the face of this culture and the time that we are in through their music. The 21st century was the time of the rock revolution and a globalization and divergence of music that parallels the globalization of society. And Tolkien, oddly enough for his other-worldly identity, was a definitive part of this revolution and is still a heavy influence in the music of nearly every musician of any genre that is played today, albeit sometimes second-hand. Led Zeppelin, Enya, and Howard Shore, arch rock gods, New Age Irish songstress, and high-brow film composer, are not often associated with one another, but they do have these two features in common: each musician acknowledges J.R.R. Tolkien as a muse, and each became a leader of a movement that influenced numerous other branches of music. Led Zeppelin eclipsed America with a rock revolution in the early 70s that is still hearkened back to as the Golden Age of rock; Enya made New-Age mainstream with scarce a live performance, an unprecedented cultural/economic sensation; Howard Shore epitomized the genre of the epic sound-track and placed it right into the tradition of grand opera. The sense of ultimatum, and the underlying dissatisfaction and rebellion and also of unreachable beauty, in the wars of The Lord of the Rings inspired the rock bands of yesteryear. With all his loathing of the grinding clashing modern world of machinery, Tolkien was thoroughly modern in that he was acutely aware that he was watching the death of the old world; his vision of elusive nobility and wistful grief typifies the beatific fantasy that Enya and other New-Age groups seek to capture. Tolkien’s absoluteness inspired the emerging genre of the epic soundtrack: the absolute destruction and desperate triumph of goodness over despair, this eucatastrophe that pervades The Lord of the Rings also inspired the epic film-score that began with Charles Williams’ accompaniment to Star Wars as well as Shore’s soundtrack. Believe it or not, all three share the same roots: they are all steeped in the lore and the majesty of J.R.R. Tolkien, and they took their love of Middle Earth to create a new Age of popular music. Such a juxtaposition of characters could only come about because Tolkien’s expression of the desire to return to a society of nobility and deep green roots, a wish to break out of the system and the tread-mill of gray suits, articulates the messages that pervade rock and heavy metal, New Age/Easy Listening, and narrative film scores. Between these three divergent streams of music, Tolkien completely changed the face of the music now and the music that is coming. The Tolkien epic translated a sense of eucatastrophe, nobility, and other-world beauty to the realm of pop-music. These three in turn have influenced in various degrees nearly every popular, New-Age or neo-classical musician since, and so Tolkien’s influence has covered nearly every musician in a shockingly varied range of extremities. His vision took shape in music because music, as the instrument of creation in his magnum opus, lends itself surprisingly well to the formation of pockets of pop culture back here in the U.S.A. (as well as in other countries, predominantly Teutonic).
The musical genre of rock is such an oxymoron. Thoroughly modern, it is signified by banging, clashing, rhythmic beating like the wheels of a train on a train track sometimes uplifted by bells and whistles to wake us up. Thoroughly anti-modern, it is a rebellion against the grid that we are in and the track that we’re chained to trudge forth on if we are to get anywhere. Heavy metal is the sound of factories, the beat of the coalmine and the yelp of a worker caught in the wheels of the treadmill. Were J.R.R. Tolkien to listen to The Summoning or Led Zeppelin, heaven help us, he would designate the groups as bands of orcs or goblins, but Tolkien’s own loathing of the crushing daily grind of modern life and desire for elusive freedom is deeply attractive to social rebels. By means of these contradictions found in rock, Tolkien-lore landed right in the midst of the genre as a continual inspiration.
In an article published in Metal Storm, Dane Train follows the influences that Led Zeppelin combined. Robert Plant, lead vocalist of Led Zeppelin, was steeped in the blues tradition that reckoned back to the good old days of the agricultural society. Jimmy Page, lead guitar, was well grounded in Southern Blues. The agricultural longings in blues music, particularly the Southern blues tradition mourns the death of the old ways and the hardship of life in a conquered land, are longings that are readily adaptable to the themes of longing for the simple country life of a hobbit in Tolkien.
Both Plant and Page, “the dark guitarist,” were strongly drawn to mysticism and the call of the north that they found in Norse mythology. Much of their music is in folk mode, particularly Celtic. These inclinations toward Norse and Celtic folklore explain why Plant, in particular, found a home for his mystic longings and a fountain of inspiration in the writings of Tolkien. Train concludes that:
The influence from author J.R.R. Tolkien [on music] will never be able to be measured. In the same light, Led Zeppelin’s influence and impact is the greatest ever. Their music is still as extremely popular today, if not more so, from when it originated over thirty years ago. Their sound has been borrowed, reinterpreted, rearranged, mixed, and many times ripped off by almost every artist since the beginning of Led Zeppelin’s regin. VH1 and Rolling Stone Magazine have given them the title of “Greatest Rock Band Ever.” “Stairway to Heaven” is the most played song in radio history, voted as being the greatest song ever written, as well as having the second highest number of covers, right after the Beatles’ “Yesterday.” Two hundred years from now people will still be listening to and enjoying the music of Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and the late, great John “Bonzo” Bonham, thanks in part to an author who will continue to fascinate readers long into the future, J.R.R. Tolkien.
Tolkien’s influence, via Zeppelin, extends to every genre of rock, even to alternative. For example, in a piercingly beautiful verse from “Whose Authority,” a song on an album that was just released just last February (Lucky, Barsuk Records, 2008) the indie rock bombshells Nada Surf nod to Zeppelin and Tolkien and sing longingly, “there’s a feelin’ that I get when I look to the West, like having all the answers but still failing the test.”
Tolkien’s elusive charm has drawn many besides classic ear-friendly rock. Right after Led Zeppelin, heavy metal bombarded the planet with a blast of Tolkien-inspired noise. William Weir, of the Hartford Courant, explained that “perhaps more than any other genre, heavy metal and the classics are joined at the hip.” Heavy Metal likes an ultimatum and is composed of the absolutes that are found in classical literature; simply put, epics and the pre-modern classics of literature are not afraid to choose sides, and heavy metal appreciates this frankness. Weir continues that “epic battles of good and evil are very metal, says Weinstein, author of ‘Heavy Metal: The Music and It’s Culture.’”
In The Hobbit, Tolkien includes a rare excerpt of a Goblin song, which is notable because music, for Tolkien, was a leitmotif of creativity and therefore is not often given to evil and not granted to the de-creations like orcs. The instance emphasizes the similarities between orc music and heavy metal:

“Goblins began to sing, or croak, keeping time with the flap of their feet on the stone, and shaking their prisoners as well.

Clap! Snap! The black crack!
Grip, grab! Pinch, nab!
And down down to Goblin-town
You go, my lad!

Clash, crash! Crush, smash!
Hammer and tongs! Knocker and gongs!
Pound, pound, far underground!
Ho, ho! My lad!

Swish, smack! Whip crack!
Batter and beat! Yammer and bleat!
Work, work! Nor dare to shirk,
While Goblins quaff, and Goblins laugh,
Round and round far underground
Below, my lad!”

The onomatopoeic resonance and the insistence on rhythm over lyric and literate expression or story in the Goblin song is echoed with the overwhelming percussion in rock music that drowns out the significance of the words. Otherwise, the oppressive lyrics are reminiscent of themes in heavy metal.
A long, long list of heavy metal animals named their groups after Sauron’s henchmen, or have titled and themed songs straight from Mordor that proves this connection. Tom Findlay attributes the magnetic attraction of heavy metal to Tolkien’s work to the lure of the escapism inherent in a fantasy world, but, regarding the density of Tolkien’s material, it is more likely due to the fact that Tolkien’s world is so comprehensive, so accurately sketched that the dark side of his fantasy is as appealing (to certain minds) as his sense of nobility is to others. Man will have religion, and, after God is ruled out in favor of vague mysticism, the door of the heart is left open with a vacancy that the majesty of Ring-lore fits into perfectly.
The Lord of the Rings also drove rock music into another route. Bo Hansson, a Swedish musician, is reputed as an innovative genius and a founder of the progressive rock movement, an artistic movement that aimed to elevate rock into a more intellectual form of music. Hansson read his girlfriend’s copy of The Lord of the Rings and felt that destiny come upon himself as it had come upon Frodo: he would write a soundtrack to accompany the books. With a seven-year foray into progg and a magnificent soundtrack to show for it, Hansson prepared the way for future progressive rock artists like Queen and Pink Floyd, and produced a hefty bit of electric history for New Age artists to build from.
The mythic quality in the Lord of the Rings that caught the attention of the foundational rock artists who inspired heavy metal, alternative, and classic and progressive rock still makes it a target for New Age groups. Enya Lyrics, a website devoted to New Age music, lists “popular themes in New Age music [which] included Space and the Cosmos, Environment and Nature, Wellness in being, Harmony with one’s self and the world, Dreams or Dreaming and Journeys of the Mind.” Frodo’s anguish, the yearning and distance-fraught relationship between Aragorn and Arwen, and the cosmological nature of the battle between Middle Earth are themes that are practically written to be tweaked and twisted into wistful melodies of forlorn lovers and lost causes by New Age musicians – and they are themes that certainly inspire many of these songs.
Although Enya, a Roman Catholic, does not classify herself as a specifically New Age musician, she won the 1998 Grammy for Best New Age Album with Landmarks, and she herself stands as a landmark of New Age music. David McKittrick wrote in The Independent that in her career “Enya has moved from the earthy to the ethereal, developing a distinctive style combining the mystical, the classical and folk influences, sometimes singing in Gaelic or Latin,” or Elvish, we might add. Enya’s lyrical piano melodies are overtly Celtic/Tolkien-inspired to evoke a sense of the ethereal and the elven, and she composed a song, entitled “Lothlorien” (Shepherd Moons, Reprise/Warner Music, 1991), that specifically depicted the Elvish land of Lothlorien long before being approached to compose for the soundtrack of Peter Jackson’s films. The land of Lothlorien, ethereal and passing away, embodies New Age ideals of a Golden Age idyll. Her work for the film score of The Fellowship of the Ring (“May it Be” and “Aniron”) was particularly self-satisfactory because Tolkien’s Trilogy is Enya’s favorite literature and a great influence in her work.
Tolkien was an influence for soundtracks long before the New Line Cinema production of The Lord of the Rings (2003). Everyone – even the website Star Wars Origins and Jason Silverman of Wired – ascribes George Lucas’ inspiration to create the Star Wars saga to The Lord of the Rings. Superficially, a comparison between characters like Darth Vader and Sauron, is too close to even suspect this influence. On a deeper level, the de-humanization of the enemy, the vilification of machinery, and the aspects of sub-creation found in Star Wars are stemmed directly from Tolkien’s philosophy. This is particularly clear in the horde of the dark force, which is composed of clones, a sub-creation or a de-creation of man, just as are orcs. Elements of Tolkien’s philosophy are embedded in the story that William’s film score accompanies, and, accordingly, the Star Wars theme follows right along. The Star Wars soundtrack was an important turning point in William’s career, and set the expectations for the genre of epic soundtrack since.
Shore flew miles beyond the expectations of a sentimentally-heroic Braveheart or Gladiator soundtrack to create his masterpiece, the eleven-hour symphony of The Lord of the Rings. He is a classical musician, a Canadian orchestrator, conductor, music producer and composer. He has written concert pieces and the opera The Fly (which debuts this year) besides The Lord of the Rings soundtrack and other film scores. With these accomplishments and his many talents, Shore is establishing new standards for the composition of movie music. We have moved beyond background music to pieces that have existence in their own right as artistic masterpieces and the soundtrack has taken its place as a legitimate and respectable branch of classical music that has been compared to the opera.
The film score is, perhaps, the most close to the heart of Tolkien’s own theory of music. Shore’s symphony involves leitmotifs and musical characters that are inseparable from characters and events in the story, and the music is inherent to the film itself; the music is as much a part of the story as the images are. To create the music that is such an elemental facet of the story, as opposed to being an accidental or decorative aspect, both Shores and Williams were echoing Tolkien’s philosophy of creation.
Tolkien viewed music as a high, or even the highest, form of creation, and Peter S. Beagle noted that “music is never imposed from outside; it springs from the center of this world.” The Silmarillion begins with an account of the creation of the world:
There was Eru, the One, who in Arda is called Iluvatar; and he made first the Ainur, the Holy Ones, that were the offspring of his thought, and they were with him before aught else was made. And he spoke to them, propounding to them themes of music; and they sang before him and he was glad.
Music is indissoluble from earth and spirit, from culture. Tolkien’s influence on the genre of the soundtrack is particularly interesting because of this tie to world-creating and story-making, and the connection is a good indication that the future of the soundtrack may be bright.
Because of his views of creation through music, the formation of the plethora of musical puddles that have formed round Tolkien’s boots is not nearly so shocking. In the pools of classic rock, progg, heavy metal, indie, New Age and classical operatic film score, we see a great variety of expressions of Tolkien’s influence. Tolkien’s creation inspires others to sub-create: and there is no more natural way than music, which he considered the highest form of creation.
Led Zeppelin read Tolkien and, by sharing his inspiration, re-defined the genre of rock for generations of musicians to come; Enya, Williams, and Shore were inspired by the nobility of middle-earth to establish whole traditions. Man will have religion, and, after God is ruled out in favor of vague mysticism, the door of the heart is left open with a vacancy that the majesty of the Ring-lore fantasy fits into perfectly. The powerful influence that Tolkien mysteriously wields over the winds of popular culture is a natural over-welling of his philosophy of creation.

Works Cited

Beagle, Peter S. “Tolkien’s Magic Ring.” The Tolkien Reader. J.R.R. Tolkien. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. New York: Ballantine Books. 1966.

Enyalyrics. “The Lord of the Rings.” http://www.enyalyrics.googlepages.com/new-age- music.html.

Findlay, Tom. “Tolkien in Metal: John Ronald Reuel Tolkien and His Influence on Metal Bands.” Suite 101. 20.8.2008. http://metalmusic.suite101.com/article.cfm/tolkein_in_metal.

Hansson, Bo. http://www.silence.se/bohansson/
McKittrick, David. “Enya Escapes Intruder By Hiding in Panic Room.” The Independent. 5.10.05.
“Music.” Star Wars Origins: Your Source for Obscure Star Wars Inspirations. http://www.moongadget.com/origins/music.html.
Silverman, Jason. “Tolkien Gets Ringing Endorsement.” Wired. 28.1.2005. http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2005/01/66417.
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Hobbit, or There and Back Again. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. 1994.
-“The Sea-Bell.” “The Adventures of Tom Bombadil.” The Tolkien Reader. New York: Ballantine Books. 1966.
-The Silmarillion. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. 2001.
Train, Dane. “The Tolkien-Zeppelin Connection.” Metal Storm. 28.10.2004. http://www.metalstorm.ee/pub/article.php?article_id=65.

Weir, William. “Tolkien Would Be Flattered… But Surely Deaf.” The Hartford Courant. 7.4.2006, http://www.redorbit.com/news/entertainment/462338/tolkien_would_be_flattered__ but_surely_deaf/.