Anne’s Reviews > The Fellowship of the Ring > Status Update

Because singing was extremely important to storytelling in most cultures, especially pre-recording technology. XP

I know. And I desperately want to be the sort of person who appreciates that sort of thing.

Anne, you are very funny, really!! XD

Thanks, Dimi. I appreciate you having a sense of humor about it! I can't wait to (hopefully) finish this one today or tomorrow.

If that's what the normal book is like, the LOTR Musical must be a nightmare.

Yeah i undestand what you are going through though, its just that some books you have to read them the right time i think, i ve read lotr when i was twenty and its my most favourite book ever since, i dont know if that could happen now, also if you watched the movies before the books then it will make things worse, because everything happens very fast and it doesnt go that way at all in the books

Weird Squid wrote: "If that's what the normal book is like, the LOTR Musical must be a nightmare."

Whhhhhhhat? Did they really make a musical or are you pulling my leg?

Appearantly they did

Dimi wrote: "Yeah i undestand what you are going through though, its just that some books you have to read them the right time i think, i ve read lotr when i was twenty and its my most favourite book ever since..."

I agree. There are a lot of books that I found AMAZING when I was a teen that I doubt I have the patience for today. But this is one of those bucket list books that I'm just determined to read. All of them, really.

Weird Squid wrote: "Appearantly they did"

NOOOOOOO! Damn. They'll make a musical about anyhting.

Hey dol! merry dol! ring a dong dillo!
Ring a dong! hop along! fal lal the willow!
Tom Bom, jolly Tom, Tom Bombadillo!

Tom Bombadil is no Rick Astley, but…[deity of your choice] help me…he loves to sing. And Tolkien’s poems/songs do not approach the grandeur of Europe’s Final Countdown or Toto’s Africa, but they are more tolerable when read vs listening to a narrator try to invent a tune. And when reading, they can be altogether skipped.

However, other than the Bombadil nonsense, I actually like the poems/songs…especially The Lay of Beren and Luthien. So many names in those poems. 🤪

Bombadil does not serve much purpose in the story other than to remain a mystery for nerds to argue until the passing of the Fifth Age (I believe Bombadil is Aule, one of the Valar). And with the removal of Bombadil from the narrative, the songs lessen, but never completely disappear.

Does 2x narration speed make the songs seem like Alvin, Simon and Theodore? I might have to try it.

Tolkien’s songs have nothing on the blasphemy sung by Spock and inspired by Tolkien’s works that my dad forced the entire family to listen to on 8-track while prisoners in the car. This song simultaneously made me ashamed that I liked Star Trek and Tolkien in a way that the bullies never could.

I would post a link, but, alas, Goodreads…

Just search “Leonard Nimoy Bilbo” on YouTube.

I m sry Dave but you really compared Europe with Tolkien's poems?! First of all Tolkien did many things but he didnt wrote music for his world, but even if you have to compare it to any surely that one wouldnt be a cheesy band like Europe, or even Toto, you better try some Lorenna Mckennit or even Kate Bush, as for the lyrics, what you say makes the comparison even worse, i m sure Europe havent put much thought to their Lyrics as Tolkien did, because he was a Master of Languages, so to sum it up, what you said was horrible and totally wrong.

So I finally read the Hobbit for the first time a year ago and honestly it didn't click with me. Maybe we missed these by not reading them earlier in our lives? I'm hoping Fellowship is better I really would like to read them at some point.

Dimi wrote: "I m sry Dave but you really compared Europe with Tolkien's poems?!”

I did.

If you want to be the best, you have to compete with the best.

Tolkien did not do enough.

Unlike Dwayne Johnson, he never dared cross into rap.

Unlike Will Smith, he never crossed into movies (at least not before his passing).

These men and Paris Hilton have set the bar by which all other entertainers…regardless of medium…shall be measured. Even da Vinci pales in comparison as a modern Renaissance Person. (More gratuitous nudity and violence may have helped good ol’ Leonardo’s case. Perhaps the internet, too.)

Europe cheesy? *sputtering* They defined ludicrous hair bands of the 80s. And they did think about their lyrics.

We're headin' for Venus
And still we stand tall
'Cause maybe they've seen us
And welcome us all
With so many light years to go
And things to be found
I'm sure that we all miss her so

Look at that first couplet. The band could have taken the easy way out and rhymed the obvious “penis” with “Venus”, but they brilliantly went with “seen us”. And who knows? Maybe the Venusians have seen us. Masterful. Especially considering English is not the mother tongue of the band. I don’t know where they are going, but the “light years” hyperbole pulls one into the adventure like Tolkien’s lyrics never managed. One would have difficulty standing tall in the command space of 80s space going vessels, but I can appreciate the forward thinking imagery.

Now, look at Tolkien…

There long the golden leaves have grown upon the branching years,
While here beyond the Sundering Seas now fall the Elven-tears.
O Lórien! The Winter comes, the bare and leafless Day;
The leaves are falling in the stream, the River flows away.
O Lórien! Too long I have dwelt upon this Hither Shore
And in a fading crown have twined the golden elanor.
But if of ships I now should sing, what ship would come to me,
What ship would bear me ever back across so wide a Sea?

Not quite the epic scope of The Final Countdown and much more lugubrious. I do not think Galadriel really sings of ship or sea, but something more akin to the unreachable and impassable Gulf of Araby.

And now, I’m depressed. I need to “bless the rains down in Africa.” That always cheers me up.

You have to be joking, i guess you dont know much about music if you think Europe is the best, enough said.

Dimi wrote: "You have to be joking…"

Hmmmm…

What is this “joking”? Is that a euphemism for something done in private?