84. I’m Not Going to Stop Editorializing!

Jared, Oriana and Ned talk about Jared’s choice of topic: Donald Swann’s song cycle The Road Goes Ever On. A member of the hit comic song duo Flanders and Swann in post-WWII Britain and beyond, including the US, Swann’s own interest in The Lord of the Rings, encouraged by his equally interested wife, resulted in a short song cycle for voice and piano drawing on various shorter poems from that text. But this wasn’t a simple example of early fanwork – this ended up being a full collaboration with Tolkien himself, who approved of most of Swann’s work except one song he suggested his own melody for, along with contributing calligraphy, art and short essays to the published songbook of the cycle. Further, Swann’s own recording of the cycle with singer William Elvin on the album Poems and Songs of Middle-earth was itself accompanied by Tolkien’s own readings of his poetry – in all, a demonstration of Tolkien’s own enthusiasm for this extremely rare artistic collaboration based on his work. Yet The Road Goes Ever On has only had extremely low-key interest from even dedicated readers or listeners since, seen as a very strange curio now completely overshadowed by Howard Shore’s majestic work for the Jackson films. What were the circumstances that brought Swann to fame and his ultimate connection with Tolkien? How was it that Tolkien found a resonance in Swann’s work as a whole, and how does this square with wider perceptions of what his work was meant to ‘sound’ like to readers? Is there something ultimately to both the cycle and the published book as a whole that has value even beyond the music itself? And do any of your hosts actually like this at all? (Spoiler: …not really.)

Show Notes.

Jared’s doodle. It’s worth the read, of course.

There was indeed a lot of snow going on over in New York City!

No Drag Race Wetwang yet, but Tolkien in the wider franchise and beyond? It’s out there!

McKellen on Colbert did indeed have some Hunt for Gollum news. As such.

Yeah that whole Palantir and DHS and ‘committed hobbits’ thing…garbage. And then there’s the nicotine patches. Again, our Silicon Valley episode.

Nazgul the dog! Clearly the greatest good boy of the year.

The Road Goes Ever On! And, relatedly, Poems and Songs of Middle-earth.

The famed Milton Waldman letter.

Donald Swann! He did a lot in his field, really, most famously Flanders & Swann. 

William Elvin, the singer on the Poems album. Honestly there’s not much out there about him, but he had a career.

The France Musique webcast of Le Royal Gondor Orchestre performing Christophe Dilys’s arrangement of the song cycle. Separately, a short profile and interview with Dilys on this; please note it is entirely in French.

Light entertainment – it’s a term! In the UK at least.

Beyond the Fringe, the Goon Show, there’s a whole history of UK comedy backstory there.

One of Fry and Laurie’s regular show closing bits.

Caedmon Audio is indeed still around, as a HarperCollins imprint.

The report from last year about Tolkien’s letters to Swann.

Mary, Star of the Sea.

Swann’s performance of “I Sit Beside The Fire” from the 1967 CBS studio broadcast of a Flanders & Swann review.

Heavy mithril, indeed.

Our episode on the 1981 BBC radio version of The Lord of the Rings.

James Partridge’s podcast episode on The Road Goes Ever On.

The Oh Hellos, and their albums Dear Wormwood and their Christmas efforts.**

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