J.R.R. Tolkien

If I Go On / In Western Lands Beneath the Sun

December 16, 2023 — Leave a comment

Here is my last song for #songaweek2023. This year I slowed my songwriting pace from weekly to monthly, and it has felt right. Next year I will probably continue with this pace.

The first part of this song drew inspiration from some painful news my faith community received last week, that our 15-year-old church’s founding pastor is moving on to a new church call. When you’re part of a good thing that’s become an anchor of peace in your life, it’s hard to lose its leader and wonder what comes next, and if you have the fortitude to keep going now.

This personal grief comes amid the deeper, wider sorrows spreading from two wars in the news and the insistent vague consciousness of suffering all over everywhere and everywhen. It’s December and it’s raining as I write this (a localized pain of global warming here in Minnesota where it should be snowing), and in this northern land we’ve been swiftly plodding towards the longest night. So it feels like the dark is never far.

I couldn’t write a hopeful part for this song, but I turned to a song that Sam Gamgee sang in The Return of the King. So once again, thank you Mr. Tolkien. In the lyrics posted below the video, Tolkien’s words are set in quotation marks, and I am happy to give him the last word in this last song of 2023.

If I go on then why can’t you?
Can I believe the words you said
The songs you sang
The hope you spoke
The better day you thought you saw?
And if I fall then have I failed?
Can I be down and still be true
True to you
The you I knew
When you knew all would come out right?

“In western lands beneath the Sun

the flowers may rise in Spring,

the trees may bud, the waters run, 

the merry finches sing.
Or there maybe ’tis cloudless night 

and swaying beeches bear 

the Elven-stars as jewels white

amid their branching hair.”

The day is dark the night is long
It’s stolen land I’m standing on
From hand to hand
From name to name
We pass it down, we shift the blame
The water’s wide, I can’t cross o’er,
The day is bruised the night so sore
I’ll dig my den
and lay me down,
bear my heart to the wounded ground

“Though here at journey’s end I lie

in darkness buried deep,

beyond all towers strong and high, 

beyond all mountains steep,
above all shadows rides the Sun

and Stars for ever dwell:

I will not say the Day is done,

nor bid the Stars farewell.”

To the Sea

October 28, 2023 — 7 Comments

This past summer into early fall I reread The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and I’ve been making music for several of the songs from those books. This one was sung (the words at least) by Legolas in The Return of the King. I’m no elven musician but I enjoyed putting some music to J.R.R. Tolkien’s lyrics.

Last week Nathan and I spent a couple days in Duluth and I took several what I like to call “still videos” of beautiful Lake Superior. I used one of them for this song’s backdrop. Minnesota’s inland sea calls to me, so I try to visit Duluth at least once a year (this last time I decided maybe I should go every season).

To the Sea, to the Sea! The white gulls are crying,

The wind is blowing, and the white foam is flying. 

West, west away, the round sun is falling. 

Grey ship, grey ship, do you hear them calling,
The voices of my people that have gone before me?

I will leave, I will leave the woods that bore me; 

For our days are ending and our years failing.

I will pass the wide waters lonely sailing. 

Long are the waves on the Last Shore falling,
Sweet are the voices in the Lost Isle calling, 

In Eressëa, in Elvenhome that no man can discover,
Where the leaves fall not: land of my people for ever!