The Grey Havens/Frodo's
Song
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Frodo's Song
not in movie
Early consideration for
ROTK's end of movie song
Music by Howard Shore
Translated into Sindarin by David Salo
Words by J.R.R. Tolkien
ROTK, Book 6, Chapter IX,
The Grey Havens
This song was one of a few songs under
consideration for ROTK's end of movie song.
The first reveal of
these lyrics gave them the name "The Grey Havens" and the song
is listed in the LOTR book index as one occurrence of "The
Old Walking Song"
It was never fully
developed but an early versions was included on
the
Rarities
Archive that came with
The Music of the
LOTR Films. (Track 20: Frodo's Song) Although the words from Frodo's Song
were meant to go with this tune, they were never worked up for
singing.
Track 23 on the Rarities Archive is a
conversation between Howard Shore & Doug Adams. The background
music is credited as "Frodo's Song Ver. 2 featuring Sir James Galway".
Since Galway is featured for this music, I'm not sure if this
version would have included singing. I suspect not.
Another alternate consideration for the
end of the movie song was Use Well
the Days which contains slight variations of the English lyrics
from Frodo's Song.
"There was actually no documentation on
the humming performer. Someone local, but not a 'name,' per se."
Doug Adam
Sindarin
Original English Key:
Text in blue indicates language used
Text in green indicates lyrics used
Text in brown indicates lyrics not used Text in black
indicates English translation
ROTK, Book 6, Chapter IX,
The Grey Havens
Sam hears Frodo singing it softly as they make their way to the Grey
Havens and notes that he has changed the words slightly. In
response to this song, they hear approaching Elves singing "A
Elbereth Gilthoniel".
In the LOTR index, the song is listed as one occurrence
of "The Old Walking Song." (separate from "A Walking Song") However, the text of this song has nothing in common with the other
iterations of "The Old Walking Songs. It is, in fact, a
variant of a verse from the song listed as "A Walking Song" with the
first line, "Upon the Hearth the Fire is Red." (from
FOTR, Book 1, Chapter III, Three
is Company)
THE HISTORY OF
WHAT WE KNEW ABOUT THIS SONG
"Oh, and it should be mentioned that I
think I’ve finally pieced together the history of “Frodo’s Song”
this week! It’s all so much clearer now… :)"
2003 - The ROTK LE Bonus DVD : Poems,
Text and Lyrics from the Return of the King
This was a feature that had slides
displaying various source texts and images. One, The Grey Havens,
was positioned between Aragorn's Coronation and Into the West.
Without knowing exactly where each piece of source text was used,
the list seems to follow the progression of the movie. If that were
true, The Grey Havens would be heard between the coronation scene
and the end of the movie.
A page was created (on this site) for
the song in 2004 (predating my acquiring the magazine listed next)
2004 -
Music from the Movies
(MftM) magazine, Issue 42, July 2004, page 77-8 t.
A sidebar contained a sample of music
with this heading:
and under that, this source text:
This is clearly the same song from the
ROTK-LE called The Grey Havens.
and from page 78, an interview with
Howard Shore:
Peter said that you took a completely
different approach when you scored 'The Grey Havens'. Tell me about
this composition?
Frodo couldn't stay in the Shire, he had
to leave, so the cart takes Bilbo and Frodo, while the rest of the
Hobbits are riding their own ponies, towards The Grey Havens, but
first they go to the harbour where they meet Elrond, Gandalf, and
Galadriel. Now we start the last chapter, the final moments of the
film. Wove all through these moments are Shire pieces, Gandalf
piece, there's Elvish pieces playing to Elrond and Galadriel, and
then as Frodo leaves Sam you start to hear little bits of 'The Grey
Havens'. James Galway also plays at the harbour when Frodo leaves
Sam and actually gets on the ship. 'The Grey Havens' is about the
great parting of Frodo from The Shire. The melody here is played by
ten cellos. The theme for 'The Grey Havens' was specifically created
for the ships sailing away from Middle-earth. I wrote this theme
while we working on 'Into the West' and then the decision was made
to use that melody as part of the song. That's why 'The Grey Havens'
and 'Into the West' are related.
During 'The Grey Havens' it took the
choir great restraint and patience to perform this piece. The
technique is very quiet and low-key, it's a very soft performance
and beautifully melodic.
They are singing in Sindarin.
(emphasis mine) When I first recorded this I didn't use any of
Tolkien's languages, I had the choir singing with regular vowels,
but I came back and redid it using Elvish text. I also had the choir
do some humming, that came from our love of Puccini and the humming
chorus from 'Madame Butterfly'. This is a very quiet choral moment.
It was unclear to me if the term 'Grey
Havens' used in the interview above referred to the name of the
scene, the name of the theme/melody, or the name of song/lyrics
being sung. I speculated that the last line in Sindarin text, Amrûn
n'Anor, Annûn n'Ithil, was heard as Frodo boarded the ship at the
Grey Havens. I changed the source text name from Grey Havens to Grey
Havens/Frodo's Song. I also added time stamps for
ROTK OST Track 18
indicating where I thought the last line was sung. (later removed
... see entry below)
2007 -
AS-ROTK
The comments for that track
makes no mention of the choir singing lyrics - only humming. And it
had this side bar UNUSED CONCEPT: An alternate full chorus composition, “Frodo’s Song” was written for Frodo’s departure from the Grey Havens, but was never used.
So, perhaps Howard's comment in MftM
that he used Sindarin lyrics predated the decision to switch (back?)
to the humming choir. This made sense to me. It was clear that
some of the information provided via the sheet music in the MftM
magazine was not correct in regards to the final movie/soundtrack releases.
Maybe the articles were just researched and written too early
in the editing phase to be used as 100% accurate resources.
I removed all indications that the last
line was sung in the Grey Havens theme. The name of the source text
remained Grey Havens/Frodo's
Song.
2007 -
comments on Doug Adams' blog
gkgyver asked Doug Adams
(after the release of the
AS-ROTK): was "Frodo's Song" ever recorded, so that we can hear it on the upcoming
release? The choral text at least is in the LotR issue of MFTM. Doug, you wrote the song was written for Frodo boarding the ship, so does that
mean, working backwards, that the Grey Havens theme wasn't
the first choice for that moment? Or was Frodo's Song conceived when "Use Well The Days" was still thought to be
THE song? But since Howard Shore himself said the Grey
Havens theme existed before it was worked into "Into The
West", either Frodo's Song must have existed before the
Havens theme, or the theme really wasn't the first choice,
which prompts the question: as important as this theme is,
was this actually a last minute addition? I’ve not actually been too far into the
ROTK archives
yet, so I’m not going to discuss much about “Frodo’s Song”
just yet. Timeline-wise, however, I believe “Frodo’s Song”
was part of the creative process around the same time as
“Use Well The Days.” The Grey Havens theme wasn’t a last
minute decision. It very rare that anything in the final versions of the
LOTR score exists without some sort of prior version.
Now that prior version could be just HS’ original thoughts,
a pencil sketch perhaps, a synth mock-up, or perhaps a fully
composed and recorded piece. But it was very much a process
of refinement. That said, that’s true of pretty much 99% of
all creative efforts. It’s rare that anyone begins where
they end. “Frodo’s Song” is just one of many such early ideas on
LOTR.
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