'Lord of the Rings': Nine Artists and Bands that were inspired by Tolkien

Tolkien's Lord of The Rings has been a favourite among the masses because it was relatable. One group of people that found Tolkien's world especially relevant were artists. Throughout the decade, there have been a great number of musicians that have drawn inspiration from the Lord of the Rings' music. Most of this music has been metal or heavy metal music as the books and movies are wrapped in fantasy which is one of the core themes in metal as well. Here are nine artists that were inspired by the Lord of the Rings tune. 

Also read: Lord of the Rings star Viggo Mortensen rejected Wolverine role in X-Men; Know Why (republicworld.com)

Led Zepplin

Legendary and ever-popular, Led Zepplin wrote a plethora of songs on Lord of the Rings. Many of their songs featured some references and there were also songs like "Ramble On' that were a blatant retelling of the events in Modor, albeit in a rock and roll fashion! Other songs with LOTR inspiration are Misty Mountain Hop and The Battle of Evermore.

Also read: 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy gets 4K treatment, heads for IMAX debut (republicworld.com)

Black Sabbath

While the band was writing The Wizard, one of the members was reading Lord of the Rings and was inspired by Gandalf.  “Evil power disappears/Demons worry when the wizard is near/He turns tears into joy/Everyone’s happy when the wizard walks by" are few of the lines from the song that points to Gandalf. 

Also read: 'Lord of the Rings' series gets 20 actors to join the Amazon Prime Video show (republicworld.com)

Rush

The lyricist of the band was an avid reader and came out with two songs that were directly named after things from the books! One song was Rivendell from the 1975 album Fly By Night which was the name of one of the Elven cities, and the other song was The Necromancer which was Gandalf's name for Sauron.

Blind Guardian

This band made a huge number of tracks based on the Lord of the Rings tune. They even released the concept album Nightfall in Middle-Earth. based on the series in 1998. The band was so immersed that it was rumoured to be working on the Lord of the Rings' music when the newest film was announced. 

Genesis

This was another band to come up with music based on LOTR, that too in 1970. Their song Stagnation did not have direct references, but fans did make theories about the LOTR to Gollum with some lyrics. This song came out in the same year of Ramble On and The Wizard.

Pink Floyd

While this is another song that has no direct reference, their song The Gnome features the said gnome in red and on an adventure, which fans thought was a reference to Gimble Gromble from the world of Tolkien. 

Burzum

The name of this band comes from the fictional language The Black Speech from Lord of the Rings and means darkness. Their songs have no direct references to the books or the movies, but the name of the band and their music are both reminiscent of the popular fantasy world.

Megadeth

In their track This Day We Fight, Dave Mustaine drew his inspiration from Aragorn’s moving battle speech in The Return of the King. The speech was particularly rousing!

Leonard Nimoy

In his 1968 LP, Two Sides of Leonard Nimoy features a direct reference to the Lord of the Rings music with a song called The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins. It's the retelling of the story of The Hobbit to a jaunty folk-rock tune.