Music for "The Man in the Moon Came Down Too Soon"

[Clansman]

This is one of my favourite verses from LOTR, and it comes from Chapter IX of FotR, "At the Sign of the Prancing Pony". In fact, the one major complaint that I have about the film by Jackson that none of the lightheartedness from LOTR made it into the film, except at the Long Expected Party. Anyway, I have thought recently that this poem should be set to music, and I have looked a bit online, but found nothing.

Does anyone out there in the Chrons know of this being set to music? I would expect a celtic-pub-type kind of music, akin to something fun like the Rovers' "Me Father He was Orange, and me Mother She was Green", but who knows. Frodo sings it in a pub, and given the setting, I would expect a guitar, a drum, and maybe a penny whistle. Here is the song:

There is an inn, a merry old inn
beneath an old grey hill,
And there they brew a beer so brown
That the Man in the Moon himself came down
one night to drink his fill.

The ostler has a tipsy cat
that plays a five-stringed fiddle;
And up and down he saws his bow
Now squeaking high, now purring low,
now sawing in the middle.

The landlord keeps a little dog
that is mighty fond of jokes;
When there's good cheer among the guests,
He cocks an ear at all the jests
and laughs until he chokes.

They also keep a hornéd cow
as proud as any queen;
But music turns her head like ale,
And makes her wave her tufted tail
and dance upon the green.

And O! the rows of silver dishes
and the store of silver spoons!
For Sunday there's a special pair,
And these they polish up with care
on Saturday afternoons.

The Man in the Moon was drinking deep,
and the cat began to wail;
A dish and a spoon on the table danced,
The cow in the garden madly pranced
and the little dog chased his tail.

The Man in the Moon took another mug,
and then rolled beneath his chair;
And there he dozed and dreamed of ale,
Till in the sky the stars were pale,
and dawn was in the air.

Then the ostler said to his tipsy cat:
'The white horses of the Moon,
They neigh and champ their silver bits;
But their master's been and drowned his wits,
and the Sun'll be rising soon!'

So the cat on the fiddle played hey-diddle-diddle,
a jig that would wake the dead:
He squeaked and sawed and quickened the tune,
While the landlord shook the Man in the Moon:
'It's after three!' he said.

They rolled the Man slowly up the hill
and bundled him into the Moon,
While his horses galloped up in rear,
And the cow came capering like a deer,
and a dish ran up with the spoon.

Now quicker the fiddle went deedle-dum-diddle;
the dog began to roar,
The cow and the horses stood on their heads;
The guests all bounded from their beds
and danced upon the floor.

With a ping and a pang the fiddle-strings broke!
the cow jumped over the Moon,
And the little dog laughed to see such fun,
And the Saturday dish went off at a run
with the silver Sunday spoon.

The round Moon rolled behind the hill,
as the Sun raised up her head.
She* hardly believed her fiery eyes;
For though it was day, to her surprise
they all went back to bed!

[j. d. worthington]

I don't recall ever seeing this one done to music (unlike those in The Road Goes Ever On, where the music was written by Donald Swann); but this could be my increasingly spotty memory....

[pyan]

Originally Posted by j. d. worthington

The Road Goes Ever On, where the music was written by Donald Swann

Worth knowing about, though....The_Road_Goes_Ever_On

Can't find that one, Clansman...but Billy Boyd has recorded several of the other songs, including Ho! Ho! Ho! to the Bottle I go!

Billy Boyd-Hobbit Drinking Song Lyrics MP3 @ KOHit.net

[Teresa Edgerton]

Since at least one of the Hobbit songs seems to have been written with a familiar tune already in mind (Sam's song about the Troll works perfectly if you sing it to the tune of "The Fox Went Out One Frosty Night), there might be something traditional that fits in the same way for "The Man in the Moon."

You could try it with various folk songs and musical hall tunes and see if anything works.

[Clansman]

I have noticed that the stanzas are written in limerick style, i.e. five lines, the first, second and fifth rhyming with each other, and the third and fourth as a rhyming couplet.

Maybe I should e-mail Pete Seeger (is he still alive?)...I would have chosen Stan Rogers, but he died in a plane fire in 1983.

[Ursa major]

Wasn't the LotR produced for radio two decades or so ago (on Radio 4 in the UK)? I seem to recall that there was quite a lot of singing in the production.

An expert (i.e. not me) will know whether "The Man in the Moon" was one of the songs set to music.

[Teresa Edgerton]

I just remembered that this poem is actually "The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late." It might be a little easier to find the music under that title.

[Clansman]

Correct you are, Teresa! I have since found that out, but still no luck.

[The Ace]

I know there was an abridged version in the cartoon film, but that's about all.

[Clansman]

I'll have to find that crappy movie and see whether the music was any good. This thing is a drinking song, dammit, and it needs to be set to music. Maybe I should e-mail Billy Boyd and ask him to do it.