Filk: At the Bridge

[Jeff Urs]

At the Bridge
ttto “Girl From Ipanema”

Tall and grim, a flame of Udûn,
The Balrog through the darkness is loomin',
And when he eyes it,
Each Elf that spies it goes “Aieee!”

When it leaps, it’s almost flying,
And when it strikes, its foe is dying,
And when he eyes it,
Each Elf that spies it goes “Aieee!”

“Go!” Gandalf cries, “I will stand here!”
“Go! Fiend, you’ll not pass what’s spanned here!”
“Go! By this power you’re banned here!”
And he shatters the bridge at its feet,
But its whip pulls him down the deep.

Through the dark the rest are running,
And though they’re soon out in the sun and
Beneath blue skies, they stare with eyes
That don’t see.
Oh, no, they don’t see.
Oh, how can it be?

--
Jeff

[Arthur T.]

In
Message-ID:<8db73132-267a-4b06...@googlegroups.com>,

Jeff Urs <jeff...@gmail.com> wrote:

>At the Bridge
>ttto “Girl From Ipanema”

I like this, but it's a bit jarring to have such dark lyrics to
this tune.

--
Arthur T. - ar23hur "at" pobox "dot" com

[Mark Mandel]

Ditto to Arthur T.'s comment.

Couple of scansion bits:
• But its whip pulls him down the deep.
> I feel a missing beat in "down __ to the deep". How about "down to the deep"?

• Tall and grim, a flame of Udûn
> I'm pretty sure "Udûn" is stressed on the 2nd syllable. That wouldn't seriously disturb the scansion, if you sang it

TALL and GRIM, a FLAME of-u-DÛN

with "of" and "U-" as half the length of the basic note here, much as the original does with

The girl from Ipane{ma goes} walking

Mark A. Mandel
"The Filker With No Nickname"

[Jeff Urs]

Thanks for the comments.

"down the deep" is a typo for "down in the deep".

The scansion you suggest for the first line is how I sing it.

--
Jeff

[Jeff Urs]

Actually, what prompted the filk was the corruption

"Each Elf that spies it goes "Aieee!"

which was not especially dark. The darkness just grew from the story.

That said, I don't consider "Girl from Ipanema" an especially cheerful song.

--
Jeff