The Bath Song: A hobbit water ballet

November 23, 2014|Laurelin, Tolkien|LOTRO, Videos5

In time for the yule bath: A hobbit water ballet video! Inspired by Tolkien’s poem “The Bath Song”! Sing hey for the bath!

A favourite poem

I have long wanted to make a video based on Tolkien’s poem “The Bath Song“. It was always a favourite of mine, quite merry and hobbity, with some grand lines (“Sweet is the sound of falling rain”, “but better is Beer if drink we lack”, etc.).

The biggest problem was finding suitable music for the video. There are some recorded versions of “The Bath Song”, but they are protected by copyrights. Scouring through me usual royalty-free music archives I found a celtic-inspired song that could work, though. It was quite merry, some might even say sunny, and the melody line matches quite well with the rhythm of the poem. I just had to improvise a little chorus. Apologies in advance to Tolkien purists! Although I suppose the concept of a hobbit water dance may have ruined any chance for goodwill there…

A water ballet with bath-loathing hobbits

With the music chosen, I had to plan the images for the video. I really wanted to make a water ballet of sorts, with lots of dancing, frolicking and merriment in the water. Simple, eh? Well…

A long-running joke in the Laurelin hobbit community is that many of the locals are rather afraid of baths. This was originally based on the fact that hobbits are generally wary around rivers and boats. Soon this took a life of its own, though, as hobbity horror stories of childhood baths surfaced (with lots of dunking and scrubbing involved).

So getting a lot of hobbits together to film a water ballet? Inconceviable! Well, to be honest, it was no problem, really. Them Laurelin players are a grand and helpful lot. Warm thanks to each and every one of yer! I really, really hope I remembered all of yer in the credits…

Sing hey for the bath!

This is a video I have tinkered with for near half a year now, so it was grand to finally press the “produce video” button earlier today. I hope yer enjoy the final result! Full-screen and HD quality recommended!