Songs in Fantasy

I think a good song in a story can tell you more then a lot of dialogue. Take one of my favorite examples. The Rains of Castamere.

That song is so versatile. It’s been used to intimidate, to glorify, even as a signal for one of the bloodiest butcherings in all known literature. It’s well crafted and it can register lots of opinions from different characters and also from different cultures. Is it played slow or fast? Somber or joyful? A song in fantasy, if it’s well-thought out, can take us to a story within a story all within a very limited amount of time.

Even just having the titles gives a a richness and depth in stories all while expediting the process.

If I can have one more example (and since this is my blog I don’t see why not) I love Far Over the Misty Mountains from The Hobbit. Now I have to admit I think old J.R.R. tends to load his tales with one too many songs (again, I like things to be shorter) but the Misty Mountains is one of his better ones. It told us everything we needed to know about what has happened and what their hearts’ desires are (to get back home). It even tells us Thorin’s divergence (when he hums about the gold).

The trick is that songwriting is a whole different skill set in the storytelling process, worlds apart from short stories and novels. But it’s worth trying to figure out, especially because it says so much in so little.

And for me and what I’m trying to create, that’s the name of the game.