Music lyrics meme

[justice_turtle]

From eponymous_rose and bookblather. (Answers to the Happy Meme are coming. I'm just waiting for the sudden storm of happy-making pending events to settle down a bit so I can babble about them. *g*)

1. Open up your music player. Hit shuffle

Comments

[lolmac]

30: Why hasn't this already been guessed? Sam Gamgee's song, usually known as "In Western Lands".

5: Treebeard's song, "In the willow-meads of Tasarinan".

27: I learned this as (I think) "The Old Reuben James".

Tell me, what were their names, tell me, what were their names?
Did you have a friend on the old Reuben James?

Oh, one final note: all three of these have been covered by multiple artists, so I have no way of guessing which one you have. :P But I can sing the first and last and recite the second.

[justice_turtle]

Right on all three! I've got the William Elvin & Donald Swann covers of the two Tolkien ones (from the 1973 Cadmus record "The Road Goes Ever On", re-released on audiocassette at some point), and at least two versions of "The Good Reuben James". (I was quite impressed that, according to Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie originally wrote it with verses telling all the names of the men who drowned. I wish I had a recording of that version, but I don't.)