Ramble On and Tolkien

Ramble On

Ramble On Lyrics

Leaves are falling all around,
It's time I was on my way.
Thanks to you, I'm much obliged
For such a pleasant stay.

And now it's time for me to go,
The autumn moon lights my way.
But now I smell the rain,
And with it pain,
And it's headed my way.
Ah, sometimes I grow so tired,
But I know one thing I got to do,

Ramble on,
And now's the time, the time is now
To sing my song.
I'm goin' 'round the world, I got to find my girl,
On my way,
Been this way ten years to the day,
Ramble on,
Find the queen of all my dreams.

Got no time for spreading roots,
The time has come to be gone.
And though our health we drank a thousand times,
It's time to Ramble on.

Mine's a tale that can't be told,
My freedom I hold dear;
How years ago in days of old
When magic filled the air,
T'was in the darkest depth of Mordor
I met a girl so fair,
But Gollum, the evil one crept up
And slipped away with her.
Her, her....yea.
Ain't nothing I can do, no.

Ramble on

It is most likely that Ramble On is mainly about Frodo's stay in Rivendell, while the Council of Elrond decided what was to be done with the Ring. Frodo enjoys his stay very much, but knows through this time that he has a very somber task ahead of him, and he must indeed "ramble on." It is equally possible that the song is about Frodo's stay in Lothlorien, where the full moon cycled a full time, and it would have "lit his way." The majority of the relation in the first two verses is self-explanatory, so I won't go into all of that. The major question I have about the first two verses is the identity of the "Queen of all his dreams," and how he has been "this way ten years to the day." These are the only two lines that don't literally fit, and they actually could point to Homer's Odyssey, the subject of another Led Zeppelin song.

The third verse is probably the most interesting part of the song. The mention of Gollum, from the Tolkien Trilogy, makes this song's relation to Tolkien the most widely known. However, the lyrics involving Gollum are quite puzzling. Who is the "girl so fair?" My first guess was the Ring, but Frodo was a long way from Mordor when he met that girl. It is possible that the girl is Shelob is the said girl, but Shelob(a giant spider) is definitely not "fair." If you have any input about this, please don't hesitate to send in a survey.

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