The White Towers

Three White Towers were built for the Númenorean kings on the western shores of Middle Earth in the days of the ancient northern Kingdom of Arnor. Elostirion was the tallest of the three towers, and it held the only palantir (seeing-stone) that looked westward back across the seas to Tol Eressëa.

Like all things, the towers would be exposed to the depredations of time: and would eventually lie in ruins scattered over the Tower Hills in western Eriador. The poignant image of once-mighty buildings gradually falling into decay is one to capture the imagination – and is how this this song Elostirion came to be written.

 

Lyrics & Melody

Seal‘s Kiss from a Rose is a beautiful song: its first line suggested to me the White Towers described in the Silmarillion. The mental picture I used in re-writing this song is one of large, once-white stones scattered over the forgotten graves of their builders: slowly covered by the creeping growth of wild climbing-roses.

Kiss from a Rose is musically complex: Seal adds extra bars into verse 2 to make the second verse notably longer than the first: also changing the melody in the third and fourth lines. In fact, “verse 2” becomes an extended rhapsody of verse 1: but wait – there’s more! When verse 2 is repeated it is  shortened slightly: so there are in fact two different versions of “verse 2” in the same song. The careful listener will be able to pick up the differences.

Another point of note – and which is immediately obvious to any male vocalist attempting this song – is that the melody soars far above the range for a normal tenor. I sang the melody for Elostirion an octave below the original, then overlaid it with a harmony in a higher register to add musical interest.

I append the lyrics to Elostirion below:

Elostirion

V1:

There used to be a white tower alone by the sea.
Long years it stood, gazing over to Avallónë.
Years it remained. Time scattered its stones on the hill.
But did you know – that when it snows
The winds sigh at large and at night there strange lights can be seen?

Chorus:

When there, the wind will always leave a kiss on a rose on its grave.
So – what is it you do to honour the best and the brave?
Now that the rose is in bloom
A beam lights the gloom on the grave.

V2:

There is only so much one man can begin, or what one man can say.
Years – are succeeded by anguish, by pleasure, by pain.
Still there – the tower lies there that is fallen down upon the hill.
Elostirion is gone forever
But did you know – that when it snows
The winds sigh at large and at night there strange lights can be seen?

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