The Hammer and Tong song: from poetry to playlist

The new Hammer and Tong song just released as a lyric video on Youtube. And there’s a story behind it. Literally an entire book. But If you’d just like to hear the song and watch the video, or if you’d like to do that before finding out the story behind the song, scroll down to the bottom of this page.

Before I go into more detail about the Hammer and Tong song specifically, let’s talk about where music and literature cross paths.

I’m an author. I don’t write songs, I write books. But the great thing about writing is that you can write about anything. And though you can’t really write melodies onto a page unless you use musical notation (which would be a bit of a stretch since most people can’t read that), you can certainly write about songs and write them into your stories.

Tolkien’s songs

I suppose, like most things in fantasy, Tolkien was one of the first to integrate poetry and song heavily into his work. He was certainly the first author I was exposed to who did this.

One of my favorite passages of his is the story of Beren and Luthien from The Silmarillion. In it, Beren and Luthien meet and fall in love, but because of the doom laid upon the silmarils and her father Thingol’s pride, they are forced to part as Beren sets off to seek one of the fabled gems and thereby win the hand of his true love. As they part, Beren breaks out in a song of lament, but also joy at having known one so fair. It’s one of the most beautiful expressions in verse I have ever read.

Much better known is the Misty Mountains song, which was put to music in the otherwise horrendous movie adaptation: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. The movie may be awful, but the beautiful rendition sung by Thorin and the other dwarves in the deep of night with even deeper voices is brilliantly done. In just a few lines it captures the dwarves’ sorrow and their plight and reminds us that this journey they want Bilbo to come on is about more than just hoarded gold. It’s about recovering their homeland.

New worlds, new music

In our own world, music is all around us. It’s on our devices. It plays in waiting rooms, at sporting events, even on elevators. The average person is probably familiar with hundreds of songs. Music is fundamental to the human experience.

So it’s only natural that in invented worlds like the kinds we meet in fantasy book, characters would know and be familiar with the music of their own realms.

And particularly in the times before movies and screens and all the distractions of digital technology, songs held a special place. You had to be where the music was performed to hear it. It wasn’t something you could just pull out of the air upon a whim. Songs were sung for celebration, for commemoration of great deeds, to woo, and to lament. Music, like story, has a way of capturing time and encapsulating knowledge, experience, and emotion and sharing it in a repeatable and in a sense an eternal way.

When I wrote my first fantasy novel, The Last Motley, I knew that there were moments where song was required in the story. There is a festival where songs are sung, and when he meets the Gitano people they sing at night around the fire. I remember during the writing of the book I had a strong impulse that I should compose some lines for these songs, but I worried they might not come off well or would slow the story down or some other excuse. I think I was simply daunted by the prospect and not up to the task.

A time for singing

But when it came to writing The Swordspeaker Saga, I knew right from the start that I wanted songs in the story, and that they needed to have actual words. And so, as I was writing and planning out this long series, I actually wrote several of the songs and poems for it before I ever began writing the first book, Truesilver.

If you’ve read that book, you’ll know that music is especially vital to one of the main characters, Tiryn. She is a musician herself and music is one of the means she uses to express her inner life and also to connect with her deceased father, who was also a musician.

And then there’s Zinder, the main companion and mentor of Tiryn’s brother, Kion. He’s a member of the diminutive race known as the nyn. They are about half the size of men, all with white hair, and a gift for crafting the highest quality items with their hands. And Zinder in particular has a fondness for poetry and song. Though he’s not really gifted in the making of either, he is a devoted admirer of all things musical and poetical. He also has an overdeveloped sense of fashion and a particular obsession with hats. But it’s his love of songs that we’re here to discuss at present.

One for the smiths

In the book, Kion hears Zinder singing the Hammer and Tong song while pounding away at his hammer. In fact, the title of chapter 11 of Truesilver is “Hammer and Tong” so it’s not hard to find. Though it’s clear before then that Zinder loves poetry, this song serves to showcase his love of all things crafted and fashioned by the work of one’s hands. The lyrics are fairly simple and straightforward, as a good work song should be.

Though not at all a smith myself, I do enjoy making things (check out this 3D-printed replica of Truesilver) and have a great deal of respect for those who exercise that skill, especially those who practice traditional craftsmanship. I have a great uncle who was well-known for his ability to whittle wood into all manner of ingenious shapes and my father had some skill as a painter. This song is also my way of honoring craftsmen of all kinds, but especially blacksmiths.

How the Hammer and Tong song came to be

So, how did Hammer and Tong go from words on a page to a lyric video?

Well, Truesilver came out in 2021, but I was working on the series for several years before that. In the summer of 2018, I took a trip with my son to the Grand Canyon. It was the first time either of us had been there. To reach it, we flew into Las Vegas and spent the night. The plan was to drive down to see the Canyon the next day.

Shortly before this trip, a friend of mine introduced me to a rendition of The Ent’s Marching song (Tolkien again, no surprise) and I fell in love with it. It is full of strong old English words like bole and bough and stone and door. Simple words, but with hard strong backs to them. Words for common men that speak of essential and fundamental things. By the time we touched down in Vegas, I had a strong feeling that I wanted to have something in the first book along those lines.

And so I penned the words down in a notebook that became Hammer and Tong. I’m sure there have been many songs written in hotels in Las Vegas over the years, but probably not too many blacksmithing songs.

And with the words, I also had a tune in mind as well. And that tune has been stuck in my head for six years and I’m so glad to finally get it out and share it with the world!

Perfect harmony

But having a tune and words wasn’t enough. I wanted to make it so that others could hear the song too. And so I mentioned it to a friend at church one Sunday, Ben Colley. I knew Ben had released several instrumental albums over the years and he had also read a few of my books so I asked what he thought of my idea for the song. I described the Ent’s Marching song and how the hammer hitting the anvil could serve as percussion.

Much to my delight, he agreed to give it a go. He would take the tune and my vocals and see what he could come up with and then I would take the result and put it up as a video on Youtube.

And that’s exactly what we did.

It took a while for everything to come together, but after Ben created the initial composition, we eventually found ourselves in the back room of our church and turning it into a makeshift recording studio. I sang 11 tracks, I believe, and Ben took those and blended them into the final result, adding in an instrumental interlude as well.

The Hammer and Tong song

It took me a bit more time to create the video. I initially hoped to create an animated short with actual smithing, but in the end decided it would be best to just go with a simple lyric video.

And so, from Tolkien’s Ents to Zinder’s Smithy to a Las Vegas hotel room to a microphone in a church, that is how the Hammer and Tong song came to be.

It’s been quite the Unexpected Adventure and I’m pleased as a parakeet with how it all came together.

A huge thank you to Ben, who did all the hard work. You can find his music over on Youtube as well as Spotify.

And now, without further delay. Here is the lyric video for Hammer and Tong.