Rings Of Power Composer Wants To Remake This Controversial Lord Of The Rings Song

"The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power" season 2 is not only a triumph, but it's also a vast improvement on the first installment and a treat for fans of Tolkien. Prime Video's Middle-earth series is an ambitious show that's not afraid to slow down and appreciate the sheer vibes of Middle-earth or get extremely weird — by, say, bringing in Tom Bombadil and Old Man Willow. The show's secret weapon lies not in the titular rings, but in composer Bear McCreary, who brings a truly unique and at times strange sound that builds on Howard Shore's music for Peter Jackson's Tolkien adaptations. Only McCreary would bring Meshuggah's Jens Kidman to sing the theme for Damrod the hill troll (or finally give Tom Bombadil a song and make it sound like a folk tune performed by Rufus Wainwright).

In fact, during a livestream on Instagram where he took questions from fans, McCreary was asked if he'd ever make a new version of "Where There's a Whip, There's a Way" from the Rankin/Bass "The Return of the King" animated film. His response? "I'm looking. I'm looking for the moment," McCreary said. "It hasn't happened yet but I would love to make that happen."

Now, the portrayal of orcs in "Rings of Power" has been a bit controversial amongst people online, but if seeing orc babies and happy orc couples gets us that much closer to McCreary doing a remake of this song — probably an epic and incredibly silly orchestral version with a choir from a tiny country that is singing the lyrics but in orkish or the Black Speech of Mordor — then it will be worth every possible bad decision.

The "Return of the King" animated movie is a rather odd specimen because it's not a sequel to Ralph Bakshi's animated "The Lord of the Rings" movie, but a sequel to the Rankin/Bass animated "Hobbit" adaptation. It skips all context and jumps right into the third and final book in the "Rings" trilogy, which is very confusing if you're not already familiar with the tale. "Where There's A Whip There's A Way" happens early in the movie, when Frodo and Sam are making their way to Mordor and disguise themselves as orcs, only to encounter a legion of them marching off to war.  The orcs lament that they are being forced to go to war and that the Dark Lord has enslaved them. 

"Rings of Power" already hinted at the song in season 1 during a scene where an orc leader whips some elf prisoners and orc workers. More importantly, however, the show is doing a lot to make the orcs relatively sympathetic as the song does. This is a very controversial choice, but also one that is very faithful to Tolkien. The professor struggled with the idea of the orcs being inherently and wholly evil his whole life, but he did hint at a complexity to them in his texts. In "The Silmarillion," he wrote that the orcs "loathed the master whom they served in fear, the maker only of their misery," and in "Return of the King," Sam overhears Shagrat and Gorbag resenting their servitude under "big bosses" and wish they could just do whatever they wanted.

Season 2 dives into this, showing that yes, the orcs are violent and monstrous in their actions against others, but that doesn't mean they should be enslaved and perpetually serve a Dark Lord's war every couple of centuries. Still, where there's a whip, there's a way.

New episodes of "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power" season 2 premiere Thursdays on Prime Video.