Now And For Always Lyrics
Now And For Always
[SAM]Sing me a story of heroes of the Shire
Muddling through, brave and true
Stubborn as bindweed and tough as old brier
Never too showy or grand
Year after year they persevere
Now and for always
Harfoots who planted, and Stoor folk who ploughed
Bred to endure, slow but sure
Fallohide blood in your veins makes you proud
Sturdy and steady they stand
True to their aim to stay the same
Now and for always
[FRODO & SAM]
Sit by the firelight's glow
Tell us an old tale we know
Tell of adventures strange and rare
Never to change
Ever to share
Stories we tell will cast their spell
Now and for always
[SAM]
Sing me a story of Frodo and the ring
Fearless and bold
[FRODO]
Tired and cold
[SAM]
Sword at his side
An elf blade called sting
Crossing a miserable land
Wouldn't retreat
Just followed his feet
Now and for always
[FRODO & SAM]
Sit by the firelight's glow
Tell us an old tale we know
Tell of adventures strange and rare
Never to change
Ever to share
Stories we tell will cast their spell
Now and for always
[FRODO]
Sing me a tale of the bravest of them all
Comrade and guide, at my side
Stouthearted Sam who wouldn't let me fall
Holding my life in his hand
True to the end, no finer friend
Now and for always
[FRODO & SAM]
Sit by the firelight's glow
Tell us an old tale we know
Tell of adventures strange and rare
Never to change
Ever to share
Stories we tell will cast their spell
Now and for always
Song Overview
Now and For Always is the fireside breather in the Lord of the Rings Musical score, a hush between storms. On the cast album from the Original London Production, it lands like a pocket-sized tale about two hobbits deciding who they are when no one’s watching. A.R. Rahman, Värttinä and Christopher Nightingale lace the melody with folk-lilt and theatre clarity, so the song feels simple on the surface, but quietly muscular underneath. And yes, the lyrics are built to be told around a flame - and retold.
Review & Highlights
SEO intro. If you’re hunting for a gentle entry point into the London cast album, start here. The song’s plainspoken lyrics work like a lantern: they light the faces of Frodo and Sam more than the path ahead. It’s a duet that turns companionship into tempo - an even, unhurried sway - and dramatizes how small, stubborn hope can sound.
Song review. The melody carries a folk cadence and a near-lullaby contour. You hear the fingerprints of Värttinä’s roots palette - open-string drones, danceable lift - tempered by Nightingale’s theatrical framing and Rahman’s instinct for soaring, singable lines. Nothing flashy, everything sturdy. The hook lands on the phrase that matters: “now and for always.” It’s less a love pledge than a promise to the story itself.
Full plot (in-song). Sam opens by naming the Shire’s stock - Harfoots, Stoors, Fallohides - and praising their grit. The chorus pulls the camera back to a hearth where tales are told and re-told. Midway, Sam tries to narrate Frodo as brave; Frodo interrupts, admitting he’s only “tired and cold,” which is funnier on stage than on paper. The last turn flips the tribute: Frodo sings of “Samwise the Stouthearted.” The spell of the chorus returns, and the song sets the two hobbits down in a shared quiet.
Creation History
The London cast album for The Lord of the Rings arrived in early 2008, capturing the West End run at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. The score’s authorship is unusual - a three-way between A.R. Rahman, Finnish folk collective Värttinä, and orchestrator-composer Christopher Nightingale, with lyrics and book by Shaun McKenna and Matthew Warchus. That blend explains the tune’s earthy lift and stage-ready clarity.
Verse 1
Sam sets the register: plain speech, proud lineage, work-worn metaphors. The verse moves like a walking song, not a sprint.
Chorus
“Sit by the firelight’s glow” is the thesis. The music relaxes, the vowels lengthen, and the harmony folds in like a wool blanket.
Exchange/Bridge
Sam’s mythmaking about Frodo meets Frodo’s self-correction. That tension - courage named vs. weakness felt - powers the middle.
Final Build
Frodo returns the tribute to Sam. The last chorus isn’t bigger; it’s steadier. The spell holds.
- Key takeaway 1: It’s a character piece first - storytelling as self-definition.
- Key takeaway 2: Folk-rooted groove plus theatre polish keeps the focus on words, not vocal fireworks.
- Key takeaway 3: The chorus frames the lyrics as oral history you can carry.
Song Meaning and Annotations
Sam’s opening roll call grounds the piece in hobbit anthropology, not legend.
“Harfoots who planted, and Stoor folk who ploughed”That line points to Tolkien’s three strains of hobbits and makes the song sound like it belongs to the Shire’s census as much as its poetry.
The chorus asks for a fireside retelling, and that’s the trick - the song imagines its own afterlife among listeners.
“Sit by the firelight’s glow / Tell us an old tale we know”It mirrors Sam’s book passage about wondering whether they’ll be “put into songs or tales.” The theatre number turns that wondering into a ritual.
On stage, the tone shifts from grim to gently comic.
“Unlike in the CD recording, in the live London production, Sam sings the next stanza hesitatingly and often laughing.”That performance choice matters: humor becomes a survival tool, not a break in tone.
Sam’s tribute to Frodo is half pep-talk, half fanfare.
“Sing me a story of Frodo and the Ring / Fearless and bold”The text nods directly to the book’s meta-conversation about being remembered, and the music holds the dignity without turning heroic.
Frodo’s interjection re-centers reality.
“Tired and cold.”That little undercut keeps the number honest. The hero myth is persuasive; the body still aches. The duet lives in that friction.
Sam answers with details - Sting at Frodo’s side, the plod across hostile ground.
“Sword at his side / An Elf-blade called Sting… Wouldn’t retreat / Just followed his feet.”The specificity is the point: naming things steadies the nerves.
Then Frodo flips the camera.
“Sing me a tale of the bravest of them all… Stouthearted Sam who wouldn’t let me fall.”The emotional arc goes from playful to tender. Gratitude, not triumph, is the landing.
Staging seals it: the last chorus is near-whisper, heads resting, a pause before darker business.
“By the end of the song, his voice has turned into a whisper that ultimately fades into silence.”It leaves the audience in the hush that Tolkien wrote, seconds before betrayal and consequence return.
Message and themes
The song treats memory as a communal craft. Stories don’t just record courage - they create it. The repeated “now and for always” plants the idea that faithfulness is a present-tense habit, not a far-off finale.
Emotional tone
It starts playful, pivots to honest fatigue, and ends with quiet devotion. The temperature never spikes; it warms.
Production and instrumentation
Expect folk-forward contours, an acoustic bed, and clean theatrical voicing. You can hear the lineage of Värttinä’s Finno-Ugric vocal drive threaded into Nightingale’s orchestral frame and Rahman’s lyricism. That fusion lets a small duet feel ancestral.
Language, idioms, symbols
“Firelight” and “old tale” do the heavy symbolic lifting - domestic images standing up to Mordor’s scale. The hobbit clans aren’t trivia; they’re a creed of persistence. Even “tired and cold” functions as a protective charm, naming the body so fear doesn’t name it first.
Key Facts
- Artist: A.R. Rahman, Värttinä, Christopher Nightingale (Original London Production cast album)
- Lyricists: Shaun McKenna, Matthew Warchus
- Composer team: A.R. Rahman, Värttinä, Christopher Nightingale
- Release Date: March 11, 2008 (album, region-dependent); earlier listings cite January 21 and February 4, 2008 in other territories
- Label/Publisher: Kevin Wallace Music
- Album: The Lord of the Rings - Original London Production (track 12)
- Length: 4:48
- Genre / Style: Musical theatre, folk-rooted score
- Instruments: acoustic ensemble with folk color (e.g., nyckelharpa/bouzouki textures), orchestral backing
- Language: English
- Mood: reflective, steadfast, companionable
- Music style, poetic meter: folk-lilt with mostly iambic-anapestic phrasing
- © Copyrights: © 2008 Kevin Wallace Music; phonographic © 2008 Kevin Wallace Music
Questions and Answers
- Where does the scene sit in the story timeline?
- It tracks with Book IV around “The Stairs of Cirith Ungol,” the moment when Frodo and Sam talk about being remembered and then simply keep walking.
- Why call out Harfoots, Stoors, and Fallohides?
- It roots the piece in hobbit history and turns ancestry into courage - endurance as inheritance.
- Is the number big on stage?
- No. It’s intentionally spare: two actors, near-darkness, and stillness. That contrast makes the rest of Act II feel larger.
- How does the revival staging treat it?
- Recent productions keep the intimacy, often foregrounding the duet as a pause button before the plot tightens again.
- What makes the chorus sticky?
- The phrase “now and for always” resolves like a proverb. It’s simple enough to hum, durable enough to mean.
Awards and Chart Positions
The Lord of the Rings West End production received multiple Olivier nominations in 2008, including Best New Musical and design categories. The cast album itself wasn’t a chart-story machine, but the show’s recognition places this track inside an award-nominated production’s legacy.