The Cat And The Moon Lyrics – Lord of the Rings

Song Overview

The Cat and the Moon is the Prancing Pony blowout on the Original London Production cast album - a barroom jig where hobbits kick up sawdust, crockery rattles, and the tune practically winks at you. The trio of A.R. Rahman, Värttinä, and Christopher Nightingale wrote it to feel old and rowdy but theatre-clean, and it does: a pub song with footlights. It also nods to Tolkien’s own “Man in the Moon” poem, so the number lands as diegetic fun and lore drop at once.

Review & Highlights

Intro. Looking for the album’s first big “we’re out of the Shire” party? This is it. The lyrics are playful, packed with Shire calendar slang and kitchen-shelf chaos. On record it runs lean and quick, and on stage it’s choreographed mayhem that stops on a dime when the plot turns serious.

Song review. The groove rides a jig-like lilt, with fiddly ornaments and call-and-response bursts. You can hear Värttinä’s folk color inside Nightingale’s crisp theatrical frame, while Rahman’s melody sense keeps it singable. If you’ve got a soft spot for pub reels and table-thumping refrains, welcome home.

Full plot (in-song). Frodo kicks off the tall tale at the inn where “they brew a beer so brown.” The room fills with animal shenanigans, crockery dances, and tongue-twister refrains. Pippin, Merry, and Sam pile in, each topping the last, until the band’s whirl becomes cover for the story’s first real rupture - in many stagings, Frodo’s sudden slip into the Ring’s shadow snaps the music to silence. It’s party-as-plot-device.

Creation History

The London cast album arrived in 2008, capturing Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. The project credits are unusual for a musical: music by A.R. Rahman with Värttinä and Christopher Nightingale, book and lyrics by Shaun McKenna and Matthew Warchus. The number itself is adapted from Tolkien’s “The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late,” the Prancing Pony poem that Bilbo popularizes in the legendarium.

Verse 1

Frodo sets the scene like a pub storyteller - plain images, quick rhymes, and a tune that invites clapping on two and four.

Chorus

The band flips the room: “downsides go up” and so on - nonsense that scans because the rhythm does the heavy lifting.

Exchange/Bridge

Each hobbit gets a comic tag - dish prancing, horses snorting - while the fiddle line keeps daring the dancers to go faster.

Final Build

The last refrain rattles the crockery one more time, then, depending on staging, the smile drops and the story’s darker gear engages.

• Key takeaway 1: It’s diegetic - a song the characters would actually sing in a pub.
• Key takeaway 2: Folk energy plus tight stagecraft makes the chaos readable.
• Key takeaway 3: The number plants lore seeds while loosening the audience up.

Song Meaning and Annotations

The lyric is a playful refit of Tolkien’s inn poem, tailored for a stage crowd.

“This is a changed version of the song Frodo sang for the patrons of The Prancing Pony in the first book.”

Shire-calendar words anchor the silliness to real-world rules of Middle-earth.

“Hevnsday is a day in the middle of the Hobbits’ week, roughly analogous to Wednesday.”

Likewise, “ostler” isn’t just flavor text - it’s jobsite detail.

“An Ostler is a person whose job it is to look after the horses of guests at an inn.”

And “Sterrenday” (often rendered Sterday) keeps the punchlines on Shire time rather than ours.

“Sterrenday is a day of the Hobbits’ weekend, roughly analogous to Saturday.”

Musically, the piece fuses folk dance idioms with musical theatre drive.

“Irish Hobbit dance!”

Staging in recent revivals keeps the number joyous but pointed.

“A jaunty jig sung and danced by the whole ensemble in the Prancing Pony.”

Message and themes

The song celebrates ordinary delight - ale, fiddles, friendly chaos - as a communal shield. It’s Middle-earth’s reminder that joy is part of courage, not the absence of threat.

Emotional arc

It starts merry, gets manic, and then lands on a knife-edge when the plot pivots. Laugh first, hush second.

Production and instrumentation

Expect acoustic muscle: fiddles, plucked strings, hand percussion, even onstage playing in newer productions. Värttinä’s background in bouzouki and nyckelharpa colors the palette, while Nightingale’s orchestration keeps the lines tidy.

Language, idioms, symbols

Crockery that dances, cows that caper, a moon that’s tipsy - it’s nursery-rhyme logic. That kid-energy is strategic: nonsense gives the crowd permission to breathe between chases and Nazgûl sightings.

Key Facts

• Artist: A.R. Rahman, Värttinä, Christopher Nightingale (Original London Production cast recording)
• Lyricists: Shaun McKenna, Matthew Warchus
• Composer team: A.R. Rahman, Värttinä, Christopher Nightingale
• Release Date: March 11, 2008 (album; regional variations exist)
• Label/Publisher: Kevin Wallace Music
• Album: The Lord of the Rings - Original London Production (track 4)
• Length: 3:55
• Genre / Style: Musical theatre with folk-dance energy
• Instruments: fiddle, acoustic rhythm section, folk plucked strings; expanded orchestral backing on album
• Language: English
• Mood: boisterous, cheeky, communal
• Music style, poetic meter: jig-like pulse; patter-friendly rhyme
• © Copyrights: © 2008 Kevin Wallace Music; phonographic © 2008 Kevin Wallace Music

Questions and Answers

Is this a direct lift from Tolkien’s poem?

No - it’s an adaptation that borrows the premise and some imagery, reshaped for a stage ensemble and a tight runtime.

Where does it sit in the show?

Act I at the Prancing Pony, just before a sharp plot turn when Frodo’s Ring complicates the party.

Was it ever released as a single?

There’s no evidence of a standalone single release; it appears as part of the 2008 London cast album.

Do revivals stage it differently?

Yes - recent versions lean into actor-musicianship and keep the jig feel, then cut the sound hard to spotlight the Ring beat.

Why the Shire weekday words?

They lock the nonsense into Middle-earth’s calendar, which makes the joke feel native rather than generic tavern patter.

Awards and Chart Positions

The number sits on an Olivier-nominated production’s album. The West End staging drew multiple 2008 Olivier nods in design categories, even as the show itself split critics. The cast album’s track listings confirm the tune as track 4; no notable chart entries are documented for this individual track.