Rufus Wainwright has lent his voice to some timeless words over the years, from modern classics penned by Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell to the traditional songs on last year’s Folkocracy project. But he’s never before used those golden tones to sing about something quite as grand as The Lord of the Rings — until now.
The second season of Amazon’s splashy prequel series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power features Wainwright singing lead vocals on a song called “Old Tom Bombadil,” written by composer Bear McCreary. “I’m very, very choosy about what I choose to sing, and I was really happy with what Bear offered,” the singer-songwriter, 51, tells Rolling Stone.
As the title suggests, it’s a ballad about the character Tom Bombadil, who made a memorable appearance in J.R.R. Tolkien’s original 1954 novel The Fellowship of the Ring but was cut from…
