About the artist: Emilíana Torrini (1977) is an Icelandic singer and songwriter. She is best known for her performance of Gollum's Song for the 2002 film The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. She has released six studio albums. Emilíana Torrini currently has one song in my list of about 200 best pop/rock songs of all time.
About the song: Howard Shore's scores for the Lord of the Rings movies are awesome, even if there is quite some Prokofiev, Gliere and Sibelius influences in them. The Fellowship of the Ring ended on a relatively positive note with Enya's May it be. Many expected her to feature in the sequel The Two Towers as well, but the broodier mood of the sequel clearly required a different voice. Originally, Björk was approached, but she turned it down as she was expecting a baby. Eventually, the honour went to a relatively unknown artist, Emilíana Torrini, who like Björk hails from Iceland. And what a great decision that was. Gollum's song is bleak but beautiful and Emilíana's angst-laden voice provides the perfect rendition, conveying the disturbed nature of Gollum's tortured soul. The lyrics couldn't be better as well, shifting from singular to plural and back again, as if Gollum were talking to himself as he does in the film. Run time 5:51.
