Although he’s not as much of a songwriter as, say, J.R.R. Tolkien, George R.R. Martin did include a few original songs between the pages of his Song of Ice and Fire novels, lyrics for tunes like “The Rains of Castamere” and “The Bear and the Maiden Fair.” And also there’s “Jenny’s Song,” a sad tune about Jenny of Oldstones, the wife of Prince Duncan Targaryen, who loved her so much he gave up his rights to the crown to be with her. “High in the halls of the kings who are gone, Jenny would dance with her ghosts…” the song begins.
That’s the only lyric in Martin’s book. But for the newest episode of Game of Thrones, “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” the writers crafted a few new verses and composer Ramin Djawadi set them to music. Daniel Portman (Podrick Payne) gave a haunting rendition of the song during the episode itself, but for the credits, the show drafted Florence + the Machine to put their stamp on this haunting melody. They also made an evocative lyric video to go along with it. Check it out:
Florence Welch absolutely has the kind of rich, textured timbre to do this song justice. This may be the best use of an original song in the series to date.
Personally, when I heard this on the show, I took the “Never wanted to leave” refrain as the writers saying they didn’t want to leave the characters, because the episode was so much about just hanging out with these people. What do you all think?
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