| Townes Van Zandt – Silver Ships of Andilar Lyrics | 5 years ago |
| Like everyone else, I appreciate the parallels to Tolkien, but I've never been able to listen to this song without thinking of the fate of the Spanish armada in 1588. Andilar is Spain, or at least Andalucia. The holy king is Phillip II, who lived and held court in a monastery. The dark and frozen one is Elizabeth I, or as Chesterton called her, "the cold queen of England, looking in the glass." Then it follows the story of the men who never made it to England to fight, but instead were scattered by a storm and had to try to circumnavigate the British Isles to make it back to Spain, most of them dying along the way. | |
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