I’m a big fan of the new Dungeons & Dragons movie. In my opinion, it does a great job of capturing the feel of a D&D adventure. But this post isn’t about that. It’s not even about how I think the movie is a great d&d-dad movie. That’s a post for another day.
This blog post is about that catchy little lute tune the bard Edgin Darvis, played by Chris Pine, sings throughout the movie. It’s an old timey drinking song sort of thing. I came out of the movie wanting very badly to find the music to play on the recorder. But I couldn’t find it anywhere online. So I says to myself, says I, “Brandon, just do it yourself.”
Now, I can only very generously call myself an amateur musician. I mess around a bit on the recorder and ukulele from time to time. But with some help from my wife, who is a bit more of a professional at this sort of thing, I put together a quick and dirty arrangement of the song for playing on recorder and ukulele.
You can download the sheet music below.
This sheet music is also available on my MuseScore page.
A Note on the Lyrics
Not fortune found, nor fate divine,
lyrics by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley
Come close to toping the juice of the vine.
With cherry crew, we sip and sway,
Let’s tip the tankard and waste the day.
Reeraw! Well ye ken, our toils can wait for a time.
We saw the folly of men who rather than revel repine.
In my futile search to find that someone else had done this work for me, I read several Reddit and YouTube comments which lead to this Twitter thread where someone @ed the movie’s writers and directors, Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, who kindly replied with the lyrics.
There is some disagreement on the first line, with some saying it’s “faith divine” and others “fate divine”. The directors even disagree on the lyric in the above mentioned twitter-twatter. In nearly all online discussions, I found people appear to prefer “faith” over “fate”. I opted to go with “fate” for two reasons: 1) that’s how the Forgotten Realms fandom wiki has it, and 2) it’s what John Francis Daley says it should be, and I really liked him in the TV show Bones.
Cool Lute Trivia
In my Honor Among Thieves music sleuthing, I found some cool trivia about the lute used in the film. I highly recommend checking out this YouTube video by the guy who made the instrument.
Prestidaditation 