Tavern songs that would fit a fantasy setting?

[TylertheCreator]

So I'm running a D&D 5e campaign, and I've decided to add a little bit of flavor in the form of an ongoing sidequest. A group of bards that collects traditional tavern music has lost all of their collected songs in a fire. They ask the PCs to bring back any written tavern songs they find in exchange for around 50 gp each (depending on the rarity of the song.) We play with Roll20, so as an added bonus, I intend to put each new song they find into the Tavern Music playlist when they find it, to reflect that the bards have distributed the song that they found to the pubs in the land.

The thing is, I need songs.

Now, Irish folk music abounds, but a lot of it has incredibly specific lyrical content referring to real-world places, people, ore events that simply don't exist in my fantasy setting. I need songs that are vague enough in their lyrical content that they can be applied to a fantasy setting, -and- I need it to be available on SoundCloud so that I can add it to Roll20's jukebox (unless there's some way to import your own music that I don't know about). Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[JoeJ]

I don't know what Sound Cloud is or how to get songs onto it, but this would be a great song for what you want.

[Madbox]

Here's a song from one of my favorite games, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, for the Gamecube. Not sure if it's tavern-y enough, but it is pretty heavy on the World Music/Celtic Folk sound. It's a touch slow at first, but it picks up around 40 seconds in.

[kraftcheese]

So I'm running a D&D 5e campaign, and I've decided to add a little bit of flavor in the form of an ongoing sidequest. A group of bards that collects traditional tavern music has lost all of their collected songs in a fire. They ask the PCs to bring back any written tavern songs they find in exchange for around 50 gp each (depending on the rarity of the song.) We play with Roll20, so as an added bonus, I intend to put each new song they find into the Tavern Music playlist when they find it, to reflect that the bards have distributed the song that they found to the pubs in the land.

The thing is, I need songs.

Now, Irish folk music abounds, but a lot of it has incredibly specific lyrical content referring to real-world places, people, ore events that simply don't exist in my fantasy setting. I need songs that are vague enough in their lyrical content that they can be applied to a fantasy setting, -and- I need it to be available on SoundCloud so that I can add it to Roll20's jukebox (unless there's some way to import your own music that I don't know about). Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I really like some of the songs in AC; Black Flag. To be fair most of them are sea shanties, but there's songs that are played in port taverns by a little band of performers, ones like "Trooper and the Maid" which I reckon would go off with your typical tavern crowd and doesn't mention anything immersion breaking I don't think?

Also, the version of William Taylor they have in it is great too; BUT they mention England once and pistols later as well. Some of the sea shanties that are great too but most of them mention towns, people, etc. or theyre VERY sailing themed.

[BWR]

There's a great collection of songs and poems from the early 18th century "Pills to purge melancholy". Some of them have been recorded by various people (like Ed McCurdy) Sadly, Youtube won't show me it but it might work for you.
Songs like this and this sound like what you want.

[8BitNinja]

Check out Skyrim's bard songs

There is also Jimmy's perform skill in South Park: The Stick of Truth

[Douche]

The dragonborn comes, the dragonborn comes, the draaagon draaaagon dragonborn comes

[Madbox]

Wait, who comes? Is it a person who can get magic powers by stealing the souls from dragons they kill, or is it a person who looks like an anthropomorphic dragon?

[Red Fel]

I'd suggest looking into some of the Discworld songs, like "A Wizard's Staff Has a Knob at the End," and that lovely little shanty about what you cannot do to a hedgehog at all.

[GnollOfErathis]

"All for One" by Blackmore's Night

[Mith]

Ramblin Rover by Silly Wizard

Perhaps it was written by a bard that claimed to have aspirations to be a wizard, and was dubbed "the Silly Wizard"

Also, as a Canadian, I am contractually obligated to mention Stan Rogers and Great Big Sea.

[dramatic flare]

Tavern songs? Step right up, lad. I've got more tavern songs memorized, performed and forgotten than you've got minutes in the day. Why for instance, you could have them do:

Fathom the bowl (changing ireland to something else)
Mad Maudlin
Crabfish (explicit)
Health to the Company
Three Travelers
Fire Down Below (cursing)
All for me Grog
Humors of Whisky

And so much more if'n you want flavors? Most Irish and Scottish tunes can be reworked, and have themes of oppression and sticking it to the English(aka "fantasy kingdom conquoring other nearby kingdoms"), drinkin', and wild tall tales! There's more sea shanties for rollickin' adventures in that ther' Black Flag someone else already mentioned (which also made me hobby easier to explain than any other thing, ever) for that extra nautical theme.

There's also the tavern songs from Dragon Age: Inquisition, the bands Blind Guardian, Falconer, and Rhapsody of Fire with fantasy themed pieces you could steal for your purposes.

The options are endless lad, be ye the type to take 'em.

[Feddlefew]

I like using the music from the Dwarf Fortress soundsense mod in my games.

[ruhijuneja1991]

You can try out this tavern song-> Blow The Candles Out.

Just search it in Youtube.

[Kane0]

Lord bless Charlie Mopps, the man who invented beer!

[Madbox]

I suppose it would be fitting that you give the bards a song from Bard's Tale.

[kraftcheese]

You can try out this tavern song-> Blow The Candles Out.

Just search it in Youtube.

Oh I forgot about "Blow the Candles Out" when I was mentioning Black Flag! I love the tavern band in the various ports, their renditions of bawdy pub tunes sound so great.

[Logosloki]

It warms my heart to see two posts at least referencing a bard's tale and it's most excellent tavern song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrEFWv8aSQ8

[TheTeaMustFlow]

'Here's a Health to the Company' is both nice and unspecific, though the AC jokes are annoying for those of us who've known the song for a decade.

[Andezzar]

The dragonborn comes, the dragonborn comes, the draaagon draaaagon dragonborn comes

There once was a hero named Ragnar the Red... - Just replace Whiterun and Rorikstead with appropriate town names if you don't like them.

I'd suggest looking into some of the Discworld songs, like "A Wizard's Staff Has a Knob at the End," and that lovely little shanty about what you cannot do to a hedgehog at all.

I don't think Sir Terry ever published the whole songs.

Some Pub songs without geographical references:
Seven Deadly Sins
Seven Drunken Nights Since this is a family friendly forum you have to look for stanzas six and seven yourself
A Pub with no Beer
Gentleman Soldier
McCafferty

@TheTeaMust Flow: I see your AC reference and raise you this one.

[8BitNinja]

Not really a tavern song but

Sir Robin's Song from Monty Python and the Holy Grail

[TheTeaMustFlow]

@TheTeaMust Flow: I see your AC reference and raise you this one.

GAAA, You see what I mean? Bloody Assassins, stealing things other people did first and better.

[denthor]

Anything with drink drink drink as a chorus

[Apricot]

Ninety-nine bottles of beer will never let you down. If bottles aren't common, try "ninety-nine mugs of cold beer on the wall" as the verse instead, or put in your own adjective over "cold." If they don't drink beer, then "beer" can be replaced by "drink." It's a song for every time and place!

[JAL_1138]

March of Cambreadth and Brannigan's Special Ale are always good. A lot of Alexander James Adams (FKA Heather Alexander) tunes are great for fantasy games; they're sort of meant to be, really.

[Excession]

How about this: https://youtu.be/DCAFD8mMqls

Not on Sound Cloud, but you could just ask your players to open it in another tab.

[Faily]

Sharing some of the artists I follow on YouTube for this purpose:

Karliene - has done songs from the Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, self-written and composed stuff, and has an admitted love for "bardic" music and traditions. Recommend the Lament for Boromir, King Beneath the Mountain, Last of the Giants, and Dornishman's Wife,

Erutan - done many covers of game-songs, many self-composed things. Also another bard-person. Plays all her own instruments too. Recommend... well almost everything from this girl. Especially her Raindancer album.

Also, check out Mediæval Bæbes for an all-female group who does all sorts of old medieval music.

[Traab]

This works There are a lot of songs taken from valdemar, a fantasy world written by a fairly popular author. I just grabbed a link at random, there will be far more to choose from.

[Templarkommando]

One of my favorite Celtic music groups is the High Kings that has a good repertoire. Some of it is covers from other groups, but I think it has a good quality. Several of them include mentions of real world cities and counties if you're going to picky about it. Songs that I would recommend from this group include:

Star of the County Down
Step it out Mary
The Parting Glass
Whiskey in the Jar
Finnegan's Wake
The Rising of the Moon

There are a lot of youtube videos that you can find on this playlist, but honestly a lot of their material is worth a listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Qdb...AB13E7E393D4DF

I would also like to echo that Stan Rogers' Barret's Privateers is a good choice.

Let me try to steer you in the right direction as far as youtube searches. Words like medieval, Renaissance, pipe, fife, flute, lute, harp, Celtic, Irish, Scotish, Welsh, Italian, French etc. are all likely to yield good results. For example, the terms "Italian Renaissance Music" yields the following link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKjadi_rvP0 which is a reasonably suitable selection of period lute music.

You also might try specific compositions. The most popular song of the middle ages is a song known as "Sumer is Icumen In" which has a kabillion variations online. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiNkouCVrpA is a good instrumental version, but there are vocal versions as well.

If you can find specific popular medieval or Ren era composers would also be useful. Machaut wrote this song for example, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yi2MMtIimY

This song is by Du Fay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLwMEBlBBB4

Some of these songs might not be appropriate for a tavern though; however, there might be versions of the song that are. There is such a thing as a parody mass that takes a popular tune and uses it in a religious setting, so some of these might be interchangeable between taverns and churches.

Finally, video game and TV music is quite reasonable. Several people have suggested selections from Skyrim and Elder Scrolls, which is okay I suppose, but there are others out there as well. The World of Warcraft Tavern music springs to mind for me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnJp_s7ow7A

also stuff like Game of Thrones like the Rains of Castamere which in addition to the TV addition has some fan produced versions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU8eL2CjzHw
Simply look for fantasy games and see what kind of music you can come up from a search. A look through your Steam game list might be worth a shot.

I hope this helps.

[GnollOfErathis]

The Revels album A Revels Celebration of Spring, Summer & Fall might be a good place to look (samples included in link).