LOTR trilogy is terribly overrated

[Schrodinger's Dog]

Actually I liked the soundtracks to the movies. Yeah, they have some weird stuff in the songs and literature of all of the different races in the books.

It's actually not really that wierd, it's all just a mish mash of various European mythologies. If you know about those then it all tends to make sense. The fact that Riders of Rohan are horse warriors and believe in a hall of heroes for the dead and some of the Valar, kind of gives it away. Also all the Valar (Kind of like Archangles, under Eru:God) Are elemental or natural in their aspect. So you have Manwë( Lord of the Valar) Air, Varda (Lady of the Valar) Stars, Ulmo (The ocean lord) water, Yavanna (queen of the Earth) earth&nature, Aulë (chief Valar of the Dwarves, smith and maker of mountains wife of Yavana) earth, Namo (Lord of the dead) Death, Neinna (Sister of Namo: mourning, pity, suffering and endurance) Death, Oröme (Huntsman, horselord and tamer of beasts) nature, flora and fauna. These are the arch valar although there are lesser Valar of dance, valour and dreams and such. And of course last but not least of the dark lord of the Valar the source of much of the evil in Middle Earth Melkor (All powers of the Valar in part) darkness & cold, master of Sauron. Cast out into the void, in the wars of the Silmarillion.

Equally all the other races and customs, all make sense when you know the mythology behind it, which draws heavily, from Norse, Saxons, Gallic/Celtic, Hun, Goths, even in small part from Roman and Greek and others, and an array of his own invention. The peoples weren't meant to be such and such a race, but what he imagined a mythology with all sorts of ideas of his and historical mythology, would be like. With all the legends woven into history and the peoples and given their own Tolkien touch and imagination.