Bilbo…Bilbo Baggins

A conversation with my friend Jim reminded me of this classic Leonard Nimoy variety show song: The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins.


Video may be quiet and faded thanks to age – go ahead, turn it up.

There’s a lot to love about this video. The Laugh-In style dancers, the rocky beach location (unlike anything Bilbo Baggins would have actually experienced), the random flying clothing near the end of the song, the obligatory Spock ears and the general feeling that, no, this song isn’t really about Bilbo Baggins of Lord of the Rings fame but, actually, about wild, romping sex in the swinging 60s.

I wanted to know more, so I did some Wikipedia research:

“The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins” is a song composed by Charles Randolph Grean and performed by Leonard Nimoy, telling the story of Bilbo Baggins and his adventures in J. R. R. Tolkien’s novel The Hobbit. The recording originally appeared on The Two Sides of Leonard Nimoy, the second of Nimoy’s albums on Dot Records…A year before the recording was commercially released, Nimoy lip-synched to the recording during a guest appearance on the July 28, 1967 episode of Malibu U, a short-lived variety television series.

Enjoy.

This was lovingly handwritten on September 21st, 2007