Songfacts®:

• The song is exactly what the title suggests. It is, literally, a ballad of Bilbo Baggins, who is the central hero in the J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and is an important character in The Lord of the Rings series.
  
  In the Middle of the Earth, in the land of Shire
  Lives a brave little hobbit whom we all admire
  With his long, wooden pipe
  Fuzzy, wooly toes
  He lives in a hobbit-hole and everybody knows him
  
  Bilbo (Bilbo!), Bilbo Baggins
  He's only three feet tall
  Bilbo (Bilbo!), Bilbo Baggins
  The bravest little hobbit of 'em all!
• Upon hearing this track for the first time, most assume it's a gag of some sort. It's not, though. In 1967, Leonard Nimoy, known for his role as Spock in the Star Trek series, really did make a profoundly campy song about Bilbo Baggins from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
  
  He even performed it "live" (it's clearly lip-synched) on Malibu U, which was a show starring musician Ricky Nelson. The show lasted only seven episodes, but in that brief time featured some big acts, including The Doors and Marvin Gaye.
  
  Nimoy did his Malibu U bit on July 28, 1967. That recording is what's found most readily on the internet as the "video" for this song.
  
  Nimoy also included the song on his second album, Two Sides of Leonard Nimoy. In all he made five albums, with the final being The New World of Leonard Nimoy in 1970. In 1993 he also did a compilation album titled Highly Illogical.
• The song was forgotten for a long time. In a 2003 interview with Nimoy, Trekweb.com mentioned it in asking about the renewed Lord Of The Rings interest Peter Jackson had caused with the film adaptation series he started in 2001. Nimoy laughed in response and explained that he no longer knew where the masters for the song were located.
  
  "I'm not looking for a wave of Leonard Nimoy Hobbit songs all over the world. I don't think it's gonna happen," Nimoy told Trekweb.
  
  The comment is ironic because the song actually did end up becoming more popular after the movie series than it had been during its initial release. Internet dwellers got their hands on a 1996 15-minute documentary titled Funk Me Up Scotty. The film had been made for BBC's Star Trek Night. From there, virality was basically guaranteed. The song gets circulated now pretty regularly.
• Charles Randolph Grean wrote the song. Grean's most notable musical contribution was probably as arranger for Nat King Cole's "The Christmas Song." He also wrote a 1950s novelty song titled "The Thing."
• One of the hottest nightclubs in 1960s London was named Middle Earth, after the fictional universe in which Tolkien set his stories. The Who, Pink Floyd, David Bowie (with his folk group Feathers), Eric Burdon (of The Animals), T. Rex, and many other major acts played there regularly.