In 1967 he did a song called The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins, a musical take on Tolkien's The Hobbit. The video features Nimoy basically sitting down, retelling the story through song while generic 1960's girls wearing plastic elf ears and uber coloured sweaters jump and dance around. The whole video (and song too) is pretty camp and funny to watch and listen.
This may have been Nimoy trying to avoid being stuck in the Star Trek role as Spock (which inevitably happened anyway), and so he went to the extreme in opting for something aimed at fantasy as opposed to science fiction. Many Star Trek fans have slated Nimoy's performance as being 'the lowest point in his career'. Even so, I think it's hilarious, and the 60's camp style is funny as hell.
What do you think of it? Do you think that Nimoy should have just left well enough alone and stuck with Star Trek? In any case, with the exception of Blind Guardian's Nightfall in Middle Earth in 1998, this is the only song that I know that deals with Tolkien fantasy. If anyone knows anymore, I'd love to know!
I'd not seen that! Actually, without the visual, it wasn't awful. Fit well with the 60's!
ReplyDeleteI think i'm one of the 12 in the cave. Good job on the challenge thus far!
ReplyDeleteHaha! That's funny. I've never seen that before. I don't think Nimoy ever had a chance at not being Spock. But hey, he's an icon!
ReplyDeleteI've never seen that before, one always think Nimoy as Spock, my this goes back a while.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with the challenge.
Happy Easter.
Yvonne.