It is now more than a year since the first issue of The Bramblebury Gazette was released. I wrote a song fer the party celebrating the occasion.
Best sung to the tune of Fiddler’s Green, which may not be an obvious choice fer a happy hobbit tune. Fiddler’s Green is an imagined legendary afterlife for sailors. Still, the place is supposedly one where the fiddle music never stops, rum and tobacco flows freely and where the dancers never tire, so perhaps it’s not too far off from good hobbity life anyway? If yer would like ter hear the original tune, here’s a version by The Dubliners.
The Bramblebury Gazette
As I went to my postbox one morning so fair
The postman came running, fresh out of air
He gave me a paper, then fell to the ground
Gasped and coughed for a while then he said with resound
There’s a paper out in Bramblebury
They call it the Gazette
It’s filled to the brim, not with tales that are grim
But with good solid happy Shire news
The news quite intrigued me, I soon felt the need
To pick up the paper, I wanted to read
News of the weather, if crops still would grow
Or if crusty old hobbits said we would get snow
There’s a paper out in Bramblebury
They call it the Gazette
It’s filled to the brim, not with tales that are grim
But with good solid happy Shire news
Some fresh juicy gossip of the mayor and thain
If the upcoming festival will meet with rain
And news of the bounders, as they make their rounds
Drinking ales at the inn, and not guarding our bounds
There’s a paper out in Bramblebury
They call it the Gazette
It’s filled to the brim, not with tales that are grim
But with good solid happy Shire news
But the thing that I most of all would like to read
Is stories of my all-time favourite feed
You might want your pies, and of course they’re okay
But biscuits are better, they quite make my day
There’s a paper out in Bramblebury
They call it the Gazette
Now hobbits all over can read with their tea
Nothing but good solid Shire news