Prequel for the Hobbit?

The original Hobbit was a kid's story told by JRRT to his children; The old cartoon of the story gives a good example of the lighthearted tone, complete with music and poetry, but I hate the cartoonish drawings.

But with the release of the Simarillion and a lot of the back story in the multi-volume "history of middle earth", it looks like Jackson's expanded Hobbit movie will be filling out a lot of the back story. Hence the news item that Elijah Wood will be part of the "prequel.

Sigh. It's good news, since the serious part of the story could make a good movie if you add these subplots, but the bad news is that Jackson is not good about adding poetry and songs to his stories.