For space is wide and good friends are too few.
Our goal is to accurately preserve the early and out-of-print history of recorded “filk” (science-fiction folk) for a new generation of listeners.
This is a volunteer project, and we do not monetize videos. No copyright infringement is intended. We are happy to remove songs upon request.
Check it out, folks! Some real good out-of-print filk albums here, and there may be more coming.
In the last few years, filk has lost two major recording engineers, Chris “Keris” Croughton and Harold M. Stein. Like many filkers, Harold was a great collector of tapes and CDs, but his collection went beyond that, into raw board feeds from filk concerts and the steadfast recording of housefilks and filk circles at conventions. Harold would tirelessly run around with his dozen Zoom recorders, capturing every detail, sometimes in quadruplicate. He also acquired the recording collections of many filk stalwarts, including Wail Songs founder Bob Laurent.
Harold also collected songbooks at a prodigious rate. Not just professionally produced songbooks from Wail Songs and Off Centaur, but also peoples’ personal collections, which he duly scanned in. And we still have all those files, many of them unprocessed, but we now have a way to continue his work.
To mark what would have been his 50th birthday, his friends have launched an archive that you can visit at http://filk.meravhoffman.com (full FAQ and contact form available) and a clip and song book identification service here: https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/wingkitty/filk-archive.
If you’ve attended lots of filk cons, or regional filk circles, please help us identify audio clips of voices and songs. If you haven’t, please help us out on identifying songbooks. All your work helps us extend Harold’s dream.
Thank you!
@meravhoffman
Director, Harold M. Stein Memorial Filk Archive
Tropicon 8 (1989) – Julia Ecklar in Concert
“Mary O’Meara”, Poul Anderson’s classic filk song, has been featured here using Anne Passovoy’s melody. Originally, Anderson was inspired by and used the melody of the song “Anna Lovinda”, with lyrics and melody by the Norwegian songwriter Erik Bye. Here Sissel Kyrkjebø, Bjørn Eidsvåg and Åge Aleksandersen present the song.
Scottish songwriter Alex Campbell also translated the Danish translation of “Anna Lovinda” to English; that version can also be found on Youtube. Both the Danish and the English versions are very faithful to the Bye’s Norwegian original.
[submitted by anonymous]
Tomorrow, Friday October 20, begins OVFF 33, the annual Ohio Valley Filk Fest, the biggest filk convention (certainly in stature; probably in people too?).
I am thus pleased to announce that after months of on-again-off-again work, and the assistance of several friends including @animatedamerican and @jchance4d4, I have finished the project envisioned here, and annotated all of the references in Andrew Ross’s “Playback.”
(Well, as much as I could. One or two were not identifiable fully.)
A lot of people commented approving of this idea when @seananmcguire reblogged this, so I hope you see the fruits of our labor.
Song above the cut; references below.
“Playback”
to the tune of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire”
filk lyrics by Andrew RossMary Shelley, HG Wells, people meeting at hotels
Rudyard Kipling, people singing ditties at the bar
Gilbert, Sullivan, rounds of Young Man Mulligan
Poul and Karen Anderson, songs in Key of RMartha Keller, Tolkein, songs of worlds as yet unseen
TH White’s Arthurians, Frederick Pohl’s Futurians
Tom Lehrer, Mondegreens, Slan Shacks, fanzines
Music circles, Reprints, Jacobs has a misprint!We shouted “MacIntyre!”
It’s our cry of battle for the Old Dun Cattle
We shouted “MacIntyre!”
And we haven’t parted since the circle startedAmazing Stories Annuals, Pelz’s Filksong Manuals
Dr. Demento tunes, Callahan’s Crosstime Saloons
Hope Eyrie, Leslie Fish, bounced potatoes off the dish
Robert Aspirin, Gwen Zak, Dawson’s Christian, Captain JackOff Centaur, Teri Lee, making love in zero-G
Filthy Pierre, Longcor, black market Tullamore
Juanita Coulson, Red Lions, badges marked with Dandelions
Dorsai have a Fan Club! Jello in the bathtub!Don’t set the cat on fire
It will only fight it if you try to light it
Don’t set the cat on fire
And we haven’t parted since the circle startedPeter Beagle, Consonance, chili cursed with sentience
HOPSFA, NESFA, ConChord, and the Pegasus Award
PFNEN, Ose, Amway, Talk Like a Pirate Day
Dandelion Digitals, Julia Ecklar and the gullsBob Laurent, Asimov, Jeff and Maya Bohnhoff
Rocky Horror Muppet Shows, Frank Hayes feeling indisposed
Bill Sutton DIY, Marischiello goodbye
Challenger! Final tour! What else must we all endure?We saw the sky on fire
While the world was staring, we were Jordin Karing
We saw the sky on fire
And we haven’t parted since the circle startedKathy Mar, Next Gen, Tullamore is back again
Steve Macdonald, Elfquest, Interfilk funds a guest
Tom Smith, 307 Ale, Lee Gold, Heather Dale
Phoenyx, Keepers of the Flame, Filkontario’s Hall of FameEcho’s Children, Bab-5, need a fool to feed the drive
Hamlet done by John Woo, Marilisa Valtazanou
GaFilk, Urban Tapestry, lives rich in fantasy
Airwalls down at Orycon! Firebells at Baycon!We didn’t start a fire
We were all but deafened, and began Kanefin’
We didn’t start a fire
And we haven’t parted since the circle startedBlake Hodgetts, Proteins, Vixy, Tony, Thirteen
Stone Dragons, Moxie, Zander, Heather into Alexander
Bill and Gretchen, dead mouse, alligators in the house
ConFlikt, Judi Filksign, Tragedy at East Hill MineMary Crowell, Faerieworlds, brony boys and Wicked Girls
Britain’s Talis Kimberly, Seanan’s Kellis-Amberlee
Doubleclicks! Browncoats! Cats! FuMP! Toy Boat!
Release the Cello! Sasquon! Thor! Pass another Tullamore!We didn’t start the choir
It’s been so cathartic for the longest bardic
We didn’t start the choir
But when our turns have gone, it will still go on and on until the dawn…
I never thought that I could hold you forever
Always knew deep down you’d have to go home
I can be grateful for these bright years together
And I know you miss the salt sea foam
If you hurry, you can still catch the tide, my love
If you hurry you can still catch the tide.“Still Catch the Tide” by Talis Kimberley, performed here by Seanan McGuire with Michelle “Vixy” Dockrey, Tony Fabris, S.J. Tucker, and Amy McNally. Lyrics are available here.
This is one of my favorite songs to sing along to when I want to be Sad About The Sea (a specific emotion that I experience with alarming regularity.)
If you want a selkie song with a happy ending, check out “The Maiden and the Selkie” by Heather Dale or “Glass Half Full of the Sea” by Benjamin Newman.
She puts on sealskin with a steady hand
Beast at sea, woman on land
She puts on sealskin, the color of foam
She knows what’s next: going home
“Sealskin” by Batya Wittenberg, performed here with the able assistance of Gary Ehrlich (guitar) and Joshua Kronengold (vocals), is the story of “Still Catch the Tide” rearranged to the tune of another Talis Kimberley song about a shapeshifting woman with a human lover: “Velvet” (lyrics and audio here).
… and it owes its existence in no small part to Bob Kanefsky’s “Velvet Tide” (lyrics here), which is a comedic song that takes the story of “Velvet” and rearranges it to the tune of “Still Catch the Tide.”
(Series: Filksong Genealogy)
(Series: Filksong Genealogy)
Above: “Shades of Shadow,” off the album A Wolfrider’s Reflections, based on the ElfQuest comic. (The official album songbook is here; lyrics to this song are about halfway through.) Lyrics by Mercedes Lackey, music by Leslie Fish, sung by Julia Ecklar. The speaker in this song is Winnowill, a powerful magic-worker and master manipulator.
Below: Bob Kanefsky’s “Shapes in Shadow” is one of those filksongs that can’t really be called a parody of the original song, as there’s nothing comedic or satirical about it. Like the original, it’s about power.
Boots
(Series: Filksong Genealogy)
Above we have Rudyard Kipling’s “Boots”, a poem about the endless slog of a soldiers’ march, set to music by (who else) Leslie Fish.
And below we have Bob Kanefsky’s inevitable parody about a different sort of endless slogging: “Bits,” performed by Leslie Fish.
(Series: Filksong Genealogy)
Above: Leslie Fish’s setting to Rudyard Kipling’s “Danny Deever,” a poem about soldiers having to watch a public hanging, framed as a series of questions from a young inexperienced soldier and answers from an older veteran who has seen all this before.
Below: Bob Kanefsky’s “They’re Singing ‘Banned From Argo’,” a similarly framed series of questions and answers about another dreaded ritual.
If you find yourself confused by the veteran filker’s reaction in Bob’s parody, a look at this Fanlore page may be of some help. And if you’ve never heard the original “Banned From Argo” before, run while you still can here’s your chance!
(Series: Filksong Genealogy)
Firstly, above: Leslie Fish’s setting of Rudyard Kipling’s poem “Dane-Geld,” about the dubious wisdom of paying tribute to avoid being conquered by a neighboring country with less portable wealth but better armies.
Secondly, as previously seen on this blog, a classic filksong to the tune of “Waltzing Matilda”: Lee Gold’s “You Bash the Balrog,” a cheerful little ditty about an ill-fated set of D&D adventurers. (If you’ve never heard “Waltzing Matilda,” have a listen here and maybe check out the wikipedia page.)
And finally, below: Bob Kanefsky’s synthesis “Bashing the Balrog,” performed by Leslie Fish.