(Series: Filksong Genealogy)
Above: another poem by Rudyard Kipling set to music by Leslie Fish: “Song of the Men’s Side,” a mythic story about how humankind rose above its status as prey for wolves by attaining a crucial piece of technology.
Below: Bob Kanefsky’s take on a … loosely related story, which is also about wolves and prey and technological advancements: “Song From the Pig’s Side,” performed by Leslie Fish. (Look at the end of the third verse for a sneaky shoutout to a different Kipling poem entirely – which, yes, has also been set to music by Fish.)
(Series: Filksong Genealogy)
Above we have Seanan McGuire’s “Wicked Girls” (lyrics), performed in concert by the author along with Michelle “Vixy” Dockrey and Tony Fabris, S.J. “Sooj” Tucker, and Amy McNally.
And below, we have Bob Kanefksy’s truly wicked parody, “Save Yourselves!” (lyrics), performed in circle by Vixy and Tony. Yes, that’s Seanan nearby in the circle, and yes, she’s hearing it for the first time.
Yesterday I journeyed for half a million miles.
Now I’m stacked up on an aircraft’s back.
This last part takes a while.
“Phoenix,” by Julia Eckar (lyrics), is a heartwrenching song about a futuristic space ship with a soul. “By the Time I Get To…”, by Bob Kanefsky (lyrics), is one of those rare parodies that’s almost as poignant as the original song, this time about very realistic spaceflight, and picking up the pieces after re-entry.
(Series: Filksong Genealogy)
Who checks the airlocks anyhow?
A million years from now it may reach
Home…
It is a blessing and a curse among filkers, but a lot of our best jokes need…a bit of setting up.
The first of these (lyrics) is a deceptively sweet love song. The second (lyrics), by the same band, is a legitimate criticism of Gene Roddenberry’s visual worldbuilding. The third (lyrics) is Bob Kanefsky’s triumphant combination of the two, in beautiful polyphony by the original band.
(Series: Filksong Genealogy)
And you’ll regret that ever you fed
At the board of Anne Bonny…
A very earnest song about pirates (lyrics) by Annwn, and one to the same tune, performed by the same band, but with lyrics by Bob Kanefesky, which is…earnest in its own way. Take care among pirates, they rarely wash the dishes.
From the liner notes of the Roundworm album: “whey hay (/hwA ‘hA/) n. a fibrous yellow mold (Coloropus yukosporus) commonly found on expired cottage cheese. See also dairy down.”
Content warning, in case the above isn’t enough: the second song is about very, very unsanitary kitchen conditions.
(Series: Filksong Genealogy)
Use your hooves and use your head
Don’t let down the Man in Red
“March of Cambreadth” (lyrics), by Heather Alexander, is a classic battle song about killing as many people as possible. “December of Cambreadth” (lyrics), a parody by Bob Kanefsky, is…also about maximization of output, but the similarities end there. Except that the language is, somehow, equally vicious.
(Series: Filksong Genealogy)
So there’s this lovely folk song, variously called “Farewell tae th’ Creeks” or “Banks of Sicily,” which like many folk songs has gone through a lot of different permutations. The above is a rendition by the Chad Mitchell Trio; their lyrics can be found here, while the original lyrics can be found here.
What happens when filkers get hold of something like this? Welllll … a lot of things.
Here’s “Green Hills of Harmony” (lyrics) by Al Frank, performed here by (I think) Dandelion Wine. It’s about the Dorsai, a fictional mercenary society from a science fiction book series by Gordon R. Dickson.
And here’s Frank Hayes’s parody of “Green Hills,” entitled “Don’t Ask” (lyrics). It’s … also about the Dorsai. Sort of.
And here is what may be the most recent riff on the same tune: Erin & Rand Bellavia’s Pegasus-nominated filksong “Cliffs of Insanity.”
There’s much more to the story!
(You’re right about Dandelion Wine–that’s the recording from their album “The Face on Mars.”)
See, one major reason the Dorsai are still heard of, despite the Childe Cycle books not exactly being bestsellers anymore (Dickson died in 2001 and hadn’t published a new such book in almost a decade even then), is this:
In 1973, at TorCon 2, the 31st World Science Fiction Convention in Toronto, the only security there were local rent-a-cops, who among other things didn’t get along with the fans and didn’t really work out well–notably someone walked off with a Kelly Freas original (Kelly being one of the most well known artists in fandom) by showing the art show rent-a-cop a receipt for a much cheaper piece. The guard didn’t know any better than to say “no way you paid that for this piece.”
So, the legendary Robert Asprin, SF writer, cosplayer, SCAdian, filker, and fan extraordinaire, decided Something Must Be Done. Thus, he set up a fannish group to help work conventions: Door guards, hall monitoring (for drunk fans needing help back to their rooms as well as extraction from uncomfortable come-ons), auctioneering, even operations help. He got permission from Dickson to call the group the Dorsai Irregulars, the idea being that these were the “weirdos” of the otherwise traditionally military mercenary Dorsai.
And Bob himself being one of the major filkers of his age (arguably, he brought filk out of the back rooms and into function space at conventions; he definitely assigned the filk community its signature whiskey), he got some of his filker friends to help. To this day the roster of the DI is chock-a-block with some of the leading lights and senior songsters of the filk community, including Bob and Anne Passovoy, Murray Porath, Michael “Moonwulf” Longcor, Mark Bernstein, Bill and Gretchen Roper, Bill and Brenda Sutton, Steve MacDonald, John Hall, and more I’m not going to list one by one.
(Series: Filksong Genealogy)
So there’s this lovely folk song, variously called “Farewell tae th’ Creeks” or “Banks of Sicily,” which like many folk songs has gone through a lot of different permutations. The above is a rendition by the Chad Mitchell Trio; their lyrics can be found here, while the original lyrics can be found here.
What happens when filkers get hold of something like this? Welllll … a lot of things.
Here’s “Green Hills of Harmony” (lyrics) by Al Frank, performed here by (I think) Dandelion Wine. It’s about the Dorsai, a fictional mercenary society from a science fiction book series by Gordon R. Dickson.
And here’s Frank Hayes’s parody of “Green Hills,” entitled “Don’t Ask” (lyrics). It’s … also about the Dorsai. Sort of.
And here is what may be the most recent riff on the same tune: Erin & Rand Bellavia’s Pegasus-nominated filksong “Cliffs of Insanity.”