For space is wide and good friends are too few.
Yes!! It’s a terrific album, and we love it.
You can listen to the whole thing on YouTube
Would you happen to know/have a link to any sort of ‘filk primer’ playlists or song recs, to send to people who are new to filk?
erdariel asked:
Hi! Sorry if this is a stupid question, but do you think poetry could be considered filk too? Because I wanna try writing some filk stuff, but I’m terrible with music, and even changing the lyrics of already existing songs so that it still works with the music seems like a bit too big challenge to me (especially in English, since it’s not my first language), but I can write poems. Not very good poems, I have to admit that, but poems anyway.
Definitely! I’ve heard a few people read poetry at filk events. Sometimes it’s a song they don’t feel confident enough to sing but want to share anyway, and sometimes because they found or wrote a very filkish poem that was never intended to be sung.
Go forth! Write things!! And there’s always a chance that someone else will be able to set something you write to music later!
goldpilot22 asked:
Do you think the song “Pioneers Over c” by Van Der Graaf Generator could be considered filk? It’s prog rock rather than folk, but it is about the first astronauts to surpass the speed of light, who then find themselves sort of disconnected from time. I suppose it’s more like speculative fiction in song form than science fiction fandom, though. Idk, that’s why I’m asking y’all.
It is if you want it to be! Because definitions are made up and only exist as long as they are useful to us. I definitely thing filk is a genre doesn’t ever need to sound folk-ish, it just often does because 1) it evolved out of the 60′s folk movement and 2) it’s an easy style to write and perform in for amateur musicians. But heck, there’s rap filk, there’s no reason there should be prog rock filk…except that prog rock typically requires at LEAST six musical instruments and electricity, and so is more conducive to staged concerts than song circles.
….but there’s plenty of filk on concert stages, with electric instruments, with the extensive arrangement, rehearsal, and setup you get in prog rock. I saw a prog rock band at a con, and while it wasn’t billed as filk, being at a con makes you basically filk.
As for whether it’s science fiction fandom music – if you’re in the science fiction fandom, and feel like it’s relevant, and you like it, it’s science fiction fandom music. That’s why songs about cats and Shakespeare are considered filk, even though they have heck all to do with science fiction. They might be pretty far removed from Star Trek, but a whole bunch of people like all of those things, and that unites them. Fandom is about the people, more than the content, in the end.
Anyway, I’d say a case can be made for calling it filk, and if you want to make that case that’s fine by me. It’s a few steps removed from what I might suggest as some kind of archetypal filk song, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t one. It’s like how a dachshund and a wolfhound are both dogs. They’re just very different dogs, and you just have to be aware that traits of most dogs do not necessarily apply to these dogs. If filk had a real dictionary definition it would have a dozen subdefinitions, and one of those would probably say “songs about science fiction concepts” and that’s this!
(And yeah, I know it was forever ago, sorry we’re bad at answering messages!)
Tumblr managed to eat your ask as I was replying to it, but the gist of it was that you were wondering if we had the lyrics to “Farewell Mother Russia” by Debra Sanders and Kathy Mar, since you couldn’t find them anywhere, and couldn’t hear all the words in the recording on YouTube.
I haven’t been able to find any lyrics online – I’m sure they’re written down in a songbook somewhere, but wherever it is, it hasn’t been digitized or transcribed. (If anyone does have the lyrics lying around somewhere, please let us know!)
That said, I was able to transcribe most of the words from the online recording. There’s just one word in the chorus I can’t quite catch – if anyone knows what it is, or has any corrections to my transcription, absolutely chime in!
[ETA: correct line provided by @sci-fantasy]
I am the navigator of the Starship Enterprise,
And I am honor-bound by oath to guide her through the skies,
But greater than that honor is the pleasure that I feel
Each time I stop to realize that all my dreams are real.[chorus:]
Farewell Mother Russia, I rise to meet the stars
And take my balalaika song beyond the moon and mars,
Though somewhere Mother Russia is white with winter snows,
I help to forge that starry trail, and go where no man goes.Oh I have seen an entity who tortured me with rage,
And I have known an alien plague that cursed young men with age,
But I’ve discovered joys as well, and made a friend or two,
Drunk vodka, yes, and told some tales when every trek was through.[chorus]
Forgive me sweet Irina, I never learned to love,
My eyes were always turned toward the starry skies above,
But if I had another chance to do what I must do,
Beside me on the Enterprise would be no one but you.[chorus]
There’s a noise coming out of the dog park
And I think it means me harm
There are lights up over the Arby’s
And I wish I’d never left the farm
There’s a glow shining out of the canyon
And I hope it’s gonna get better
From the noise coming out of the dog park
I take you to… the weather“The Weather” by the PDX Broadsides, the first Night Vale filk I think I’ve ever encountered.
Another Night Vale filk is Bob Kanefsky’s Downtown Night Vale, written with his usual brilliance.
Reblogging with addition!
[image text: Is it maybe worth a shoutout to Heather Dale? She’s starting to post captioned ASL videos of some of her songs to her YouTube, and I just… sort of want to call attention to it somehow.]
Oh cool! I haven’t checked out her YouTube channel recently, so thanks for bringing it up!
So here’s a giant shoutout to Heather Dale, for helping to make filk more inclusive and accessible, and for bringing attention to some wonderful Deaf artists. Here’s her YouTube playlist with all her ASL videos, and it will be updating with more videos weekly.
Brain mod, here: Me and the Dog mod don’t have a copy, unfortunately – we got into filk after cassettes ceased being the popular medium for music, and we don’t have a tape player, so there’s been no reason for us to collect any.
@animatedamerican, what about you? Or anyone who follows us?
Ooooooh man now this is a good question. Fish is definitely your best place to start, since she’s the only one I can think of who did a full ALBUM of post-apocalyptic (and pre-apocalyptic) filk, AND THEN SOME.
Me and the brain mod went through and came up with as many as we could think of, besides everything on that album:
As always, everyone can feel free to add! I’m sure there are dozens more, at least.
I believe that was probably Terence Chua, who is from Singapore
(in reference to this post)