For space is wide and good friends are too few.
“Omega 13,” a dance number by The Faithful Sidekicks (Eric and Jen Distad), who are made of win. This one is for those who love Galaxy Quest. Which should be everyone. Yes, that was a judgment.
Come on, do it again
Let’s rewind the scene
Put your coat on the hanger
And grab your doppelganger
Let’s do the Omega 13
Yes, always recall that in spite of them all,
the truth was much greater than fiction!Full lyrics under the cut.
Here’s a link to the full lyrics, since the original link no longer works.
Above: Mark Bernstein, inducted this past weekend into the Filk Hall of Fame, leads and conducts his arrangement of “The Green Hills of Earth”.
There are wings of flesh and feather, there are wings of bone and leather
There are wings of painted paper pinned to polished wooden spars
But wings of force and fire never falter, never tire
And the wings of human knowledge span the void between the stars.
15 years…
Columbia has fallen, from a brilliant azure sky,
And left a wake of smoke and flame, thirty-eight miles high,
And seven of our very best, are gone forevermore,
Flesh and steel paid the supreme price to explore…
[submitted by rocket-song-acoustic]
I know at least three songs about spaceport bars. Here is one of them.
Beep beep beep beep…Hello there!
Sputnik sails giggling through the skies,
Red flags, red faces, jump into the race
As the space age begins with a surprise!
“Surprise!” by Leslie Fish, a song commemorating the rather abrupt kickoff of the space race. This version is sung by Gunnar Madsen, with Mitchell Burnside Clapp providing the backing Russian.
Lyrics can be found in the To Touch the Stars CD booklet, available for free download on the Prometheus Music website.
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!
A new sad space song with lyrics by Nate @astriiformes set to the Thaxted tune from Holst’s ‘Jupiter.” Original post here.
Lyrics:
‘Cross the light-scattered starfields, past the moons of planets large and small
‘Cross the belts filled with asteroids comes a message: do you hear my call?
Though it’s faint, I trust you’re out there
Though it’s small amidst the void
We are bonded by friendship, which cannot be destroyedI will not cease the signal, I am still awaiting your reply
I do not doubt it’s coming for a moment, sure as comets fly
There are light-years set between us
There are parsecs in the way
But I know that you’re listening, and your words will find the wayI will dream we’re together, I will wish it every time I can
And just maybe, fate will see us once again joining hand in hand
But if space stays vast between us
If we’re star systems apart
Know I’ll keep on transmitting, you’re always in my heart.
(or: The Literal Sky Boat Song)
Initially I wrote this intending it to be a sweet song about going home to space, but the original song is about the aftermath of a failed and bloody uprising, and it didn’t lend itself too well to happy. I wrote the current version thinking of the Alderaanian (and Jedhan and Hosnian…) refugees in Star Wars, but it could be applied to any number of science fiction universes, really.
To be sung to the tune of the Skye Boat Song.
[chorus:]
Speed bonny ship like a bird on the wing,
Upward the rockets fly;
Take us away to where the stars sing,
On past the edge of the sky.The atmosphere howls, the thrusters all roar,
The boosters light and flare.
‘Gainst gravity’s grasp, higher we soar,
We’ll soon escape the air.[chorus]
In space dark and wide, past systems we leap,
On countless worlds we’ll roam.
But here we remain, out in the deep;
They’ll never be our home.[chorus]
Burned is our world, exile and death;
Her children refugees.
Yet while our lungs still have their breath,
We’ll fight and never cease.[chorus]