submission

Doctor Who Theme – Another Castle & Riverside Castle

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At Worldcon 75 in Helsinki, the Finnish nörttikuoro were out in force. Unreality (Helsinki), Pixel Sisters (Tampere), and the joint choirs of Another Castle (Helsinki) and Riverside Castle (Turku) all held well-attended concerts. The Worldcon members even set up their own Worldcon 75 choir, led by former Pixel Sisters leader Päivi Itäpuro. The only choir which did not hold a concert was the most filkish of them all, Filkkifriikit, since most of their members were full-time staff at the con.

Here is the Another Castle & Riverside Castle concert.

[submitted by anonymous]

One too many Mornings – Again – Mark Horning

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One too many Mornings – Again

Yes, it’s a Groundhog Day Filk.

One to Many Mornings, Again
Lyrics: Mark E. Horning Dec, 2017
Music: Bob Dylan, 1963

Down the streets the folks are walkin’
And they’re gathrin’ at the park
Gone to see the groundhog,
And if he his shadow marks.
–They say it is a portent
–They say it is a sign,
–But I’m one too many mornings…
–And a thousand lives behind.

The restless morning’s shattered,
The same damn song begins,
There’s no escape, I can’t get out
And it’s yesterday again.
–I’ve tried to kill the rodent,
–And myself  – uncounted times.
–And I’m one too many mornings…
–and a thousand lives behind

Now I’ve memorized the future,
Just as long as it’s today,
Free of consequences,
They won’t remember anyway.
–The circle stands unbroken,
–Past and future, intertwined.
–I’m still one too many mornings…
–And a thousand lives behind.

[submitted by rocket-song-acoustic]

“Encounter in Space” at Club Cosmos

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“Encounter in Space” at Club Cosmos:

A video of Lars-Göran Johansson performing “Möte i rymden” (“Encounter in Space”) by Sam J. Lundwall at a 2012 club meeting of Club Cosmos, the oldest still extant science fiction club in Sweden (it was formed in 1954). “Möte i rymden” was one of three science fiction themed songs on Lundwall’s record “Visor i vår tid” (“Songs in Our Time”) which was released in 1966, which also contained several more songs that had fantasy themes or were fannish in outlook. It is possible that the song was written as early in 1963, when several of Lundwall’s songs were played at a Swedish con.

Note that the linked video is only available in WebM format. Here is a rough translation to English of the song:

Encounter in Space

We anchored in space by a faraway satellite
that lied in eternal orbit around its star.
In the mess hall I met a thirsty parasite;
||: a childhood friend that I now met again. :||

“Hi, dear Oskar Fikonström, mu old childhood friend!
You old sailor, are you still alive?
What has happened to you, you’re barely recognisable!”
||: “Yes, what has happened I will tell you right now. :||

I ran away from Earth real early as you know,
since I wanted to be on the ocean of space;
and with time I found a berth on an old space rocket,
||: the boss was a devil, but he was a fan! :|| [1]

We traveled to Vega with contraband and liquor,
I was still young and green and rather naïve.
I removed rust at the prow but got hardly any pay –
||: that time was the worst one in my life! :||

Work like a dog at any weather in the black holes of space,
and have the free watch in the terrible reactor light.
Space is filled with monsters that will kill humans,
||: and at all times a spaceman should be at hand! :||

Yes, I’ve seen most things that are here to see;
at Capella I met a beautiful blonde.
We were in her apartment when she exploded –
||: all of her was made up of nitroglycerine! :||

Black from soot and without clothes, all my body as a wound,
I sat astounded there with ashes in my lap
when a man with eight arms suddenly walked up to me:
||: the Earth’s consul with an unfathomable name! :||

I got new oxygen tubes and a decent ray gun
that was filled with death and the power of wild stars.
The consul’s fourth cousin got me a berth to a very far away sun,
||: but that trip wa the worst I ever had! :||

The ship where I got a place was of a strange type,
everything was wrong, and the air stank like a sewer.
Its captain was like an cephalopod with great green scales
||: and with evil-looking eyes at front and back! :||

Twenty light-years from Earth our engine broke down;
the animals in our cargo drank all our supplies.
We had to keep us alive using beer and aspirine;
||: one can hardly believe it’s true! :||

Yes, it was hard years in space, but I managed pretty well,
and though thirty I’m still at full vitality.
So thanks for all the drinks, but now I have to leave;
||: I have contraband in the rocket parked outside! :||

And then we parted in the mess hall with some simple words
and a handshake with my old childhood friend,
while thousands of millions white stars stood above
||: on the cold and black sky! :||

[1] The word “fan” can in Swedish both be used for fen and for the Devil.

Födelsedagsfesten – Triakel

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“Födelsedagsfesten” is filk song about a birthday party, with a convoluted history. It was first written by Swedish fan, sf author, translator, sf publisher etc Sam J. Lundwall. It was recorded a few times in the 70s by various artists but then languished undiscovered by anyone until Swedish folk trio Triakel did a cover in 1998. It is their version which is linked above.

From there it received a couple more covers, and also was discovered by Swedish LARPers, among which it became very popular. They have also written new lyrics to the tune, both minor changes and full rewrites.

Triakel commissioned English lyrics by Alistair Cochrane when releasing their CD, that is fully singable as far as I know:

THE BIRTHDAY PARTY

There once was a farmer who lived in the north,
He was now half a century old
And his guests came a-travelling the long, winding road,
One hundred or more all told.
He had laid in enough of the finest of food
For a three week feast, so it seemed,
And deep in the larder, in row upon row,
The bottles of booze stood and gleamed.

(Chrous: Faddy doo dum day, faddy dee and faddy da,
Drink up and fight with your friends.
For it’s laughter and song the whole night long
Till the birthday party comes to an end.)

Well the feasting began and the strong liquor ran
In and out of every glass,
With brandy and whisky and strong ale and rum,
The first hours of evening passed.
And they ate and they drank and they talked and they joked,
There was singing and laughter and fun,
Till the first of the quarrelling and fighting broke out
And the party had really begun.

(Chorus)

With their knives in their hands they shouted and swore
As they challenged each other to fight,
And the womenfolk lamented and cried by the door,
As usual on a party night.
Then the farmer decided to join in the fray,
And he looked both furious and grim,
Till Johnny the Ripper appeared in his way –
And that was the end of him.

(Chorus)

The farmer’s wife grew as angry as a bee
And she started to curse and to yell,
Till the men picked her up and carried her away,
And flung her into the well.
And then they went back to get on with their fun,
Smashing lamps in the heat of the fight,
And the fire slowly spread from the floor to the walls
Till the whole of the house was alight.

(Chrous)

At the dawn of the day the sun cast its rays
On the tops of the hills and the trees.
It shone on the scene where the farmhouse had been
And the smoke drifting by on the breeze.
The farmer’s wife still clung for her life
To the edge of the deep, dark well,
And the last brief noise was the echo of  her voice
And a splash from the depths as she fell.

(Chorus)

Submitted post: Den tappre kosmonauten Nikolajevs kvalfulla rymdfärd

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Swedish nerdy parody songs are not limited to filk or fandom. The most important venue is arguably the Swedish student song tradition, of which this is a fine example. The song exists in several variants, often shorter than this. I usually only sing a single verse and the chorus, myself. For those unfamiliar with the tune, it’s to the tune of the Russian national anthem, previously the Soviet national anthem. And it’s a song which fits squarely into any filk circle.

Rough translation of the song opening (not necessarily fitting with the version sung above):

My name is Nikolayev, a Soviet cosmonaut
I’m flying round the earth in my space rocket
but I’ve suffered a misfortune grave
I forgot to go to the loo before I left

I long for home, home to my planet
to wife and child back home in Soviet
but most of all to a small house with a heart on the door
Home, home to my planet
I don’t want to be stuck in the rocket
where there isn’t a house with a heart on the door

Autonomous – Marshall Burns

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This song was written by Marshall Burns (and animated here by Sunny Adams) for the novel Autonomous by Annalee Newitz, and she wrote a really good post about the genre she’s calling “Canadian prairie futurism” and how it relates to traditional music.  I’m just gonna copypaste a chunk of it here because it’s such a good explanation of a huge part of the filk ethos:

Two summers ago, when I was finishing the first draft of my novel Autonomous, I watched Marshall play and thought about the future. Back then he was at Leopold’s Tavern, and I’d come to the crowded bar with a bunch of family after a long dinner full of conversations about politics and art. This is the sort of thing we might do more often if there were an apocalypse, I mused. We’d gather in some communal shelter, after a day of hunting and gathering in the trashed wastes. Then somebody from our family would start to sing. We’d raise our voices too, to take our minds off the famine and plague and wildfires.
But it’s also the exact kind of thing we’d do in a Utopian future. Imagine us surrounded by carbon-neutral farms whose plants are monitored by sensors and satellites. Our brains would be crackling with ideas, thanks to government-funded science education. After a productive day in the fields and the labs, we’d gather at the co-op watering hole and sing our brains out in agrarian socialist solidarity. We’d all sound great too, because we’d have optimized our vocal chords with open source biotissue mods.
Maybe it sounds a little strange to say that Marshall’s old-fashioned songs gave me these vivid, contradictory images of the future. But I see the future clearly in these anachronistic moments. If we can still hear traditional prairie music in a modern city bar, then it’s a kind of guarantee that people of the future will still be listening to us. As Marshall sang, I could imagine distorted bits of my own culture still alive in a world utterly transformed by time’s passage.

And besides all that, enjoy a song about sad robots!

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

Back Soon (Ukulele) – Jack Larus

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thedeadfairy:

(Soundcloud)
Spoilers for The Adventure Zone, up to episode 67!
I debated posting this here vs. waiting until I finished the full version but I’m trying to ride the wave of being psyched about actually writing something so here’s an acoustic version with just my voice, a ukulele, and words.
So many incredible moments in this episode. I got chills at basically every turn.
Lyrics under the cut!
Keep reading

Bang Away, Maidens – Misbehavin' Maidens

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from the album Sloppy Seconds
To the tune of “Bang Away, Lulu”
Lyrics
Bang away, Maidens, bang it sure and true
The fans will come from miles around for a good ol’ Maiden screw
Oh, bang away, Maidens, bang it good and strong
What in the world will the good fans do when the Maidens are all gone?
Our Saber is a Slytherin
She loves silver and green
She’s good at speaking Parseltongue
If you know what I mean
Our Saber’s quite a kinkster
They know her far and wide
She said to Westley,
“As you wish,“
Now she’s the Princess Bride!
Bang away, Maidens, bang it sure and true
The fans will come from miles around for a good ol’ Maiden screw
Oh, bang away, Maidens, bang it good and strong
What in the world will the good fans do when the Maidens are all gone?
Our Rouge, she loves the Dresden
His books she does applaud
And if she ever met him
She’d ride his blasting rod!
Our Rouge once screwed some Trekkies
The answer to their prayers
She likes it rough, and now they know
Why Riker straddles chairs!
Bang away, Maidens, bang it sure and true
The fans will come from miles around for a good ol’ Maiden screw
Oh, bang away, Maidens, bang it good and strong
What in the world will the good fans do when the Maidens are all gone?
Our Lucky loves Tom Hiddleston
He gives her all the feels
She thinks she’d get the best of him, but
In the end she always kneels!
Our Lucky makes cosplayers blush
With her sweet affections
Don’t flirt with her in spandex, boys;
It don’t hide erections! (That’s true!)
Bang away, Maidens, bang it sure and true
The fans will come from miles around for a good ol’ Maiden screw
Oh, bang away, Maidens, bang it good and strong
What in the world will the good fans do when the Maidens are all gone?
Our Flint “bangs” a bit differently
She brought her gun to con
Shot off The Doctor’s stetson
While dressed up as River Song
Our Flint she once met Link, they say,
She made that hero drool
But then she left him in her dust
And went to save Hyrule!
Bang away, Maidens, bang it sure and true
The fans will come from miles around for a good ol’ Maiden screw
Oh, bang away, Maidens, bang it good and strong
What in the world will the good fans do when the Maidens are all gone?
Bang away, Maidens, bang it sure and true
The fans will come from miles around for a good ol’ Maiden screw
Oh, bang away, Maidens, bang it good and strong
What in the world will the good fans do when the Maidens are all gone?
Bang Away, Maidens, by Misbehavin’ Maidens

CONsent, by Misbehavin' Maidens

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from the album “Sloppy Seconds”
Traditional, rewritten by Caroline Boulden
lyrics
If you want to take a picture, get consent
If you want to take a picture, get consent
If you want to take a picture, they’re a person, not a fixture,
If you want to take a picture, get consent
If you want to touch their cosplay, get consent
If you want to touch their cosplay, get consent
If you want to touch their cosplay, and don’t want to cause them dismay,
If you want to touch their cosplay, get consent
If you want a big embrace, get consent
If you want a big embrace, get consent
If you want a big embrace, there’s a way to close the space,
If you want a big embrace, get consent
And if they still say no, back away
If they still say no, that’s ok
If they decline your advance, it’s their body, not your chance
If they still say no, just GO AWAY
CONsent, by Misbehavin’ Maidens