Drink, drink, to Charlie Fort’s memory –
Marvelous doings, and marvelous sights.
Drink, drink, we may as well join them.
The gods are not crazy; they’re higher than kites!
Charles Fort was a turn-of-the-(last)-century American writer with an interest in unexplained phenomena. In honor of him, Leslie Fish wrote a song about some gods getting plastered.
It’s worth also crediting Kristoph Klover, who was in charge of recording sheep and roosters and making a pennywhistle sound drunk.
Leslie Fish’s “Polaris/Recall” based on a fragment of verse in the story by H.P. Lovecraft, “Polaris”
(the story is good except for the racism, which is a pretty good summary of a lot of Lovecraft)
Do you have any idea how hard it is to find serious Lovecraft filk? Do you?
Julia Ecklar’s unsettling (but not necessarily wrong) take on an ambiguously probably Christian God
(as an ex-Christian with a thing for melodramatic religious symbolism, I love this song)
Lyrics available here. I intend to figure out the chords sometime. Poke me if I take too long.
Heather Dale’s song for Joan of Arc
Lyrics and chords available here
(Somebody wrote a version about Joan Watson, but I haven’t been able to find lyrics. Anybody out there have any leads?)
“Sing me a song,” said the child in the garden.
“Grandmother, sing! I’ll sit here by your side.
Sing me a song of the world they call Terra,
The world that you came from when you were a bride.”
“Child I have journeyed all over the starfields
Out to the rim of the worlds that we know–
Child, I can’t sing you a song about Terra!
For Terra was too many planets ago!
“Sing me a song,” said the child in the garden
“Grandmother, sing to me! Tell me no lies.
Sing me a song of the world they call Terra;
I know you remember, by the tears in your eyes.”
“Child I have journied all over the starfields;
Child, I have left all my memories behind.
Child, I can’t sing you a song about Terra,
For I have put Terra clear out of my mind.”
“Grandmother, sing!” said the child in the garden.
“I have learned all about stubborn from you.
Sing me a song of the world they call Terra,
Where the grasses grow green and the oceans are blue.”
“Child how you weary me, asking of Terra!
You are no babe! You should understand why…
We who left Terra for ever and ever
Were those who could tell her forever goodbye.”
A haunting space song by Suzette Haden Elgin, who passed away this year.
Sung by Mark Heiman at Carleton College’s (well, Carleton’s nerd club’s) annual Filk Night in 2014. It’s a hard song to find recordings of, so I’m grateful he’s letting me post this.
I was really really sad about Terry Pratchett, so I sang the last song on Steeleye Span’s Wintersmith album (the one where Tiffany breaks the fourth wall and sings to her author).
This might just be the saddest song ever written, if you ask me.
“Dog On The Moon,” by Garry Novikoff
(and the dog doesn’t die; that’s not why it’s sad)
Lyrics available here