For space is wide and good friends are too few.
Vor is the name we won from our fathers.
Vor is the love that our mothers provide.
Vor is the honor we share with our brothers.
Vor is the duty that keeps us alive.
“Vor,” by Bill Sutton – a good, old-fashioned space hymn for the Vorkosigan Saga. This version features Bill and Brenda Sutton, plus Betsy Tinney on cello, Chas Somdahl on guitar, and Dave Clement, Becca Leathers, and Michelle Dockrey providing backing vocals – including a beautiful Russian counterpoint, written by Michelle.
Tonight’s the night of Halloween,
and the fairy court will ride;
And she that would her true love win
at Miles Cross must bide.
Happy Halloween (or Hallowe’en, depending on your spelling preference)!
In celebration, have some filkers performing everyone’s favorite traditional ballad about getting knocked up by a weird guy in the woods and having to go rescue him on Halloween before the Faerie can sacrifice him to the Devil 🙂
This version of Tam Lin is performed by Tricky Pixie, aka S.J. Tucker, Alexander James Adams, and Betsy Tinney. Lyrics are available on bandcamp.
“Paper Moon” by Seanan McGuire, performed here by Seanan, S.J. Tucker, Vixy & Tony, and Betsy Tinney.
As Seanan explains before performing, “In a dimension very much like our own, Firefly is still on the air and they’ve made spin offs. And I keep writing theme songs for those spin offs.”
They raid your liquor cabinet, though they’re not of age to drink
They’re staging tango competitions in the kitchen sink
They’re critiquing your new painting (your perspective’s off, they say)
And they’re analyzing your décor for optimal feng shui
“Eight-Legged Blues,” by special-edition four-member Vixy & Tony (Michelle Dockrey, Tony Fabris, Betsy Tinney, and Sunnie Larsen)
The part of the spiders is credited to Betsy’s cello, Raven.
I usually prefer to get studio recordings when I can, if only to make it more likely that all the words will be intelligible but…this one is special. They set out to create a geek anthem, and boy did they ever.
Michelle Dockrey said this about writing this song:
Background: this was commissioned by Tony, who wanted a geek anthem. I got partway through writing it and found myself blocked. Thinking of all the things still wrong, and things that were going on at the time both in and out of fandom– harrassment, backlash over representation, lack of protections still for so many– I just didn’t see how I could write a song about how much it got better.
I confessed this tearfully to Tony, who said, essentially, “write it the way you see it.”
“We Are Who We Are,” by Vixy & Tony, lead vocals by Michelle Dockrey with Tony Fabris on guitar, Betsy Tinney on cello, Sunnie Larsen on violin, and the attendants of FilkCONtinental 2014…as themselves. Lyrics and more information here
I am a daughter of the glade,
and I will make no man a wife!
By Hoof and Horn I came to be;
in Song and Storm I came to life!
Leave off thy chase! Thy prize is here!
and she will love you without fear!
“Daughter of the Glade,” by S.J. Tucker, a sequel to Heather Alexander’s “Creature of the Wood,” performed by Tricky Pixie (S.J. Tucker, Alexander James Adams, and Betsy Tinney)
I Am A Creature Of The Wood,
Forsaken In My Solitude
My Song Is Pleasure And Is Pain,
My Song Can Drive A Man Insane
So Come With Me, My Pipes I’ll Play,
And We Will Dance ‘Till Break Of Day
I Shall Be Thy Lover
“Creature of the Wood,” performed by Tricky Pixie (S.J. Tucker, Alexander James Adams, and Betsy Tinney), lyrics by Philip R. Obermarck and music by Heather Alexander
Absinthe in an open wound,
I am ashes on the wind,
I am Snow White stained and fallen,
Drop your guard and let me in
And I’ll be you.
“I Am (The Doppelganger’s Song),” by Seanan McGuire, performed by Vixy & Tony with Betsy Tinney on violin
Chords and lyrics available here
Have a nice, post-apocalyptic song.
Lyrics and chords available here.