Filksong Genealogy: Green Hills of Harmony


(Series: Filksong Genealogy)
So there’s this lovely folk song, variously called “Farewell tae th’ Creeks” or “Banks of Sicily,” which like many folk songs has gone through a lot of different permutations.  The above is a rendition by the Chad Mitchell Trio; their lyrics can be found here, while the original lyrics can be found here.
What happens when filkers get hold of something like this?  Welllll … a lot of things.
Here’s “Green Hills of Harmony” (lyrics) by Al Frank, performed here by (I think) Dandelion Wine.  It’s about the Dorsai, a fictional mercenary society from a science fiction book series by Gordon R. Dickson.

And here’s Frank Hayes’s parody of “Green Hills,” entitled “Don’t Ask” (lyrics).  It’s … also about the Dorsai.  Sort of.

And here is what may be the most recent riff on the same tune:  Erin & Rand Bellavia’s Pegasus-nominated filksong “Cliffs of Insanity.”

What I don’t see much of is kids in college or just out of college doing it. Maybe they’ve moved on to anime.

Frank Hayes, interviewed about filk music by Alanna Nash
This is hilarious to me (despite being one of the sad truths of Filk These Days), because on one hand I think the (to my mind, at this point artificial) divide between science fiction and anime actually has distanced older fans from younger ones, and on the other hand it recalls the joke that never gets old, pointing at any given thing and saying “is that anime”

Never Set the Cat on Fire – Frank Hayes

Never set the cat on fire, you only will annoy it
The flames will make the beast perspire; it surely won’t enjoy it 

“Never Set the Cat on Fire” by Frank Hayes, a classic filk that goes in a much different direction than you’d expect it to.
Lyrics with chords available here.