For space is wide and good friends are too few.
Gold is for the mistress – silver for the maid –
Copper for the craftsman, cunning at his trade.
“Good!” said the Baron, sitting in his hall,
“But Iron – Cold Iron – is master of them all.”
Rudyard Kipling’s “Cold Iron,” set and sung by Leslie Fish
This was requested, and I’m kind of surprised I hadn’t posted it before; it’s one of my favorite Fish/Kiplings. Kipplefishes? Fishlings.
“Rimini,” a marching song for the Roman legions, words by Rudyard Kipling, tune by Leslie Fish.
I spent a while messing with Riffstation to try and figure out the chords for this, and it worked…alright. What I came up with may not be exact, but it works. Try substituting fifths and nearby minor chords if anything doesn’t sound right to you. I believe Fish has it capoed up four frets; anyway, this is the easiest key I found.
Lyrics and chords here
And can you keep your head, your backbone, or your heart?
We all found out the answer on the day it fell apart.
“The Day It Fell Apart,” by Leslie Fish.
A small apocalypse story. Lyrics available here.
Cancel my salvation, give me leave to go
Back to the freedom of the snow
A Leslie Fish song about finding strength in the (temporary) absence of civilization, because the blogger behind the curtain is still desperate Mad Max trash.
And there’s a very nice flute part.
Lyrics available here
If there be anything here
That cometh not in the name of the powers of light
Then in the name of the powers of light let it be gone
This is an odd song – hard to parse, kind of urban fantasy, and probably about knocking California into the ocean or something. I like it a lot.
By Leslie Fish, lyrics and chords available here. There are…way too many chords in this song. Fish has a “one word, one chord” style of text-setting, but this is an extreme example of the trope.
According to the liner notes for Avalon Is Risen, the chorus has been effectively used as a banishing ritual.
“Valhalla,” a song celebrating the Society for Creative Anachronism, by Leslie Fish
Lyrics available here, actual legitimate download here
Another post-apocalyptic song by Leslie Fish, sung by Mark Heiman. This is one of my favorite Fish songs, but I’ve never actually heard it sung by her.
I got left alone in a recording studio last week, so I thought I’d do a recording of the Doctor Who song thebastardofgloucester and scribefindegil wrote, to the tune of Leslie Fish’s “Roman Centurion’s Song.” Because it’s great and I want people to hear it.
Lyrics and a link to the original song here
Advice for surviving the collapse of society from Leslie Fish.
Lyrics and chords available here
(recommended to me by animatedamerican)
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.