Filk: A Very Subjective Overview

[pameladlloyd]

Over in asakiyume's journal, the topic of filk came up. I started explaining what filk is, from my perspective, then realized this was a big enough topic to deserve a post of it's own. She encouraged me, too, suggesting that things said in comments often go unread. I'm going to repeat my first paragraph from those comments, so my apologies to those of you who do read comments and have friended us both. To make this a little easier on folks, I've also tucked some of this under a cut.

I generally describe filk music as the folk music of science fiction and fantasy fans. To the best of my knowledge, it arose from that tradition* and much of the music has the cadence of folk. But, it's really a very diverse category, much more related to the topic of the songs, rather than to the origin of the music genre. A lot of the songs are parodies and use old folk tunes or contemporary songs as the melody base; there are some people who so equate this type of song with filk that they insist that this category defines filk. However, there are also a lot of people who are creating new filk songs in a variety of different musical styles.

I just googled "Tom Smith filk," as he's kinda the king of the parody school of filk and discovered that he's on LJ: filkertom. Jordin Kare is another of this ilk and even rates a Wikipedia article. I'll bet Tom Smith has one, too. *checks* Yup, there it is, second on the google results.

These guys can be a lot of fun, but it's really all about being in on the joke, more than about the music, I think. *g*

Mercedes Lackey has done several CDs worth of original songs (both lyrics and musical score), many of them related to her books, some of them related to other people's books, and some tell new stories in their own right I believe. She often worked with Leslie Fish, and Heather Alexander did magnificent vocals for some of these. Her music is available at Firebird Arts.

Darn it! There are just so many artists out there. I'm going to list a few of the ones I know about, although I'm sure there are many more. I'm happy to answer questions to the extent that I'm able, although I'm really just a casual filker and there are many people out there far better qualified than I for that task.

• The Duras Sisters (A capella; mostly inspired by movies or TV.)


• Tom Tuerff (He's been featured on the Dr. Demento radio show. If you're Catholic, or just have a lot of friends or family who are Catholic, you should definitely search out Tom's song, "Catholic Guilt.")


• Nancy Louise Freeman (Blues and Country Western, although not in the same song, so far as I know.)
  
• Dr. Jane Robinson (I can only find lyrics and miscellany, no home page or songs. I have her CD "Dr. Jane's REMAINS" which has a bunch of songs related to dinosaurs.


• Leslie Fish (One of the stars of filk, she writes strong lyrics. She has a deep, gravelly voice and often sings songs from a male perspecitive. She's done a lot of work with Mercedes Lackey.)


• Joe Bethancourt (Has done some filk, but now positions himself as "Arizona's Premier Acoustic Musician.")


• Tri-Destiny (A tri of pop singers; they'd never heard of filk until fandom discovered their music, which is often inspired by literary works, as well as media. Their Mr. Spock is hilarious.


• Jeff and Maya Bohnhoff (I couldn't open their homepage, but I did find a Wikipedia article about Maya. Their music is mostly parodies, using classic rock as the musical basis. My husband complains that they completely destroy the Eagles. *g*)


• Cynthia McQuillin (One of the few on this list for which I don't own at least one tape or CD, although I like what I've heard of her work.)

* There's a great old apocryphal story about a typo in the programming schedule at one of the early cons, in which a folk music gathering was described using the work filk, thus originating the term, but there doesn't seem to be complete agreement about that.

Comments

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

Welcome and thank you. That is certainly the most detailed accounting I've ever read about the origins of filk and I really enjoyed reading it. Lee Gold clearly did a lot of research on the subject, to the point that I almost felt I was reading a folklorist's treatise about filk. (If there are no folklorists studying filk and/or sf-fandom, they are missing a really dynamic segment of society, I think.)

I was curious to learn more about her and discovered a sketchy Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Gold)* that mentions that "[s]he is considered an expert on the application of folklore to real-world based RPG settings, particularly Japan." Do you know if she is self-taught in folkloristics, or if she's trained in the field?

I also found the XENOFILKIA HOME PAGE (http://places.to/xeno/xeno.html), which appears to be mostly (if not entirely) the work of Lee and her husband, Barry. She includes a brief definition of filk there that I'm pleased to think doesn' differ too much from my own.

Once again, thank you for joining in the conversation and for providing the link.

* How cool is it, that filkers rate Wikipedia articles? I love the absolute breadth of Wikipedia and its coverage of subjects that would never be included in a traditional encyclopedia.

[madfilkentist]

I really don't know anything about Lee's formal education -- just that she thinks before she writes and is very good about not passing on poorly vetted information. She's known Karen Anderson for a long time, and she's one of the mainstays of filk fandom.

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

Works for me. There are certainly plenty of autodidacts who do as well or better at communicating about their subject of passion than those for whom the subject is just a job or something they learned in school.

[madfilkentist]

The link you found to the Xenofilkia home page is actually a mirror or alias. The main home page is here. Steve Savitzky provides hosting and technical support for it.

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

Thank you!