Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

A correction is in order, here. The term "filk" was originally a typographical error in a fanzine article written by Lee Jacobs in the early 1950s. This was at a time when folk music was becoming popular, and as fandom is a reflection of the mundane world in many ways, and since acoustic guitars are pretty easily carried around and eminently playable, many science fiction fans naturally gravitated to it.

Originally, filking did, indeed, involve writing new, science-fictionally oriented lyrics to well-known tunes as parodies or to comment on fannish events and politics, but it quickly graduated to a more serious form, with the writing talents of authors like Poul Anderson (who was also heavily involved with the SCA), Randall Garrett and Marion Zimmer Bradley writing new lyrics to their own music. This aspect of filk has become dominant, with many of the filkers and filk-groups recording professionally and offering tapes and cds at conventions, through the mail, and online.

(As an aside, a number of typos - or to use the fannish term, tyops - have entered the fannish lexicon, including "potscrad" for "postcard" and, more recently, "cow-orkers" for "co-workers." Us sf fans like to play with words, since we can't get dates.)

Oh, it certainly qualifies as filk in the original sense. I'd love to hear someone sing this.

One of the aspects of the segment that I wanted to comment on had to do with this very thing: common meter. There are relatively few rhythm/rhyme schemes thatg are really euphonious, so the fact that you can sing so many different sets of lyrics to the same melody is inevitable, if frequently surprising (not to mention funny as hell). One of my favorites is the recording by Barnes and Barnes of the theme for "Green Acres" sung to the tune of the Beatles' "A Day in the Life", titled (of course) "A Day in the Life of Green Acres". It's not quite as croggling as "Amazing Grace" sung to "Gilligan's Island", but it's still neater'n a skeeter's peter.

Here's the YouTube link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtakUulufNk

Same as your URL. That's B&B all right; I don't think there was ever a video, just the single.

Martha, I live to serve. Or I sieve to lurve, I forget which.

I sent a longer note concerning "filking" and its origins in science-ficton fandom to the hosts, and was asked to post it here; given the slightest encouragement, I suppose I can force myself:

The fannish lexicon is a large one, and one that has been written about from both within the field and without. It's an insider slang, as most of them are, designed to help bind together a group all too frequently ridiculed and sneered at by non-fans, or "mundanes." Fans, whether meeting together at cons or exchanging self-produced fanzines laboriously mimeographed or spirit-duplicated (mostly replaced these days by blogs, more's the pity), gather together as much to enjoy each others' company and swap stories about other cons as they do to celebrate the science-fictional literature that brought them together in the first place.

It was, for a long time, the only place that nerds, geeks and book-worms could get together and not get beat up or teased; we could talk to each other about the books we loved without having to worry about being called names.

Except, of course, when we called each OTHER names. Like every other group of human beings with specialized interests, fans can get plenty cranky with each other. In fact, at the very first World Science-Fiction Convention, NyCon in 1939, part of the fannish group which organized it denied entry to the OTHER part of the same group (the Futurian Society, a New York City group which produced more than its share of sf authors, editors and artists) because of mundane politics - half were Republicans and the other half, Socialists. Well, I never claimed we were perfect, just put-upon. This wasn't the first fannish feud, and it was certainly not the last; the history of science-fiction, both fans and pros, is rife with conflict and one can sometimes be deafened by the twin sounds of hairs being split and nostrils flaring. Such, as the man said, is life.

So. More than you wanted to know, I'm sure. Believe me, I can empty a room in six seconds when I get going; you oughta hear me go on about book-tweakery like edition points and errata sheets. I enjoy your show, and frequently learn something new, which keeps me younger than my 58 years - young enough to enjoy Fatboy Slim and the Chemical Brothers, at any rate. And never forget: Yngvie is a louse.