Filking

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Marsha from La Mesa, California.

Hiya, Marsha.

Hello, Marsha.

Hi, Grant and Martha.

Hello, welcome. What’s up?

Well, I am looking for a term that describes a musical phenomenon.

And I have asked musicians and English teachers and many people over about 15 years, and nobody knows.

And the phenomenon is this.

You can sing the theme from Gilligan’s Island to the tune of Amazing Grace,

And you can sing Amazing Grace to the tune of Gilligan’s Island, and each syllable and note fits.

Isn’t that odd?

You’re saying we can sing that? I don’t know.

One can sing it.

One can do that.

And so the terms that people have offered, and I just don’t accept them, it’s not plagiarism, it’s not a song parody, and it’s just too good to be a coincidence.

Very interesting.

So let’s hear it.

Oh, no.

Well, okay, I knew this would happen.

I hope your show’s not canceled over this.

Warm up those pipes.

Here’s the first one.

Would you say you hope our show isn’t canceled over this?

When you hear me sing, yes.

Take it off the air.

Here’s the first.

Just sit right back and hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip

That started on this tropic port aboard this tiny ship.

And here’s the other one.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost, but now I’m fine.

Was blind, but now I see.

Was blind, but now I see.

Yay!

Bravo!

That is marvelous.

I’m holding up my BIC right now.

That was great!

Thanks.

So people have told me that there are other examples, but I don’t know any other.

Oh, that was great.

So you need a name for this besides great fun, right?

Yes, I do.

Well, there are a couple of terms that fit this, but I’ve got to tell you, most of my experience with this kind of thing is from a radio program on the BBC called I’m Sorry, I Haven’t a Clue.

Have you ever heard this show?

No.

Okay, this has been on the air for like 30 years, although Humphrey Littleton, the host of the show, died a couple of years ago.

I think it’s still in reruns.

And they have a segment on this show called One Song to the Tune of Another.

It’s exactly what you’re talking about.

And it is the funniest part of the show.

I mean, the whole show is a laugh and a gas and a goof,

And they just kind of basically mess around for a little while.

My favorite, I think, was Kung Fu Fighting, sung to the tune of Greensleeves,

Which I will not try to.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, seriously, they make it work.

Grant, I had to.

I don’t even know Greensleeves.

I don’t even know Greensleeves.

Okay.

But, of course, Weird Al Yankovic did this a couple times, right?

Welcome to parodies, though, wouldn’t you think?

No, but he took the words to the theme song to the Beverly Hills Billings

And sung it to the tune of Dire Straits’ Money for Nothing.

Wait a minute.

Do you remember this?

Wait a minute.

I didn’t know that.

And he even did a kind of 3D animated video that was like their video,

That was like the MTV played the heck out of.

Like, this is 20 years ago or more.

Oh, I’ll have to look that up online.

So this is my experience with this.

And the only term that I know until I asked somebody about this that fits this

Comes from the science fiction world and a couple other kind of hobby worlds,

Like the Society of the Creative Anachronisms, is that what it’s called?

They have a term, and other people in affiliated and related kind of hobbies and past time,

Called filking, F-I-L-K.

Wow.

And a filk, or to filk, a filk is a song where you know the tune,

It’s a tune that everyone knows, and you put new words to it.

And usually it’s thematic according to whatever you’re performing.

So you might take, I don’t know, jingle bells and sing about knights and fair ladies

And slaying dragons and so forth.

Okay.

So whatever.

But they do this kind of thing.

And it’s the kind of thing that you might do at a science fiction convention

As kind of impromptu after dinner entertainment.

But there’s another term for this,

And this one has got a lot more history behind it than the word filking,

Which dates probably to the 1960s.

And this is a contrafactum.

A contrafactum is composing new text to older melodies.

And really, this is something that you hear in hymns,

Where it’s a tune that’s used again and again,

But new words are put to it, sometimes in the same language, sometimes in another language.

But usually you make a sacred melody profane or vice versa or just use the same kind of hymn tune.

And this is because you don’t want to have to teach a congregation new music when you’ve got a new message.

Does that make sense?

Same thing with the Star Spangled Banner.

That’s right.

That’s an old drinking song.

That’s right.

And America the Beautiful is basically the same as God Saved the Queen.

Right, right.

So the word for that is contrafactum?

Yeah, it’s related to the English word counterfeit.

Which we get from French.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah.

But again, it’s not quite the same because it’s not a perfect swap of the two.

Right.

And I think Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star and The Alphabet Song do that.

Very good.

For that same reason.

The tune’s already there and someone else could learn it.

Even my three-year-old son has discovered that.

Oh, very good.

They’re the same, Papa.

I’m like, yes, they are, son.

I was going to ask Marcia if she’s an Emily Dickinson fan.

Well, I know that there, I remember hearing something about Emily Dickinson in relation to this topic, but I don’t remember what it is.

Right. Well, I think that all the Emily Dickinson purists should turn down their radios for about 30 seconds because of what I’m going to say.

Because it’s fun. Most of Emily Dickinson, I think, is written in iambic tetrameter.

And so it’s got the same rhythm.

Because I could not stop for death, he kindly stopped for me.

The carriage held but just ourselves and immortality.

And you can also do that to the House of the Rising Sun.

Because I could not stop for death, he kindly stopped for me.

The carriage held but just ourselves.

Anyway.

And Amazing Grace.

So it’s sort of, you know, you get this rhythmic skeleton and then you can put all these different things on it.

So bottom line, is there a word for this?

Is it Gilliganism maybe?

Well, we can call it contrafactum.

We can call these songs contrafacta, which is the plural,

Or we can call them filks or filking,

But it’s really not very precise, is it?

Because we need to indicate that there’s a swap going on here.

You could even just call it a filk swap or a filking swap.

A filk swap.

Yeah.

An amazing swap.

An amazing swap.

I like that.

I like that.

Well, Marcia, something tells me we’re going to hear from a lot of people who have more examples.

Oh, that would be great.

I’ll keep listening, so I’ll hear them.

Okay.

Our pleasure, Marcia.

Thank you for calling.

-huh.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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