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Just Plain Filk
Feb. 20th, 2021 08:00 pmThere's a local musician who's also a part-time college instructor, who I became Facebook friends with after seeing her perform with three other local singers on this very night in 2020, the last show I saw in the Before Times. She posted today that she has talked with one of the schools about hosting an online Zoom-type course that she would lead- in songwriting,...
and I'm thinking about signing up for it, if indeed there is an "it" to sign up for.
I know my limits. I can read music, sortof, but I know nothing about how to write music that would be sung. Chords, harmonies, time changes- I get them in terms of appreciation but have no clue how to begin. Presumably this would be covered in some form.
On the other hand, I can write, and even have done so over the years in a variety of forms- from straight prose to strictly metered poetry. But my fortissimo, if I have one at all, is the ability to play in the sandbox of a genre I've always known but only recently discovered had a name:
Filk.
Fittingly, it got its name from a typo
in an essay by Lee Jacobs, "The Influence of Science Fiction on Modern American Filk Music". Wrai Ballard, then editor of the Spectator Amateur Press Society refused to publish it for fear that the article's bawdy content could get them into trouble with the Post Office under the Comstock Laws, but found the typo itself amusing, and mentioned it repeatedly.
The genre is rooted in science fiction, but has come to extend beyond that. For me, most likely, the sources were MAD magazine's regular spoofing of popular songs in its movie and television parodies, and the albums and other songs of satirists such as Tom Lehrer and Buffalo's own Mark Russell. Here's one from a Star Trek musical spoofed in the pages of the magazine, belittling the trope of the "redshirt" probably long before any fan had popularized the term:
I don't remember a lot of the ones I came up with myself, but if I hear the underlying song, usually every word, every lick will come back to me. I did them in a high school variety show, in our church's Yute Grupe, and in my college dorm in a nerd's desperate effort to fit in by being funny.
They still come to me. Like last night, after several days of Ted Cruz getting into deeper and deeper shit over his being busted for leaving Texas for Cancun. A song from the 2004 debut album from the folk trio Girlyman. It was titled Postcards from Mexico-
- which, coincidentally, is also the title of what I wrote:
That storm hit Texas
Like a screen door in a polary wind
All I could think was "I'm a bad Canadian"
But the plants were all iced over
And our grid access was all closed
Deregulation, I suppose
The sound of the Cancun surf was like longing feels
And it whispered my name in the dark
And the thick yellow frozen Texas
Night sky through the window
Chilled itself into me
Deep as my history
CHORUS:
Baby
I'm there on the runway
I know how to make an escape
(This desperation
To pack up and move on and see)
(You're cold hearted
You're lonesome and shady)
I left them all crying over postcards from Mexico
Baby, Cancun is far enough away
My poor dog always loves me
When I'm on my way out the door
Everybody needs me and begs me to stay
Guess I learned something from you
And the way you stared right through me
REPEAT CHORUS WHILE SNEAKING BACK INTO THE COUNTRY AND CHANGING THE STORY THREE TIMES
----
Maybe I'll learn something about how my brain works in this area- to be able to do the same thing on a blank slate that I can do on a Broadway song or an obscure piece of folk, or at least to understand why I can't. Maybe eventually I can filk one of my own songs.
I may also learn a bit about the law. Parody is one of the best-defined areas of fair use in copyright law, and you can get away with a lot more than in many other areas. Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. is a 1994 Supreme Court case between the camps of Roy Orbison and 2 Live Crew, which held that song parody could be a fair use even if intended to be used commercially. Somewhat older but closer to home, the copyright owner tried suing NBC over an early Saturday Night Live bit parodying the "I Love New York" state song in a skit about Sodom and Gomorrah. The lower court dismissed the infringement claim and that was affirmed by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. The earlier decision, quoted (with video clips embedded) in this blog piece about the case, literally told the original artist that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and tended to enhance rather than impinge on the value of the original.
I'll post more about the course if it gets going. Meanwhile, come back tomorrow night; we're going to do fractions.
and I'm thinking about signing up for it, if indeed there is an "it" to sign up for.
I know my limits. I can read music, sortof, but I know nothing about how to write music that would be sung. Chords, harmonies, time changes- I get them in terms of appreciation but have no clue how to begin. Presumably this would be covered in some form.
On the other hand, I can write, and even have done so over the years in a variety of forms- from straight prose to strictly metered poetry. But my fortissimo, if I have one at all, is the ability to play in the sandbox of a genre I've always known but only recently discovered had a name:
Filk.
Fittingly, it got its name from a typo
in an essay by Lee Jacobs, "The Influence of Science Fiction on Modern American Filk Music". Wrai Ballard, then editor of the Spectator Amateur Press Society refused to publish it for fear that the article's bawdy content could get them into trouble with the Post Office under the Comstock Laws, but found the typo itself amusing, and mentioned it repeatedly.
The genre is rooted in science fiction, but has come to extend beyond that. For me, most likely, the sources were MAD magazine's regular spoofing of popular songs in its movie and television parodies, and the albums and other songs of satirists such as Tom Lehrer and Buffalo's own Mark Russell. Here's one from a Star Trek musical spoofed in the pages of the magazine, belittling the trope of the "redshirt" probably long before any fan had popularized the term:
I don't remember a lot of the ones I came up with myself, but if I hear the underlying song, usually every word, every lick will come back to me. I did them in a high school variety show, in our church's Yute Grupe, and in my college dorm in a nerd's desperate effort to fit in by being funny.
They still come to me. Like last night, after several days of Ted Cruz getting into deeper and deeper shit over his being busted for leaving Texas for Cancun. A song from the 2004 debut album from the folk trio Girlyman. It was titled Postcards from Mexico-
- which, coincidentally, is also the title of what I wrote:
That storm hit Texas
Like a screen door in a polary wind
All I could think was "I'm a bad Canadian"
But the plants were all iced over
And our grid access was all closed
Deregulation, I suppose
The sound of the Cancun surf was like longing feels
And it whispered my name in the dark
And the thick yellow frozen Texas
Night sky through the window
Chilled itself into me
Deep as my history
CHORUS:
Baby
I'm there on the runway
I know how to make an escape
(This desperation
To pack up and move on and see)
(You're cold hearted
You're lonesome and shady)
I left them all crying over postcards from Mexico
Baby, Cancun is far enough away
My poor dog always loves me
When I'm on my way out the door
Everybody needs me and begs me to stay
Guess I learned something from you
And the way you stared right through me
REPEAT CHORUS WHILE SNEAKING BACK INTO THE COUNTRY AND CHANGING THE STORY THREE TIMES
----
Maybe I'll learn something about how my brain works in this area- to be able to do the same thing on a blank slate that I can do on a Broadway song or an obscure piece of folk, or at least to understand why I can't. Maybe eventually I can filk one of my own songs.
I may also learn a bit about the law. Parody is one of the best-defined areas of fair use in copyright law, and you can get away with a lot more than in many other areas. Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. is a 1994 Supreme Court case between the camps of Roy Orbison and 2 Live Crew, which held that song parody could be a fair use even if intended to be used commercially. Somewhat older but closer to home, the copyright owner tried suing NBC over an early Saturday Night Live bit parodying the "I Love New York" state song in a skit about Sodom and Gomorrah. The lower court dismissed the infringement claim and that was affirmed by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. The earlier decision, quoted (with video clips embedded) in this blog piece about the case, literally told the original artist that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and tended to enhance rather than impinge on the value of the original.
I'll post more about the course if it gets going. Meanwhile, come back tomorrow night; we're going to do fractions.