=============================================================================AN EGOCENTRIC AND CONVOLUTED HISTORY OF EARLY "FILK" AND FILKINGby Lee Gold, Copyright March, 1997This essay originally appeared in the ConChord 12 Songbook.I found organized SF fandom in 1967 at Westercon XX. Filksinging was a two hourafternoon program item, with Bruce Pelz and Ted Johnstone singing out of Pelz'sFILKSONG MANUALS (recently republished in a one-volume version, $13 includingshipping and handling; contact Bruce Pelz at bep@mail.deltanet.com or 15931Kalisher St., Granada Hills, CA 91344-3951). Bruce and Ted sat at a table in thefront of the room, with Ted playing guitar. They chose what songs to sing, andaudience members sang along if they felt like it. There were songs from John MyersMyers' Silverlock set to music and "The Orcs Marching Song" to the tune of "TheBallad of Jesse James" and Tom Digby's "Little Teeny Eyes" about a very strangecomputer -- and many, many others.A month later I attended my first LASFS meeting with copies for sale of THE THIRDFOUNDATION #76 (the fanzine's first issue), containing my first filksong: "Oh,What a Beautiful Martian." One of the LASFSians who sang it that night was afellow named Barry Gold, whom I married two years later.In turn, I bought Pelz's first three Filksong Manuals (published for the 1965, 1966and 1967 Westercons). A couple of years later, I bought his fourth Filksong Manual-- and also an old fanzine, THE STF & FSY SONGBOOK, edited by Hal Shapiro, dated2060 (which Pelz informed me had been brought out for the 1960 Worldcon).A few years after that, Ted Johnstone sold me a copy of WEST BY ONE AND BY ONE, ananthology of Baker Street Irregular pieces published by Poul Anderson in 1961. Thelast piece was "An Introduction to Filk Singing," by Karen Anderson. It begins: In the first place, "filk song" was a typographical error. That wasobvious to everybody who read the essay in whose title it appeared.Besides it had no meaning. Who ever heard of a filk? Since the essay appeared in an amateur publication circulated amongscience fiction fans, though, there was only one thing to do. Ratherthan waste a phrase like "filk song," something must be created towhich the name could be applied. Now, some eight years later, it means"a topical song borrowing the melody and structure of a well-known folkor popular song." And there are hundreds of them.Despite Karen Anderson's definition, there were already filksongs with originaltunes. Of course, back then the only ways to learn a new tune were reading sheetmusic (Pelz's Filksong Manuals had sheet music for many songs) or picking it upfrom a recording (phonograph record, wire recorder or reel-to-reel tape recorder).Eventually I got around to asking older fans about just what fan had originallytypoed "folk song" into "filk song" in just what "amateur publication." Theculprit turned out to be Lee Jacobs, a LArea fan who had died shortly before Ientered fandom. Back in the 50s, he'd submitted an essay to SAPS (SpectatorAmateur Press Society) entitled "The Influence of Science Fiction on ModernAmerican Filk Music" about supposed science fiction incidents in folk song, whichwas a straight-faced analysis of a number of thoroughly filthy "dirty songs,"taking various metaphors in them as if they were meant literally.Wrai Ballard, the Official Editor of SAPS, rejected the essay on the grounds thatthe songs would get the APA in trouble with the Post Office, by violating the lawsagainst mailing pornography. But he did notice that LeeJ's title had an interest-ing typo: FILK SONG. He told his friends about it. And he had a lot of friends.Lee Jacobs eventually published his essay elsewhere (this time getting the titlespelled accurately), but by that time most of the people in organized SF fandom hadheard about "filk songs." They decided, as Karen Anderson wrote, to apply theterm filk to the already long-standing tradition of SF/fannish songs and music.Most pre-cassette recorder filk falls into two basic categories: 1) Melodieswritten for poems from professional fantasy and science fiction (with lyrics bysuch authors as Myers, Tolkien and Heinlein), and 2) Lyrics written by towell-known melodies (folk songs, show tunes, Gilbert & Sullivan, popular songs).A number of such lyrics appeared in professionally published F&SF includingTolkien's "Troll Song" (to the tune of "The Fox Is on the Town-O") and Heinlein'ssong in "The Roads Must Roll" (to the tune of "The Caissons Go Rolling Along").Other lyrics were published in fanzines, both by pros and fans -- the distinctionwasn't as great in those days. Shapiro's 1960 filkbook included "Pore Stf is Dead"by Damon Knight and "The Author's Ordeal" by Isaac Asimov, as well as a number ofpieces by Charles Tanner and Randall Garrett summarizing various F&SF books' plots,inspired by Newman Levy's poems devoted to plays and operas. (Levy wrote thelyrics of "Thais"; I have no idea who wrote the tune. I reprinted one of Tanner'sfilksongs in Xenofilkia #1. Garrett's filksongs appear in THE BEST OF RANDALLGARRETT and the trade paperback anthologies TAKEOFF! and TAKEOFF TOO!)Early incidents of what we'd now call filk are chronicled in Harry Warner, Jr.'sexcellent histories of fandom: ALL OUR YESTERDAYS and A WEALTH OF FABLE. Warnernotes that "'Filksong' was a term that had not yet been invented, but songs weresung [at the 1940 Worldcon] that consisted of new lyrics with a science fictiontheme set to familiar tunes." Filthy Pierre aka Erwin Strauss gave me photocopiesof two sheets of these songs that he'd picked up, and I reprinted them inXenofilkia #18 and #19. They were by John Bristol, a pseudonym of Jack Speer. Theone that puzzles me is a short piece which is said to be to "the obvious tune."I'll print it here just in case someone can recognize it.We'll build a tempo-shipAnd we'll take a little trip,And watch a million years go by.At the third Michicon on Halloween weekend of 1943, to celebrate the opening ofBattle Creek's Slan Shack, "Some 22 persons drifted in and out over the weekend....A SCIENCE FICTION SONG SHEET was published, containing fan parodies suitablefor group singing." Warner notes that Jack Speer was there (blowing up blackballoons), so perhaps some or all of the songs were his."The first respectable publication of music in fandom was Jim Blish's setting ofKornbluth's poem "Cry in the Night," distributed in the May, 1945 VAPA [VanguardAmateur Press Association] mailing...."Just after World War II, Blish and Robert W. Lowndes got outside funds for theirattempt to found a firm producing 78-rpm discs. One fan composition, ChandlerDavis' 'Song of Worlds Unseen,' performed by pianist Bertha Melnik, was among theworks on Vanguard discs that actually got distributed....The company collapsedafter it lost an angel [backer]."The 1947 Worldcon had what Warner says was "Perhaps the first of the big drunkenworldcon parties...in the Hadley [Publishing Co.] site....Fans gaped in disbeliefat [John] Campbell sitting on the floor, helping Hubert Rogers and Benson Doolingto sing a variety of bawdy ditties." The next night saw Mary Mair singing "a vocalsetting of Sturgeon's 'Thunder and Roses' [and] Chandler Davis playing his owncompositions on the piano; [Joe] Kennedy, Fred Burgess, George Fox and Algis Budryssinging as a quartet a ditty about Amazing ("We shout to the skies the praises ofShaver,/ We wish that he were a moldy cadaver"); and Milton Rothman playing thepiano."At the 1952 Worldcon, "everyone joined in 'Glory, How We Hate Ray Bradbury' (to thetune of 'John Brown's Body' during the ball." (Also known as "The Bradbury HateSong," this was written by Ray Beam, Jack Natkin, Lewis Forbes, Jerry Hunter andprobably others. It appeared in Shapiro's STF & FSY SONGBOOK and was laterreprinted in a Pelz Filksong Manual.)A year later, in 1953, the Worldcon's last event was "Gordy Dickson...with hisguitar and science fiction ballads." And the year after that, in 1954, theWorldcon program included an operetta adapted from Ray Bradbury's "A Scent ofSarsaparilla," narrated by Anthony Boucher. At the 1955 Worldcon, a fan choir sanga number of Damon Knight's songs written to Richard Rodgers' tunes.Meanwhile, the Liverpool Science Fiction Society of England acquired a used taperecorder in 1953. It did a number of taped productions which, says Warner, "weredone with professional eclat, were hilarious to anyone who knew the peculiaritiesof both fandom and the BBC, and achieved such miracles as a full symphony orchestraaccompanying what sounded like a choir of hundreds of voices singing fannishwords."And in 1959, the Worldcon saw everyone present who had ever sold anything to JohnCampbell gather together to sing "Oh, No, John," written by Randall Garrett to thetune of the folksong of the same name. Randall later wrote, "We sang the song tohim, and he just stood there, looking superior, which he had every right to do, andwhen it was over, he looked around at all of us, and said, 'Thank you for yourstories.'" (This filksong appeared in the 1960 SAPS mailing and was reprinted in aPelz Filksong Manual with the note that "A fifth verse, added by Karen Anderson, isapparently lost." This verse finally appeared in FILKER UP #1.)In addition to writing filksongs sung at the 1940 Worldcon, Jack Speer was alsoresponsible for Fancyclopedia I in 1944. In 1959, Richard H. Eney enlarged thisinto Fancyclopedia II, which included the following definition of Filk Songcredited to [Nancy] Share: "A type of music which, if it weren't fannish, would becalled a folk song; fan parodies or pastiches of this or other types of mundanechansons." Fancy II's definition of Poetry also bears on Filk: Fantasy poetry, of course, dates from earliest times. Science-fictionhas not seemed such a good subject for poetic flights, but efforts havebeen made by fans (some worthy), and among famous poets scientisticpieces are found -- notable in Tennyson and Kipling -- tho some withstfnal themes are actually anti-science. In fandom and the pros we have: ballads, usually of rather simpleappeal; a couple of epics; such semi-narrative and descriptive piecesas "Passing of the Planets"; store of poetry expressing personalfeeling with no connection with fans save that fantasy fans havewritten it or Red Moon, Martian Lover, first space flight, ktp[Esperanto for "etc."--LG], are substituted for mundane themes;dadaistic and metaphysical jingles like daffy poetics; and a greatmany parodies of various types of poems and songs.A year later, in 1962, the National Fantasy Fan Federation published DonaldFranson's A Key to the Terminology of Science-Fiction Fandom. Its definition of"filk song" was "Fannish folk song, often a parody of a mundane folk song."It's a bit frightening to realize that THE HACKER'S DICTIONARY's definition of"filk" isn't as up to date as Franson's. It defines "filk" as "[from SF fandom,where a typo for 'folk' was adopted as new word] n.,v. A 'filk' is a popular orfolk song with lyrics revised or completely new lyrics, intended for humorouseffect when read aloud and/or to be sung late at night at SF conventions." I'dsuggest that filkers send the person(s) responsible for this dictionary a betterdefinition if I hadn't recently seen weeks of (enjoyable but futile) controversy asto how to define "filk" during the creation of the rec.music.filk newsgroup, all ofit ending up in resigned agreement on the minimal statement that filk was a genreof music that had originated in science fiction fandom.I entered SF fandom in 1967, about the time that filking -- on the West Coast, atleast -- began to wither away. Some of us connected this to the growing popularityof artistic rock, played to sophisticated tunes that required more than just onesinger with the ability to strum half a dozen guitar chords. Whatever the cause,Pelz published one more Filksong Manual in 1969, but that was the last of them.Ted Johnstone and I wrote a few more songs together (such as "Eating CrottledGreeps") but essentially new filk in the LArea came to a halt with the end of the60s.In 1973, I came across what was then the NESFA filksong collection: fifteen pagesof songs, some of them college dirty songs like "Seven Old Ladies." But there wasalso "The Ballad of Gordy Dickson" by Ben Bova ("FIRST PUBLICATION ANYWHERE"trumpets the claim at the bottom of the page) and "The Ballad of John W. Campbell"by Joe Ross (to an original tune but without sheet music).In February, 1976, in time for Boskone XIII, the first edition of the NESFA Hymnalcame out, edited by Craig R. McDonough. It had a pink cover and 61 pages of songs. The editor's introduction noted that "Part of the activities at past BOSKONEs haveinclude the singing (and otherwise bandying about) of a most peculiar type ofcomposition known as the Fannish Folk-Song or "Filksong." As there is always ashortage of readable copy of some of these songs (to ensure, amongst otherconsiderations, that everyone is at least trying to sing the same song), it wasdeemed by NESFA that There Would Be a NESFA SongBook for Use at The BOSKONE."The book was called a "hymnal" as a reference to the style of filking then popularin the Boston area, in which all audience members expected to have access to thewords of the song that the song leaders were singing, just as church-goers expectto be able to turn to the correct page in their hymnal and sing along with thechoir.Later Boskones held Filksong Contests, whose entries were photocopied at theconvention into Filksong Books distributed in the filking room. The Boskone 14Filksong Book was edited by Joe Ross with the assistance of Lisa Raskind, and soprobably were the uncredited filksong books at the next two Boskones. Boskone 14'sFilksong Book had 27 pages; 15's had 57 pages; 16's had 32 pages and an announce-ment of "the forthcoming NESFA HYMNAL." I don't know how long this tradition ofinstant Boskone filkbooks continued, but it eventually died out and I have notheard of its rebirth.In 1976, Ruth Berman and Ken Nahigian edited THE MIDDLE-EARTH SONGBOOK, over ahundred pages of songs set in the world of JRR Tolkien, including (with herpermission) Marian Zimmer Bradley's melodies for Tolkien's own songs (recentlyrecorded by Annwn -- at long last).THE HOPSFA HYMNAL came out about the same time. Its editors printed all the F&SFsongs they could find, often neglecting such minor issues as proofreading,copyright, and obtaining authors' permission. THE NEW YORK CONSPIRACY SONGBOOKused similar tactics. Both eventually encountered legal difficulties.In fact, it was a longstanding fanzine tradition to feel free to reprint shortpieces of copyrighted material without consulting the authors -- as long as theeditor made sure to credit them and to send them a copy. Hal Shapiro's 1960collection included pieces from many copyrighted F&SF works. But it appeared at atime when a Worldcon had less than a thousand members. As fandom grew, itspublications took on more commercial and legal significance.The second edition of the NESFA Hymnal was over 200 pages, edited by Joe Ross withthe assistance of Lisa Raskind, in 1979. It's still in print, thanks to NESFA.The editor's introduction notes: It was at the NESFA meeting of 10 December 1972 that Richard Harterfirst proposed that NESFA produce the 'ultimate' filksong book.According to the minutes, Jim Saklad suggested the title The NESFAHymnal....From that brief exchange, the word 'hymnal' has entered thefannish vocabulary.... While many mourn the passing of much of the old informality of fandom,we feel that the custom of copying filksongs without consulting theiroriginators is no longer a viable practice, if ever it was. We havesought permission to use all songs of known authorship whose authorswere still living, regardless of whether the songs were legally coveredby copyright....Many writers have had the opportunity to correct errorsthat have crept into their songs over the years.In 1978, Filthy Pierre aka Erwin Strauss printed FILTHY PIERRE'S MICRO FILK,over four hundred filksongs, most of them fairly old, in print so tiny that theonly way to sing from it was to retype the songs.In 1980, just in time for sale at Westercon XXXIII, the first Westerfilk cameout: eighty-eight pages of new songs, many with original tunes, soonaccompanied by commercial *cassettes* of the songs. Only afterwards did Ibegin to hear references to "bardic circle," let alone to "chaos circle."Modern filk had begun. I'd welcome any further information on pre-modern filk.Lee Gold, editor XENOFILKIA, 3965 Alla Road, Los Angeles, CA 90066(310) 306-7456; online as of 11/98 at leeway@mediaone.net.The original version of this document is located athttp://www-personal.si.umich.edu/~mrohde/songs/filkhist.html
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