Filk Albums Reviewed - Stuff I Own and Like

I should probably also mention here that I'm relatively new to filk and filking (only started in ?1995? and practiced perhaps four or five times a year since then, plus newsgroup chatter), and will probably have my facts wrong at least once in what follows. If you find this to be the case, and know what should be down there, please, please drop me an email to straighten me out. Likewise, please report any busted links, though I'm going to be keeping an eye out for the little buggers too.

I'm trying to make this page into the kind of resource I would have wanted to run into as a total neo-filker: part buying guide, part introduction to the in-jokes, part just letting one know what the heck is out there and how to run across it in a semi-controlled fashion. For filk-dealers or definitions and explorations of just what filk is, please head back up to my filk page.

This is also most seriously Under Construction, even more so than most webpages.

So, with the preamble and disclaimer finished, on to the content! :->
Latest update: April 10, 2001

Butter Side Down

• Orders From the Pope
• Highway 12
• Afraid of the Desperate
• For You, I'd Get a Vasectomy
• Wartime Encounter
• Faster Than a Speeding Turtle
• Asexuals in Love
• Goldilocks
• The Outcast
• Where the Lightning Strikes
• Crying in the Bathtub
• I Hope You'll Forgive Me
• Ain't A Man Alive
• Feedback
• We Might As Well Stay Together
• Beautiful People
• If I Should Happen to Leave

Resolutions

• Shining Sun
• Stranger On The Left
• She's Getting Desperate
• Everybody Wants to Be Warren Cartwright
• Maybe I Can
• You Don't
• I Pop Pills
• Nibbled to Death By Mice
• Let's All Diagram Sentences
• My Devil
• Someday
• One Slow Dance
• Waltz of the Walking Wounded
• The End of the Dream
• Poor Little Silver Girl
• There Are Limits
• I Can't Get Over You So ...

Rubenesque

CD - lots of Babylon 5 and Star Trek-related songs here.

• Rubenesque - a paean in defense of large women.
• Future Mommy
• Pretty Dove
• Midnight Lullaby - a just plain pretty little waltz tune that makes me want to get up and dance!
• Cardassian Days - a barbershop-esque song from the point of view of Garak, from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
• Adrift in Time
• Nine Voices - a lovely round-style song with interlacing harmonies, from the point of view of several Minbari characters from Babylon 5, especially the Grey Council
• Ivanova's Lament - a silly, bouncy song about the trials and tribulations of having to help manage a station as just plain chaotic as Babylon 5.
• Listen To Me
• The Creature - 50's doo-wop style song about a Creature from the Black Lagoon or similar.
• Trick of the Time
• Yesteryear
• Messages from Earth
• Profit Margin - a Ferengi song, definitely.
• Crossover, In Fugue
• Even the Eagle
• The Jester's Waltz
• Turn Me Off - Star Trek: Voyager's Doctor has a hard life, really ...
• Mizpah

Masquerading as Human

• Masquerading as Human
• I'm Your Friend
• Waltzing The Stars
• The Fool's Prayer
• Imzadi
• Battle Lines
• How Can I Keep From Singing?
• Fossil Fever
• Forsaken
• The Mama Dax Blues
• What She Said
• Beacons
• Live Cycle Built For Two
• Relics
• Bella Chow
• Twilight Falls on Holodeck 3
• Stone Dance
• The Clockmaker
• The Stars Are Ours
• Star Sisters

Folk Songs for Folks Who Ain't Even Been Yet

A lot of Star Trek stuff, but also a Kipling and some 'space' songs. Originally vinyl; I have (ahem) a pirated tape of uncertain quality. This same disclaimer applies to the next four albums as well (down to Cold Iron).

• A Toast for Unsung Heroes
• Turn and Believe - a wonderful, sweet love song from Nurse Chapel to Spock. The tune is similar to that of 'Banks of Sicily'.
• The Ballad of Transport 18 - A wonderfully silly Star Trek song about a starship that gets marooned and has to ... improvise, for fuel.
• Bones
• Iron Mistress
• Hope Eyrie - MP3 available here.
• Skybound Blues - Lyrics here.
• The Thousandth Man
• Few Days - a call-and-response hymn-ish piece. I don't really understand what it's trying to say, but it sure is fun to sing. :->
• The Engineer's Hymn

Solar Sailors

Primarily Star Trek material; the rest is space-related. Originally vinyl. Bandersnatchi Press. Republished by Firebird. 100% pure unobtanium.

• Starwind Rising
• Eternal Loser
• Wobblies from Space - Starfleet officers have pretty cushy jobs, right? So why would they want to unionize? Well, if your unionizer is persuasive enough ...
• Couplets for a Departure
• Castaway
• Banned from Argo
           Originally written to fill up a 7-minute space on this album, Banned from Argo has gone on to become possibly the single best-known filksong ever. It was sung so much that somewhere around the 70s people started refusing to sing it, because it was so overdone and most filkers were heartily sick of it. This has resulted in an odd state of affairs, where many neos have never heard it. It's starting to be sung again in spots for the edification of said neos, and it has far more parodies than one could shake a really big stick at. Plans are afoot to publish the parodies in a volume to be entitled 'Argo's Fire-Breathing Daughters'.
           So, you might ask (if you're a neo), what's all the fuss about? BFA is a wonderfully simple and yet hilariously funny song about Old Series Trek. Each verse pokes fun at a different member of the bridge crew in the framework of a particularly rowdy shore leave. The structure (as Terence Chua found when he started to write his parody, Banned from Arkham) is interestingly intricate, the first two lines setting up the punchline that comes up behind you in the second two; the meter is rhythmic and compelling and singable ('With a verse of seven iambs and a meter of four-four,' as the parody 'Scans to Argo' puts it in its chorus). She was quite careful not to explicitly identify it as a Trek song by its lyrics, for copyright reasons. If you hear this recording, the final verse refers to 'pirates' who come into town to be rowdy and are scared off by our Dauntless Crew - when sung live, those are Klingons. The only reference she couldn't avoid was mentioning 'pon-farr' in the verse about what the Nurse buys to drug the very prim First Officer; presumably the owners of the copyright have never deigned to sue.
• Thoughts on Strange Visitors
• Six Haiku for a New Flower
• The Enemy Within
• Neutral Zone, Romulan View
• Starwind Rising (reprise)

Skybound

Originally vinyl, Off-Centaur; Reprinted by Firebird. My copy of this only contains the tracks below, which is greatly abridged from the original. :->

• Swamp Gas - So you say you saw a flying saucer? Riiiiiight. What you REALLY saw was Swamp Gas!
• Freedom of the Snow
• Sisters Dancing Together - actually by Kathleen Taylor, a friend and bandmate of Leslie's, this is a hymny, call-and-response song that's lots of fun to sing.
• Grain Train
• The Oyster Pirate

Chickasaw Mountain

Originally cassette tape

• Mount Tam - Lyrics here.
• Jack the Slob and the Goddess of Love
• Hymn to the Night-Mare
• Ferryman
• The Challenger
• White Man's Rain Chant
• Ship of Stone
• Stone Dance
• The Gods Aren't Crazy
• Rise Up Bright Sun
• Berserker
• The Sun is Also a Warrior
• Lucifer
• The Earth's Fire-Breathing Daughter
• Hallows' Dirge
• No More Songs
• Chickasaw Mountain - Lyrics here.

Cold Iron

Leslie loves to Kipple, and here's some of her Kipling. Originally cassette tape, Off-Centaur; re-recorded and reissued by Firebird. My copy only includes Side A, for some reason.

• Cold Iron
• The Quest
• The Winners: A Death-Bed
• Tarrant Moss
• Goats, Pigs & Buffaloes
• The Song of the Red War-Boat
• Runes on Weland's Sword
• Puck's Song

Leslie Fish Live!

Cassette from Firebird Arts & Music

• Ramboing
• Fisher's Chant
• Black Powder and Alcohol - Lyrics here.
• Gremlins
• Pride of Chanur - about C.J. Cherryh's series of books that begin with a novel of the same title. This song summarizes the first book, to a degree.
• Carmen Miranda's Ghost - the song that became so popular that an anthology of short stories, also titled Carmen Miranda's Ghost, was published. Good stories, too.
• No High Ground - one of Leslie's militant songs about how civilization as we know it and government will all end badly.
• Susan B. - a wonderful, and wonderfully wicked, feminine-empowerment song.
• Nightmare Launch - Leslie's Challenger song.
• Toast for Unknown Heroes
• F.A.P.

Roundworm

CD

• Acts of Parody
• Nobody's Moggy Lands
• Doppel-entendre
• Mutant Generations
• Something's Under the Bed
• By the Time I Get To ...
• The Comforts of Home
• Eternal Flame
• Wise Men Feared to Tread
• Mineral Rights
• Threes, Take 3
• December of Cambreadth
• Meltdown
• Dear Departed
• Black Flag

Who Let Him In Here?

Cassette, 1991; Dodeka Records.

• I Want to Be Peter Lorre - Lyrics here.
• Curmudgeon's Son - Lyrics here.
• Hellraiser - Lyrics here.
• Crystal Gayle Killed Frank Herbert - Lyrics here.
• 307 Ale - Lyrics here.
• Rotten Robin - Lyrics here. A Batman-world song, silly and bouncy, to the tune of a childhood hand-slap game I played a lot, lo these many years ago. As disrespectful as the original, and hilarious. :->
• A Boy and His Frog - Lyrics here. A heartbreaking elegy for Jim Henson, sung from the viewpoint of Kermit. I double-dog-dare you not to cry the first time you hear it, especially if you grew up in the Muppet Era. I'm adding this to my repertoire as soon as I (a) get the tune down pat and (b) can be assured of being able to sing it without choking up partway through. Not that doing so sounds bad ... see the version on the Digital Acoustic Compilation for Tom's first performance.
• Return of the King, Uh huh - Lyrics here. A twisted fusion of Tolkien and the Elvis mythos.
• Serial Killer - Lyrics here.
• Walking Along the Beach ... - Lyrics here. To paraphrase the lyrics, a bright and bouncy singable song (and Tom's surprised it became a singalong) about environmental destruction and corporate greed.
• The Worst Job There Is - Lyrics here.
• Superman's Sex Life Boogie - Lyrics here; also appears on Plugged. It's exactly what the title proclaims it to be - a boogie-woogie ballad about Superman's sex life, inspired by Larry Niven's 1971 essay, 'Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex.' (Which you should all go and read if you haven't, even if you don't intend to hear the song - it's a classic example of satirical/deadpan writing, and takes many aspects of the Superman universe far past their logical ends). Niven deliberately states that the psychological aspects of Superman's sex life and frustrations are beyond the purview of his essay; he prefers to concentrate on the purely physiological. Tom decided to write a song about the psychological aspects, and did so with his usual comic flair and ease with words and telling phrases. Deservedly, a classic (and a Pegasus Award winner in 1988 for Best Media Song - not that Tom's only won one Pegasus).
• My Unicorn Song - Lyrics here.
• PQR (You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet) - Lyrics here.

Domino Death

Cassette, 1994; Dodeka Records.

• Domino Death - Lyrics here.
• Temperature of Revenge - Lyrics here.
• Starlight and Saxophone - Lyrics here.
• Divine Irregularity - Lyrics here.
• The Really Sick Note - Lyrics here.
• Ho! For the Death of Time - Lyrics here.
• Sheep Marketing Ploy - Lyrics here.
• I Wish I Couldn't Read Her Mind - Lyrics here.
• Storm Dancing - Lyrics here.
• Operation: Desert Storm - Lyrics here.
• Heat of the Blood - Lyrics here.

Plugged

CD, 1997; Pretzel Productions. Tom's first all-studio album.

• Mand(e)la - Lyrics here.
• Bermuda Triangle - Lyrics here.
• On-Line Religion - Lyrics here.
• Spam Spam Spam - Lyrics here.
• Superman Sex Life Boogie - Lyrics here; also appears on Who Let Him In Here?. See the listing there for comments on the song itself.
• Garboo - Lyrics here. A song about and to his (I'm assuming recently- ) late grandmother.
• Rocket Ride - Lyrics here.
• Psychic Voicemail Hotline - Lyrics here.
• Cthulhu Lite FM - Lyrics here.
• Tom Smith Disease - Lyrics here.
• Falling Free - Lyrics here.

Digital Acoustic Compliation

CD, 1998; Dodeka Records. A kind of best-of his previous tapes, sometimes using a different recording (for instance, the Boy and His Frog here is the debut performance) and brought to you in the wondrous sound-quality allowed by this newfangled compact disc technology.

• (I Want to Be) Peter Lorre - Originally published on Who Let Him In Here?.
• Temperature of Revenge - Originally published on Domino Death.
• Hellraiser - Originally published on Who Let Him In Here?.
• Starlight & Saxophone - Originally published on Domino Death.
• A Boy and His Frog - Originally published on Who Let Him In Here?.
• Return of the King, Uh-Huh - Originally published on Who Let Him In Here?.
• Mand(e)la - Originally published on Plugged.
• Operation: Desert Storm - Originally published on Domino Death.
• Walking Along the Beach ... - Originally published on Domino Death.
• PQR (You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet) - Originally published on Who Let Him In Here?.
• Domino Death - Originally published on Domino Death.
• Storm Dancing - Originally published on Domino Death.
• 307 Ale - Originally published on Who Let Him In Here?.
• My Unicorn Song - Originally published on Who Let Him In Here?.
• Heat of the Blood - Originally published on Domino Death.
• Rocket Ride - Originally published on Plugged.

DeBasement Tapes

Despite the title, it's a CD. :-> Almost entirely parodies of one sort or another - a lot it is stuff he didn't want to publish before because of issues getting permission to use the tunes.

• Five Years - Lyrics here. A highly detailed Babylon 5-themed parody of "One Week" by the Barenaked Ladies, right down to obscure and cryptic yet meaningful lyric references, delivered almost at speed. He also offers an annotated 'fanboy edition' of the lyrics on his website.
• Denver Does Elvis - the first verse and chorus of "Blue Suede Shoes", sung and played in the style of John Denver.
• Callisto - Lyrics here. To the tune of Calypso, by John Denver. I found the lyrics (and chords!) to the original here. Tom's parody is a rollicking musical homage to the character of the same name from Xena: Warrior Princess.
• Alien Adventures - Lyrics here. A retelling of Ridley Scott's 1979 sf/horror classic movie Alien to the tune of the theme song to the once-hit Warner Brothers cartoon series, Tiny Toon Adventures.
• Honey Glazed Ham - Lyrics here. A sick and twisted sweet little ditty (to a tune called "Honey, I Miss You", for which I do not have an artist attribution - let me know who wrote it and I'll add that here!) in the world of a certain bear who lived under the name of Saunders in the Hundred-Acre Wood.
• (Min) Barette - Lyrics here. A ballad of some of the trials and tribulations facing Babylon 5 's Minbari Ambassador, Delenn, on the occasion of her transformation into a Minbari-Human hybrid. To the tune of "Colors of the Wind," written by Alan Mencken for the Disney movie, Pocahontas.
• Be Our GoH - Lyrics here.
• Seven Drunken Nights in Space -
• ConValescence - Lyrics here; also available in mp3 format at MP3.com. This is really aimed more at the hard-core science-fiction-con-goers; the tune's original, and the words describe that far-off dreamy vision, a Retirement Con for ageing fen, and all its joys and promise.
• Sonuva ... - Lyrics here, and available in mp3 format at MP3.com. To the tune of Meredith Brooks' "Bitch" (which got a lot of radio airplay in the mid-late 90s - 'I'm a bitch, I'm a lover, I'm a sinner, I'm a mother' - ring any bells? If not, I found the lyrics, a sound clip, and the video at this site), this is a stirring and self-affirming anthem from the point of view of South Park's Cartman. Tom doesn't do the world's best Cartman accent, but it's still funny as heck. And as pointed out by an audience member in the recording, he even managed to avoid the most controversial parts of the character! Now that's skill.
• Filk in the Blanks - Lyrics here. To the tune of his own Unicorn Song, this is an interesting improvisational attempt - think Mad Libs, set to music. He wrote an original song (the first half of this track), and then solicited audience suggestions along the lines of 'Adjective,' 'Noun rhyming with (other suggested word)', and so on, filled in the blanks, and sang the new song.
• Instant Clinton (Just Add Whitewater): an Improvised Secret Service Lament -
• Barenaked Cockburn -
• On the PC -
• PC99 -
• Dammit, They're Felt and Legumes -
• DS8 -
• Time Plot -
• Telly Taley Heart -
• 500 Hats -
• Smurfin' Safari -

Myths & Urban Legends

CD

• Technonerdboy
• Entwined
• Sex and Chocolate
• I Love the Morning
• Teenybopper Love
• Song for Jim
• Starsoul
• Tiberius Rising
• Puppies Cooked in Brine
• Lady of the Wood
• Leftovers
• The Lady
• Days We Spend Together
• Web Surfin'

My Favorite Sings

CD Covers - the songs Kathy sings a lot that she DIDN'T write.

Plus ca Change / Plus ca le Meme Chose

A two-CD set, reissuing two older tapes plus some bonus tracks.

Dragapella

CD

Boyz 2 Girlz

CD