New HP Filk Site

[davids_egroups at hotmail.com]

"Caius Marcius" wrote:

> "- Joy -" wrote:

>> Someone indulge me...I know what a
>> filk is (and love them), but where in the
>> world did that name come from?  Why
>> are they called filks?

>> I never heard the term either till I
>> joined HP4GU.  At Sci-Fi & Fantasy
>> conventions it has long been popular
>> for fans of particular books and/or
>> authors to compose lyrics about the
>> books' characters to pre-existing
>> music.  IIRC, sometime in the late 50s,
>> someone at such a convention meant
>> to describe this as "folk music," but
>> due to a typo, this came out as "filk
>> music."  The name stuck since then.

It was Los Angeles fan Jack Harness, who died on Friday, July 13th.
There's a memorial to him on the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society
website, <http://www.lasfs.org>.

The term has also been applied to non-parody original science fiction
songs, such as "The Green Hills of Earth" by Robert Heinlein.  Other
fans have set the Elvish poetry from THE LORD OF THE RINGS to original
music.

You might also check the Usenet newsgroup <rec.music.filk> for more
information.

-------------------------------------
David K. M. Klaus
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david_k_m_klaus at hotmail.com
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"In every revolution, there's one man with a vision."  -- James T. Kirk,
"Mirror, Mirror" by Jerome Bixby, STAR TREK
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