I've been sitting on this one for months.

For those of you who don't know, which probably isn't many at this rate, I was a cast member on this season of Beauty And The Geek.

I'd been thinking through this filk from the time I first heard about the show, but it crystallized in the days following the first episode's airing. It's pretty short and to the point, and kind of sappy, but then, I did have a great time on the show.

I sang this at the OVFF Dead Dog filk on Sunday night. The convention as a whole knew I was on the show thanks largely to filkertom and partiallyclips inviting me up to sing "Rich Fantasy Lives" with them, so when I started, people realized where I was going to join in on the obvious line.

"Beauty And The Geek"
by Will "scifantasy" Frank
ttto: "Beauty And The Beast" from the movie of the same name

( Television show... )

The board game Pirate's Cove has twelve rounds, referred to as days. When the chez_turtle crowd realized this, it was inevitable...

"The Twelve Days Of Pirates"
by Will "scifantasy" Frank, Reuven ryvex, chelona, xydexx, rigelkitty, and justpoet
ttto: "The Twelve Days Of Christmas," trad.

( On the first day of pirates... )

I do not apologize.

This one hit me on the drive from DC to New York, and I realized I had to do it before someone beat me to it. Nothing like being stuck in a car to force you to rhyme...

Spoilers for Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows.

( Fugue For Hallows )

(And yes, when I get back to DC and my computer, I'll consider recording it.)

In honor of today's bonehead move by LiveJournal staff, as chronicled on liz_marcs's LiveJournal, a filk.

"The Strikeout Of 2007"
by scifantasy
ttto: "St. Gertrude" by Arthur Sullivan (better known as "Onward, Christian Soldiers," lyrics by Sabine Baring-Gould)
Spoken part patterned after "Casey At The Bat" by Ernest Lawrence Thayer

Onward, Inn'cence Warriors, fighting your good fight,
Don't mind breaking eggs because they think they're right.
Consequence ignored with deniability;
They claim absolutely no responsibility.

Onward, Inn'cence Warriors, fighting your good fight,
Don't mind breaking eggs because they think they're right.

Six Apart is silent, won't explain their case,
Have the advertisers taken users' place?
Won't explain their actions, will not say a word.
Hiding behind legalese so they will not be heard.

Onward, Six Apart-ers, getting paranoid,
Bowing to this pressure, users they avoid.

Fandom Wank is busy, going to explode,
I bet JF's servers can't take this much load.
Older grudges settled, members all unite,
Each one of them could be wrong, but this just isn't right!

Onward, Fandom Wankers, mocking everyone.
Best way to stay sane is to try to have some fun.

Some are out there talking, like Lizabeth Marcs,
Trying to make fire from the smallest sparks.
All the rest of us should simply vote with cash,
Pulling out our funding, might the servers crash?

Onward, Journal users, though it drives us mad,
If we just do nothing, are we not as bad?

SPOKEN:
Oh, somewhere in this Internet the pings are flowing free,
The fic is written somewhere, and it's only fantasy
And somewhere fact and fiction are as stark as in and out
But there is no joy on LJ - the Abuse team has struck out.

I've been sitting on this one for a day or two.

I came up with the central line of this one, appropriately enough, during a run to a VABC (Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control) store during MarsCon, but the scene I saw was one from my college days (all of last year)...

Imagine you and your roommates are putting together a small party. Nothing big or elaborate: a few friends, some food, drinks, music, a good time had by all. Then, a knock comes on the door, and there stand fifty frat boys with pleading looks...

As with my other filks, this one will eventually be recorded. But this time I'm going to wait until I have a novox recording of the music--a friend is providing that, and once he does, I'll record this...

( All We Wanna Do... )

At Dragon*Con this year, during his Friday night concert, filkertom explained that his first Twenty-Four Hour Comics Day songwriting project was to solicit suggestions of two words and a musical style from his LiveJournal readers, and to write as many songs as possible.[1] One of the suggestions had been "Badger, Pajama," and Klezmer music, which Tom mentioned he'd had to look up, because he didn't know what it meant.[2] Later, during the open filk, adrianna_r mentioned that Heather Alexander, a Celtic-style musician/filker, is very popular in Israel.

When I got back, I took a step back and realized that a lot of filk seems to be derived from that area of the world: the Brobdingnagian Bards, Heather Alexander, and Emerald Rose, to name three, are all steeped in Irish or Celtic traditions. I guess this is largely because folk music, from which filk comes, is heavy in that tradition too, but it still caught me off guard. As I thought about it, the first lyric, "Why are there so many/Filks about Ireland" popped into my head, and I ran with it.

This song isn't seriously decrying a problem in filk, just taking a thought I had and running it to its logical extreme. There may be a few terms you don't know, or references you can't identify, so if you have any questions, just ask.

( The Klezmer Connection )

And, as a special treat (or possibly a special hell), I've recorded this one again:
http://www.stwing.org/~wmfrank/music/Klezmer.mp3

[1] My contribution, by the way, was "Space squid," and the music style was rock-and-roll.
[2] If you don't know either, call it Eastern European Jewish jazz; at least, that's how I always hear it.

According to Google, somebody did this one back in 1989, but I haven't heard a word about it since. A surprise, because it was too easy. I received Rob Balder's new CD "For Amusement Only" today; it had a song called "Cylons On The Screen" based on "Islands In The Stream." I started thinking out this one immediately.

( The Sound Of Cylons )

You know, it seems that every time I can actually trace the inspiration for a filk to a definite source, it always ends up to be filkertom. Well, in this case, Tom and Steve Jackson. The other times, I guess it was just spontaneous creation.

This time, the story goes like this: Tom has written a few different parodies of "Rock Me Amadeus" by Falco. While listening to the album containing two of them ("Rock Me Amidala," as well as the four lines of "Rock Me Harry Potter"), Steve began to wonder what else would work. He ended up generating a whole list: avocado, amygdala, Casablanca, etc. One of those was "katamari."

Tom went and recorded a quick song called "SJ Amadeus (The Mind Boggles)" based on that list. I listened to it, laughed, and the next thing I knew I had Emacs open and I was writing. This is what I came up with:

( Roll Me Katamari )

I have no plans to record this, as my normal method (me, my computer, and Audacity) wouldn't work thanks to all the overlapping.

The first time I heard this song, the idea for this filk hit me between the eyes. It took a while to write it, however...

And no, at this time I have no plans to record myself singing this one. Then again, I didn't have any plans to record myself the last few times, either...

If you don't get the references, search online for "September that never ended."

( Wake Me Up When September (1993) Ends )

I blame filkertom and dragonscholar for this one. Which is ironic, because dragonscholar blames me for filkertom's latest work, a charge I will deny to the end. filkertom is too experienced at this to blame me or dragonscholar for anything[1].

Anyway...filkertom posted a filk ( Slight spoiler ) In comments, dragonscholar suggested a different tune. When I heard it...well, let's just say that I got kicked in the head. There's a reason the difference between "muse" and "mule" is only one letter. dragonscholar and I hashed out the lyrics over the following day, and there you have it.

Before we get to the work, though, there is a bit of disclaiming we need to do. First, SPOILER WARNING for Harry Potter And The Half Blood Prince. Second, neither dragonscholar nor I am declaring allegiance to the "Pumpkin Pie" or any other ship. However, when we came up with the idea, we decided to explore how people may feel, even if in a somewhat humorous manner.

Pumpkin Pie
by DragonScholar and Will "scifantasy" Frank
ttto: "American Pie" by Don McLean

( A long, long time ago... )

And, just because I'm truly insane...
http://www.stwing.upenn.edu/~wmfrank/music/pumpkin.mp3

In addition to the caveat of the last song, I think this one suffers by my not having a guitar, electric piano, drum set, backup singers, or for that matter Don McLean's talent. *grin*

Now hopefully, for a while at least, my muses will shut up and let me get some work done...

[1] Except for the ideas we gave him for the 24-Hour Projects, but that's OK, because we claim responsibility freely.