Filk Music: Grass Roots Music for the Space/Computer Age

The term “Filk Music” originated from a typographical error. According to Lee Gold in her essay AN EGOCENTRIC AND CONVOLUTED HISTORY OF EARLY “FILK” AND FILKING, Copyright March, 1997 which originally appeared in the ConChord 12 Songbook. “. . . Lee Jacobs, a LArea fan who had died shortly before I entered fandom. Back in the 50s, he’d submitted an essay to SAPS (Spectator Amateur Press Society) entitled “The Influence of Science Fiction on Modern American Filk Music” about supposed science fiction incidents in folk song, which was a straight-faced analysis of a number of thoroughly filthy “dirty songs,”

taking various metaphors in them as if they were meant literally.” http://fanac.org/Fan_Histories/filkhist.html

I first encountered Filk music in 1981 when my first husband brought home a bunch of gamers for a long winded AD&D game. He wanted to attend a convention being held in St. Louis. Since he had just graduated from Surgical Tech training, and had only been working a few months and I had a new baby (our youngest son), we were pretty much broke. We managed to scrape up enough money to send him, and I stayed home with the kids. When he came home, he brought two guests and 5 scratchy boot-leg tapes of some very different music. The tapes were Skybound, by Leslie Fish; Crystal Memories by Cynthia McQuillan; Song for the Old Religion & the Faerie Shaman by Gwydion Penderwyn; and something about a bardic circle by Jim Alan of Circle Network.

I’ve always loved music, and I enjoy making noises that I refer to as music; although family members and friends may have a different opinion of the sounds I produce. These five tapes opened up a whole new world for me. Here were people who enjoyed making music, recording their music, playing with others who were not professional musicians, were not associated with a school or church (or at least not necessarily) who were having FUN with music.

During the remaining two years of my under-graduate studies at a near-by college, and well into my earning years there-after, I continued to pursue an interest in this genre. I attended as many science fiction conventions and gatherings of the Society for Creative Anachronism as I could manage; always seeking out the “filk-sing” or the “bardic circle”. Depending on how many people were there and how skilled they were, sometimes I would sing, other times I would only listen. When I started graduate school and became a school librarian, my available time prevented continuing to attend such gatherings. I still followed the medium, however, as best I could. I purchased tapes/CDs by my favorite “Filk Artists”; I took music lessons; I continued to write compositions of my own. Recent discovery that many of my favorites are placing recordings on YouTube was absolutely tremendous!