Filk Music - The Least Cool Music of All

[Overly Serious]

I like Filk music. Wikipedia says that Filk is a musical culture tied to Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror. I guess? I just call it Folk music about Sci-Fi / Fantasy stuff. It is the most unashamed of itself genre of music there is (Eighties music has entered the chat). Filk singers have zero problem writing a folksy song about a ghost spaceship or Fey beings stealing children. In an age where everything is ironic, self-aware and self-mocking, you can still find people belting their hearts out with utmost emotion about being haunted by a drowned woman's ghost or fighting to save a crashing space shuttle.

I guess it's the weird sibling of all those old Eighties pop songs like "I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper" or the child of the more spooky songs from bands like Steeleye Span. And a distant cousin to early Heavy Metal when bands like Blue Oyster Cult would do whole story albums based on Lovecraftian weird fiction about pirates and fishmen.

The first Filk songs I ever heard were from an album I think was titled "Carmen Miranda's Ghost is Haunting Space Station Three" and I still distinctly remember a song called "Dawson's Christian" about a haunted spaceship ploughing the spacelanes.

But there's also some that is just musings set to music. Like this contemplation on the unliklihood of Star Trek species.

And then there are ones that aren't really sci-fi or fantasy related, just gleefully morbid. I remember singing this song about a dead cat as a kid to general horror of anybody listening.

But back to the shamelessly sincere pieces, I loved this song from the moment I heard it, a song about a young girl with the gift of magic / second sight and a village being raided by wizards. It's got unexplained hints of deep backstory, raw emotion and a lovely melody. I think this is a proper full-on ballad at 12minutes as it tells a whole story.

I could never just listen to this song as background music. I listen to it when I'm by myself and honestly, you can see the ruined tower and the galloping horses when you listen to the lyrics.

As a little kid I read Susan Cooper's "The Dark is Rising" sequence of books so it was with great delight when randomly a song about them popped up:

I like a lot of different types of music. But I really think if you compare say rap music with this, it's a stunning contrast. One has little in the way of melody, the scope of subject is so narrow and mundane. Status, sex, violence. Compared to travel through the stars, Good vs. Evil, other worlds... All with rich melodies often played skillfully on traditional instruments.

There's not a hard line between Filk and Folk. Obviously if there's a space battle in it, it's on the Filk side. But you have traditional folk groups like Steeleye Span which sung ghost songs like "King Henry" which is one of the creepiest songs I know ("More meat! More meat!", "That ever a fiend that comes from Hell should stretch down by my side").

I'd guess you'd call it Filk Adjacent?

And shoe-horning this last on in on a technicality just because it cracks me up - from a music festival in Yorkshire.

I like filk. Do you like Filk?

 

[Str8Bustah]

why isn't this on the music board?

 

[OrangeJuliusEvola]

I enjoy filk music. Ironically, since you shit on rap in your post, I have a similar opinion on both rap and filk, namely that while I often enjoy songs and artists, I absolutely loathe the culture and fandom that surrounds it, whether it be violent crass niggers, or smelly unshaven "Marion Zimmer Bradley did nothing wrong!" autists.

 

[Overly Serious]

why isn't this on the music board?

Because I'm a doofus. But a kindly mod has moved it.

I enjoy filk music. Ironically, since you shit on rap in your post, I have a similar opinion on both rap and filk, namely that while I often enjoy songs and artists, I absolutely loathe the culture and fandom that surrounds it, whether it be violent crass niggers, or smelly unshaven "Marion Zimmer Bradley did nothing wrong!" autists.

I'm not really immersed in the culture of Filk music at all. Don't go to conventions, don't chat online much about it. It could well be as toxic as you say. I just discovered I like the music. I brought up rap music because it's almost the polar opposite. Filk is full of wild fantasy and magic, rap is almost wholly consumed with the most base motivations and immediacies of life. Filk is melodious and hews to traditional singing techniques - you know, notes and stuff. Rap is for the most part monotone with a few heavy bass notes thrown in as backing. Ironically the first thing that came to mind when I tried to think of a more musical rap song was Coolio's Gangster's Paradise. And that was sampled from somewhere else. And also, a long time ago. I know there's some good rap out there. But then there's some good spoken word poetry out there. Rap is really stretching the definition of music. I find Filk songs are typically more effective at conveying emotion than any rap song I can think of off the top of my head.

 

[CoolFool]

Huh. I never heard of this. Or maybe I have but didn't know the term. What would be the difference between "filk" and some gothic alternative band singing about mythical monsters (like vampires or mermaids etc)?

 

[Monkey Pink]

I was reading this with interest until I got to the line about rap music. Yeah man, rap music has never had a musical hook, ever. And every single song is about sex and drugs.

There has never, ever, been a hip-hop fantasy opera before. Oh, wait. There literally WAS.

Now that I've gotten that out of my system, I guess I'll check out Carmen Miranda's Ghost a bit, but I strongly prefer sci-fi to fantasy. I'm tired of the generic and bland themes of folk metal, power metal, etc. Shit like Blind Guardian and Alestorm. I don't want to listen to a 20 minute long retelling of Lord of the Rings in a deep voice, with a slowly plucked guitar in the background.

 

[Overly Serious]

Huh. I never heard of this. Or maybe I have but didn't know the term. What would be the difference between "filk" and some gothic alternative band singing about mythical monsters (like vampires or mermaids etc)?

I'm not sure. But generally the latter tend to be more metal influenced, no? I'm dating myself but old heavy gothic stuff like Inkubus Sukkubus (sic) might do a song about a ghost lover or a vampire but it will be more reliant on heavy tones, more repeated verses / lines, etc. Whereas a Filk song the vocals are usually far more front and centre often carrying the melody itself, it sounds more traditional (e.g. bardic) and typically carries a progressing narrative rather than repeated theme. E.g. Nightwish might do things in a much high-blown musical fashion and cover fantasy and gothic topics, but they more of a metal-opera fusion than folk and again, tend not to do the progressing narrative / ballad.

There's a common ancestry that I lack the deep learning to pinpoint. But go back and you had groups like Blue Oyster Cult who'd do songs like "Flaming Telepaths" or whole concept albums like Imaginos which tells the story of an immortal man living through the ages and his connection to some Lovecraftian otherworld. Half sci-fi and half horror-fantasy.

Or if you want to go bonkers metal sci-fi, they did songs like "Take Me Away" which is just ridiculously catchy.

Anyway, there was an era where you suddenly saw this explosion in songs about weird and unconventional topics. Early metal - Blue Oyster Cult, Judas Priest, Uriah Heap - lots of songs about wizards and spaceships and weird gods. I'm not sure exactly when the Folk cousin of this got started. Steeleye Span (linked above - King Henry) were early Seventies and dipped their toes in the water with songs like Thomas the Rhymer, Long Lankin and other 'faerie' style ballads. It wasn't "filk" back then and there wasn't this culture around it. But I think that helped plant the seeds and because there is an overlap in interest in medieval and Renaissance topics and fantasy, you had people who had an interest in both traditional Folk music and instruments, and in fantasy and sci-fi. Put the two together and you started to get songs like this ballad about a lost kid on space station striking up a friendship with an ageing engineer.

I was reading this with interest until I got to the line about rap music. Yeah man, rap music has never had a musical hook, ever. And every single song is about sex and drugs.

There has never, ever, been a hip-hop fantasy opera before. Oh, wait. There literally WAS.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=8Rn7ugha7L0

I'll grant you that is more musical than most of the current rap I'm familiar with. And I don't necessarily hate rap. But I find the good stuff is particularly rare. And the themes of most rap don't interest me. The further back I go with rap towards earlier Hip-Hop, the better I find it, on the whole.

I raised rap because of how much of an inverse of Filk music it is. Right down to how it is socially elevated. Rap is "cool" music. Movie soundtracks are replete with it and it's almost inextricably linked with America's racial obsessions. I can't think of any genre of music less socially celebrated than Filk.

Now that I've gotten that out of my system, I guess I'll check out Carmen Miranda's Ghost a bit, but I strongly prefer sci-fi to fantasy. I'm tired of the generic and bland themes of folk metal, power metal, etc. Shit like Blind Guardian and Alestorm. I don't want to listen to a 20 minute long retelling of Lord of the Rings in a deep voice, with a slowly plucked guitar in the background.

Yeah. That heavy maudlin stuff tends to be a bit much. Things like Horsetamer's Daughter in my first post are fantasy but much more energetic. In Filk music there's a lot of songs that are very tongue-in-cheek as well.