Re: Your message of Thu, 30 May 1996 12:04:59 -0700

From: Michael Phoenix <phoenix at filoli.com>
Date: Thu, 30 May 96 17:45:26 -0700

On Thu, 30 May 1996, faberc at ohsu.edu (Catherine Faber) wrote:

> Charlene said:
> > Also it'd be nice to know
> >what's "OK" to sing. A newbie could sing a nice rendition of BFA and not
> >know *why* people were giving them nasty looks, or groaning, or whatever,
> >for *them* it may be a good filker in joke, for the person singing it
> >could be devastating.
>
> About the only think I could think of that wouldn't be okay to
> sing would be songs that are *very* vulgar...there are a few out there,

And even they aren't always inappropriate; it's a matter of situation and context. At the Saturday filk at BayCon this past weekend, our 4:30 am filk was...honored...with a lovely little ditty by (I believe) Leslie Fish and a few others, to the tune of Ash Grove, which began with the following lyrics:

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WARNING! MILDLY NASTY LYRICS FOLLOW!

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Just being paranoid here--I really don't want to offend anyone--so if you're easily offended, just do us all a favor and delete my email now...

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My girl from up the mountain
She pees like a bloody fountain
And the hair on her dickie-die-do
Hangs down to her knees

and degenerates from there.

(speaking of which, if anyone has the full lyrics, I'd *really* appreciate a set. Thanks. *grin*)

It was very well received by the remaining filkers, although whether this says more about what sleep deprivation does to the filking mind, or about what sort of mind it is that stays up to 4:30 am, is left as an exercise to the reader.

The key thing here, I'd say, is that before singing an obscene song one should:

1) check for children under 18.
2) check that it's after 2:00 am.
3) check that it won't violently break the mood of the moment.
4) query around the room to make sure it won't offend anyone.

> or songs that are out-and-out hateful.

Examples...? I'm really not aware of any filk songs at all that I'd call "hateful".

> It's true that some old timers will run screaming into the
> night if you start _Old Time Religion_--but that's our problem, not
> yours.

*grin*

> Errr... I think I know what you mean by the "Great Conflict"
> (Cat looks doubtful) but I had no idea it might have gone so far as
> to make Misty's songs unwelcome (and stain their singers as well) in
> local filks.  Does anybody have more info on this?  Personally I've
> never disliked anyone so much that I would punish people for singing
> their songs...

Oh, I don't know--try singing some Barry Manilow at a filk, and I might have a word or two with you...:-)

> have to be worked out and published beforehand, so people who wanted > to hear/sing particular themes would know when to show up.

This really is a neat idea--I'm hoping very much to see this at future cons.

Just my $0.03 (inflation, don't you know),

Mickey. Received on 05/30/96