The tune is from a Leslie Fish song called “Excommunion.” I thought it deserved nicer lyrics, since the original ones are a bit questionable. I chose the subject matter largely because it's tangentially related to the original, but also probably because I had Beth Kinderman's Hero's Journey album in the back of my mind.

The Hero's Journey, Abridged

So this was originally supposed to be a folk tune along the lines of “Dives and Lazarus” or “The Good Old Way.” Somewhere in the creation process, though, it turned into a Morris tune. It doesn't yet have a name or lyrics; I'll come up with a name at some point, but I don't know if it needs lyrics.

Also I think this is the first modal tune I've written (Dorian), so that's neat.

In the demo I'm playing the tune twice through on my hurdy-gurdy.

Untitled Morris tune

What if Beth Kinderman's “Refusal of the Call,” but it's a robocall instead of the call to adventure?

Original: https://bethkinderman.bandcamp.com/track/refusal-of-the-call-2

Screening of the Call

This one got a little weird.

It started when I noticed that the chord progression I had accidentally noodled my way into in the outro of “Screening of the Call” (D, A, Em, G) was actually pretty neat. Unusually for me, I came up with pretty much the entire tune before managing to put any words to it. And then when the words came, they turned into something awfully serious and symbolic and notably influenced by “April Come She Will.”

All this to say: it's pretty wild where the creative process takes you sometimes, right? I think this one turned out alright, though with more time I could definitely do a better job on the recording.

Eight Days' Wonder

For a special someone on Valentine's Day, a poem from Robert Burns (the most romantic of the Romantics) set to music.

O were my love yon Lilac fair

I think expanded access to space is great and electric cars are cool too, but damn, did they have to come in a package with Elon Musk and his awful fan club?

To the tune of “Plastic Jesus” as modified for Robert A. Cook's “’68 Chevelle.”

Plastic Elon

In furtherance of my clever scheme to do only half the work of songwriting, here is another musical setting. The original poem, in this case, is by Charles Kingsley.

Sands of Dee

This is on one level a nice song about the filk community, and on another level the weirdest thing I've ever created.

To the tunes of: The Horse-Tamer's Daughter, Hope Eyrie, The Star of the County Down, Shai-Hulud, The Ballad of the Flying D., Sam Jones, Unreality Warp, Don't Push That Button, Mount Tam, Lullaby for a Weary World, Carmen Miranda's Ghost, Witnesses' Waltz, The Wreck of the Crash of the Easthill Mining Disaster, Home, Callahan's Bar, Matty Groves, and Like a Lamb to the Slaughter.

P.S. I know some of those songs' tunes aren't original to them, but (e.g.) the reference is specifically to Callahan's Bar, not to Oh! Susanna.

(I'll Never Sing) Horse-Tamer

We Got A House And We're So Busy

A new SF take on the folk song Shady Grove

Shady Grove

Oye Beltalowda, xidawang adewu ere lang Belta!

Ship Mi

A rewrite of the folk song "The Golden Vanity" in the world of The Expanse

The "Holden's Vanity"

A kind of response to a few more pessimistic filk songs (which I love anyway)

Optimism Song

Parody of "Pioneer's Song" by Jordin Kare

Pint of Bheer

An original song about going back to the Moon

Moon Waltz

It really happened!

(original lyrics, tune of "The Titanic")

It Went Blam (When That Whale Corpse Blew Up)

I'm sorry, Tom Waits. Scav Hunt made me do it.

Downtown Train (Tom Waits cover)

Frankie's Trade is a Kipling poem about Sir Francis Drake which I've set to music.

Frankie's Trade

The Airlock Song

The Street Piano

Another silly Lord of the Rings song (tune is Phil Ochs's "No More Songs")

No More Dwarves

In which I add my own contribution to the long list of filks of "Reminder," this one with words about computer storage technologies.

Memory Device

The Widow at Windsor

Dedicated to a certain forty-three senators.

The tune is borrowed from Roberta Rogow's "Darkover March."

Congressional March

This is a revised version of the song, which I created because many people thought it needed another verse at the beginning.

Original description follows:

- - - - -

The process of writing this song was a convergence of three elements. First, the real 2015 shipwreck which it describes, for which my principal source was the excellent Vanity Fair article from 2018. Second, traditional shipwreck songs like "The Mermaid" and "Sir Patrick Spens." And third, modern shipwreck songs like "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" and "The Wreck of the Carl D. Bradley."

It was far from easy to incorporate all of these elements harmoniously, but I think the end result works reasonably well. I was very much struck by the fact that the first, second, and third mate had all approached the captain—in that order—with increasingly serious qualms about the storm. That provided an excellent structure to the song, and I tried to faithfully present the crew's attitudes in verse form.

I hope this song may contribute in a small way to preserving the memory of the 33 brave sailors who went down with El Faro.

The Wreck of El Faro

Falling Down on Puerto Rico

A cheery little ditty of the last survivors of humankind.

Lucius Voltaic

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