Gwnewch y pethau bychain

Month: January 1999 Page 1 of 2

Wolf’s Bane

Wolfs Bane
by Robert Wynne and Jeffrey Williams
Music: “Cocaine” by J.J. Cale
© 1999

When you’re out in the woods
And you’re trying to do good
Use wolf’s bane
When the eyes glow red
And you don’t wanna be dead
Use wolf’s bane
You’d best bring, you’d best bring, you’d best bring
Wolf’s bane

If you hear a loud howl
And your friend starts to growl
Wolf’s bane
If you’re out in nowhere
And you don’t have a prayer
Use Wolf’s bane
They don’t like, they don’t like, they don’t like
Wolf’s bane

Don’t you dare be a fool
Silver is the first rule
and Wolfs bane
Else you might find your own tomb
By the light of the moon
Wolfs bane
Till it wanes, till it wanes, till it wanes,
Wolfs bane

Don’t complain if you’re slain, you abstained
From Wolf’s Bane
Jeff is responsible for this one. He was sitting in on a friend’s AD&D game, in which he was not playing a character. The scene was in a tavern, so Jeff started roleplaying the bard in the corner and making up silly songs. This was one. When he showed it to me, I thought of the third verse and the final refrain.

Twelve Months of GaFIA

Twelve Months of GaFiA
by Robert Wynne
Music: “The Twelve Days of Christmas
© 1999

On the twelvth month in Atlanta, the filkers sang to me
Twelve harped murder ballads
Eleven Tom Smith punfests
Ten McQuillen standards
Nine poems out of Kipling
Eight Westerfilk classics
Seven Leslie Fish tunes
Six Stan Rogers folksongs
Five NESFA hymns
Four BFA parodies
Three hours of Old Time Religion
Two old pagan folksongs
And a new variation of “Threes”

Depsite the holidays, we always manage to find time for a housefilk in December. I wrote this for the occaision in 1999.

Team Koudelka Girls

Team Koudelka Girls
by Robert Wynne
Music: “California Girls” by the Beach Boys
© 1999

Cetaganda ghem girls are always so very nice
(On) Jackson’s Whole you can get whatever you want
If you’re willing to pay the price
Beta Colony girls all have such an open mind
(But) I cant wait to get back to Barrayar
Back to the cutest girls you can find!

I wish they all could be Team Koudelka
I wish they all could be Team Koudelka
I wish they all could be Team Koudelka Girls

Delia’s the tall one, with her golden hair and face
Olivia’s an athlete who can run with the boys
(But) never lacking style or grace
Martya’s often quiet, but she hides a razor mind
And Kareen, Kareen, she’s such a dream
Any one of them would do just fine

I wish they all could be Team Koudelka
I wish they all could be Team Koudelka
I wish they all could be Team Koudelka Girls
This song is based on Lois McMaster Bujold’s Miles Vorkosigan books, specifically “A Civil Campaign”. The song occured to me the first time Miles mentally refers to the siblings as “Team Koudelka”, and you must admit, they make a stunning quartet. It isn’t written from any particular characters point of view.

Superfundamentalists

Superfundamentalists
by Robert Wynne
Music: “Supercalifragalistic” from the musical Mary Poppins
© 1999

(chorus)
Superfundamentalists enforcing my salvation
They say if i dont follow them, it means my ruination
And hope their faith will one day be the sole law of the nation
Superfundamentalists enforcing my salvation

Long ago in England by a goverment decree
The King told you exactly what your faith was going to be
So some folks bought a leaky boat and sailed across the sea
So their children would not have to live with tyranny

(chorus)

They landed on a foreign shore with no one else around
And said “Here in this frontier land, a colony we’ll found!
And since a free society is what we must achieve
No one here will tell just what you ought to believe!”

(chorus)

In time upon that virgin shore a mighty nation rose
And built their goverment around the freedoms that they chose
To speak their minds without reprisal and to print the same
And most of all, the right to choose just what their god was named

(chorus)

Much time has passed and once again the zealots have grown bold
They say the time has come that all the prophets have fortold
“This country has gone wrong,” they cry, “it’s up to us to fix!
We’ll save you from the heathens” but it’s all a bag of tricks

(chorus)

The fundies have forgot the things that made our country strong
They think that only they can know the truth of right and wrong
Be sure to keep an eye on them and every thing they do
Or else they may succeed in gaining power over you!

(chorus)

At a housefilk in 1999, a discussion of religious zealotry cropped up, and I made the comment that I was tired of of “Superfundamentalists trying to enforce my salvation.” Jerrie Adkins pointed out that the phrase “Superfundamentalists enforcing my salvation” scanned to the Mary Poppins tune, and I thought “Well, that’s clever”, wrote it down, and forgot about it.

Some months later, Gwen Knighton asked me for help finding songs about the separation of church and state that she could play at a Unitarian service. We looked through all our songbooks and couldn’t find anything we thought was quite right, and so both set out to write something. Gwen emerged with the sublime Six Days, while I remembered that throw-away line and crafted it into this song. This is another song that always turns into a sing-along.

This song is written about the myth of America, rather than drawing from real history. I’m well aware of the shortcomings of those settlers with regards to religious tolerance, but I still hope it’s not too late to try and capture the spirit of the ideals they imperfectly enacted.

SETI@Home in Cincinnati

SETI@Home in Cincinnati
by Robert Wynne
Music: Theme from WKRP In Cincinnati
© 1999

Baby, if you ever wondered
If this earth was life’s only home
I’m listening to the airwaves for a signal
That tells us that we aren’t quite alone

Got radio antennae pointing skyward
Scanning across every frequency
One day we’re sure that we will make a contact
As long as we don’t give up on SETI

(Running) S.E.T.I.@Home in Cincinnati
This was written right around the time that SETI@Home was become the passion of several of my friends. I include it for completeness sake.

Sam’s Lament

Sam’s Lament
by Robert Wynne
Music: “I Just Fall In Love Again” by the Carpenters (Dorff/Herbstritt/Sklerov/Lloyd))
© 1999

Dreaming, I must be dreaming
This body isn’t mine, it all feels new
Once more, I find me in another life
Al, where are you, my old friend? What is it I must do?

And oh, I just leap through time again
Right a wrong and then it happens every time
There I go, I just leap through time again
The past I roam
Hoping each leap will be the one back home

Magic, this must be magic
It’s surely not the science I have known
Dont know why fate has dealt to me this hand
Living out fragments of lives that never were my own

And oh, I just leap through time again
Life to life and then it happens every time
There I go, I just leap through time again
The past I roam
Hoping each leap will be the one back home
Hoping each leap will be the one back home

I was always a huge fan of “Quantum Leap”, and the inspiration for this song came to me while watching a rerun on the Sci-Fi Channel.

The version of this tune I used is on the Carpenters’s “Passage” album, rather than the rather uninteresting Anne Murray version.

This song was published in Xenofilkia #66.

Rainy Day Argo #12 & #35

Rainy Day Argo #12 & #35
by Robert Wynne
Music: “Rainy Day Woman #12 & #35” by Bob Dylan
© 1999

Oh, they’ll ban you when you beam down to that port
They’ll ban you when you are the spacer sort
They’ll ban you when you try to cruise the bars
They’ll ban you ‘fore you ever get that far
But I would not feel so in demand
EVERYBODY must get banned!

Oh they’ll ban you if your captain tries to mate
With too many partners in a pantless state
They’ll ban you if your engineer is able
To drink everyone else under the table
But I would not feel so in demand
EVERYBODY must get banned!

Oh they’ll ban you if your First Officer there
Teaches your bridge computer how to swear
They’ll ban you if your head nurse search is gainful
and comes home naked with a walk that’s painful
But I would not feel so in demand
EVERYBODY must get banned!

Oh they’ll ban you if your Chief Communicator
Crafts a virtual clothing elimanator
Theyll ban you if your gentle country healer
Incites a riot by the town’s local flesh dealers
But I would not feel so in demand
EVERYBODY must get banned!

Oh they’ll ban you if the man who drives your helm
Uses plants the gov’ner’s wife to overwhelm
They’ll ban you if the pirates at the bar
Run away when they find out that’s where you are
But I would not feel so in demand
EVERYBODY must get banned!

Oh they’ll ban you if your crew is Starfleet’s best
They’ll treat you like you’re some unwelcome guest
We didn’t mean to cause all of this fuss
But it seem’s thats always how it goes with us
We’re so sorry that it all got out of hand
But EVERYBODY must get banned!

Another filk by free-association. Someone on rec.music.filk made a comment to the effect that EVERYONE should send a newbie a copy of Banned from Argo, and for some reason it triggered the phrase “Everbody Must Get Banned”. I tossed out the first verse as an Insta-filk response to the original poster, then decided I should finish it before someone else did.

This song was published in Xenofilkia #83 (“The Bastard Grandchildren of Argo” issue)

Pale Horse

Pale Horse
Words and Music by Robert Wynne
Based on the short story Once Upon A Time by Jeff Williams
© 1999

On a pale horse in the desert is the rider
Asking questions but not listening to the answers
Met Coyote by an outcrop in the desert
Walks beside him off’ring answers obtuse riddles

I’ll give you my food and my water I’ll share
As we ride through this place where the answers hide from my eyes

Can a bridge made of mere words span the vast aeons
Gleeming steel beams yet so fragile crumbling dust cloud
You thought nothing could secure her for your own love
She flies home now she’s her own guide, her own compass

Coyote’s enraged at my fear of the void
Tears at my soul and won’t let me hide from myself

On the hard floor of the desert lies the rider
Badly beaten bloody wounded empty inside
The Coyote says he’ll be back to the desert
And the rider feels the great wheel once more turning

I’ll lie here alone till my emptiness heals
Then leave from this place as the cycle starts once again
Jeff Williams wrote a rather cryptic short story called “Once Upon A Time” that plays all sorts of fun with archtypes. I wrote this song as a reaction to it, and also a way of asking Jeff “Well, did I get it?” He said it was pretty close to his meaning.

Go read the story. I’ll wait. Enjoy.

Open Source Of Frustration

Open Source of Frustration
by Robert Wynne and Amanda Marlowe
Music by Robert Wynne
© 1999

I untarred it just an hour ago
Then I made a tiny fix
The error list’s a hundred lines
It must do this for kicks
And the compiler’s complaining that it don’t know what to do
I got the I can’t compile without an error blues

Don’t know what’s it’s asking
It’s really got me pissed
Cause the libs its says are missing
Came right in the dist!
And the docs are in Norweigan…I haven’t got a clue
I got the I can’t compile without an error blues

I started on this project
I thought it would be fun
I finally got the source compiled
And the damn thing wouldn’t run!
Why does anyone write software that no one else can use?
I got the I can’t compile without an error blues

I tried a different angle
Forget what’s on the shelf
But this one don’t run either
And I wrote the thing myself!
And it can’t be Y2K, cause it’s now 1902
I got the I can’t compile
(I can’t even save the file)
without an error blues

Amanda and I wrote this in #filkhaven back when it was still on TalkCity. I was chatting with her at the same time as trying to compile some software which wasn’t cooperating, and I was venting my frustration to her since she was there to talk to. Writing the song was very theraputic, and eventually, I DID get the errors in the code fixed.

Nobody’s Ranger Now

Nobody’s Ranger Now
by Bill Sutton and Robert Wynne
Music: “Nobody’s Moggie” by Eric Bogle
© 1999

Somebody’s ranger just inside of the door
Someone’s player character who won’t roll nice no more
Someon’s favourite fighter who ran clean out of luck
When he ran up, threw wide the door, and shouted out “Oh……BUGGER”

Yesterday, he roared and rolled his purple pair of dice
Decapitating nothing much, and fumbling badly twice
Now he’s just a page of useless stats and tasty food for mice
He’s nobody’s ranger, now.

So if you love your ranger, don’t let him run ahead
For if he opens doors alone, he’ll likely wind up dead
And everything he’s ever owned will go for monster’s pleasure
How else do you think those monsters get all of their treasure?

Always stick together when exploring caverns vast
That’s the way to guarantee your characters will last
But wandering alone you’ll die, and very very fast
He’s nobody’s ranger…
So ends his life of danger…
He’s nobody’s ranger….now.
Another song inspired by the Thursday Night Gaming Group. This one really did happen, and the song should serve as a cautionary tale against splitting up the party.

This song is for you, Joey. We miss you.

This song was published in the Gafilk 2004 songbook.

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