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(music) About or inspired by science fiction, fantasy, horror, science, and/or subjects of interest to fans of speculative fiction; frequently, being a song whose lyrics have been altered to refer to science fiction; parodying. (However, much filk music is original rather than parodic.) quotations examples
The blame/credit (choose one) for the first filk song is a little dubious. Like the man who tried to sit on two stools, it falls in the middle, between Poul Anderson who wrote a filk song called Barbarous Allen and Karen Anderson who egged him on and published it in Zed #774.
1955 June, Karen Anderson, Poul Anderson (writing as "Petronius Arbiter Kingsley"), “Filk Song”, in Die Zeitschrift für Vollständigen Unsinn (aka The Zed), number 780, page 13
And the permanent exhibit area offers a filk performance on a small stage so that neophytes can sample more esoteric interests.
2000, Camille Bacon-Smith, Science Fiction Culture, University of Pennsylvania Press, page 38
I’m also involved in what is called filk music. This is music for and by fans of Fantasy and Science Fiction. […] Filk is nearly as big a part of my creative life as comics, and I have similarly made many friends among the creative people in that community.
2006, Robert T. Balder, quoted in Attitude 3: The New Subversive Online Cartoonists, Nantier Beall Minoustchine Publishing, page 97
Music can be very important in fan texts and activities. Fans write and perform songs at gatherings about characters from television shows, not unlike the way that folk songs are sung in folk clubs. This can be seen in the name of this fan form: filk song. According to Jenkins [in Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture], filk songs take their cue from commercial culture. They are about the characters from commercial television series, but ‘Filk turns commercial culture back into folk culture, existing as a mediator between two musical traditions. Its raw materials come from commercial culture; its logic is from folk culture’ (1992: 270).
2007, Brian Longhurst, Popular Music and Society, Polity, page 236
countable and uncountable, plural filks
Filk music. quotations examples
Filk turns commercial culture back into folk culture, existing as a mediator between two musical traditions. Its raw materials come from commercial culture; its logic is from folk culture.
1992, Henry Jenkins, Textual Poachers: Television Fans & Participatory Culture, Routledge, page 270
The style of music generally used for creating filk is folk or popular music. That brings up one of the key points. Most, but not all, filk is created by "borrowing" the music of other songs and creating lyrics to fit the singer's particular circle of fandom.
2006, Gary Hill, The Strange Sound of Cthulhu: Music Inspired by the Writings of H.P. Lovecraft, Lulu.com, page 216
Filk song.
In general quotations examples
Welcome to Harry Potter Filks, with nearly 3400 filks (including several dozen full-length musicals) by more than 250 authors from at least five continents, all on Rowling-related themes.
2001, Harry Potter Filks
A filk song written as a parody of, or in the form of and with reference to, another song (which need not itself be a filk song). Compare verb transitive sense. quotations examples
He has recently started to accompany himself on the piano, and created such wonderful songs as "The Soul" (filk of "The Ship") and "Internal Knight".
2006, citation in the Filk Hall of Fame
third-person singular simple present filks, present participle filking, simple past and past participle filked
(intransitive) To perform filk music. quotations examples
I could have filked all night
1978, Sarah Elizabeth Miller, I Could Have Filked All Night, page 33
(intransitive) To participate in a filk circle, including singing along. examples
(transitive) To write a parody of (a song). quotations examples
However, the practice of filking, of taking an existing melody and providing new, usually topical and/or satirical, lyrics, is in fact the direct counterpart of the Medieval practice of writing contrafacta.
1997 (?: "July A.S. XXXI") Medieval Melodies for Filking