To be clear, the things I post here are created primarily so that I have reminders of what I want to play and sing. I will often vary from the timing, rhythm, and pitch...sometimes even by choice. Many of the songs are slowly mutating into something different from what they were to begin with. If I decide to change chords or lyrics, I will usually change the notation. Otherwise, it's all subject to whim.

Songs (ordered by when they were written)

• Firing Line (February, 2004) Firing Line was inspired by a Civil War/Time Travel book, Guns of the South, by Harry Turtledove. It's my first filk song, written for (but not performed at) FKO 14. Update: 2/1/2009
• Four Families (September, 2004) Four Families is based on Terry Pratchett's book The Fifth Elephant, where some characters have trouble being comfortable with their relatives. Update: 2/1/2009
• Read All About It (September, 2004) Read All About It is a tribute to Science Fiction authors. I was in a conversation where I was explaining how I started reading fantasy and science fiction. Long after the discussion was over, I kept remembering.... Update: 2/1/2009
• Universal Follower (October, 2004) I insist that Universal Follower is a joke rather than a plea for help. When I started going to house filks (Summer, 2004), I was nervous that songs I wanted to try would be seen as misfits compared to what others were singing. I'm over that now. No, really! Update: 2/1/2009
• White Ships (December, 2004) Winter 2004, I re-read The Silmarillion and enjoyed it even more that I did when it was first released (Maybe I've learned a little patience). White Ships is my first attempt at writing a song based on incidents from that book. Update: 2/1/2009
• Melkor's Blues (January, 2005) Melkor's Blues explores the idea that all of Middle-Earth's problems might have been avoided if Melkor had been allowed to keep a pet. (When Randy Hoffman heard it, he called it Sympathy for the Morgoth, which I also like.) Update: 2/22/2009
• I Swear (January, 2005) Again with The Silmarillion, I kept thinking that Finrod was a great character except that he kept getting into trouble by making promises. I Swear is my idea of how his last promise might have gone. Update: 2/1/2009
• Time That You Have Thrown Away (February, 2005) Time That You Have Thrown Away is a song about recycling, written for FKO 2005. Too many revisions, verging on lobotomies.... Update: 2/1/2009
• Queen of Heart Attacks (March, 2005) One day Judith Hayman mentioned to me that she thought silly songs just naturally went with Country & Western music. Queen of Heart Attacks was my response. Maybe I'll sing it again some day. Maybe.... Update: 2/1/2009
• My Father's Rocket Ship (April, 2005) My Father's Rocket Ship is based on The Rocket from Ray Bradbury's The Illustrated Man. I wrote it mostly because I didn't have any serious space followers when circles got into that mood. Update: 2/1/2009
• One A Day (April, 2005) A lot of different things went into the creation of One A Day. It started when I was introduced to Tom Smith at the FilkOntario 2005 banquet as someone who made other people uncomfortable by writing too many songs. (Ha! Compared to him? Heather: what were you thinking?) A bit later I mentioned to Tom on LiveJournal that I was going to tell people I was trying for a song a day to see what reaction I got. Later still, the idea turned into a song. (Revised September, 2005 because I felt it was a verse too long -- at least.) Update: 2/1/2009
• How Could It Possibly Matter (May, 2005) Early summer of 2005, I re-read The Hobbit and went looking for song ideas there. How Could It Possibly Matter comes from thinking about Bilbo's change of heart in deciding to go on an adventure. (Revised September, 2005 because I didn't like the first line of the second verse.) Update: 2/1/2009
• The Art Show (May, 2005) What could be cuter than all those fantastic animals in The Art Show? C'mon...think about it! :-) Update: 2/1/2009
• One Dawn (July, 2005) One Dawn is about the three trolls in The Hobbit. Probably the stupidest critters in all literature.... A Tolkien moment: I thought that I would never see a monster dumber than a tree. Update: 2/1/2009
• Mister Invisible (July, 2005) Mister Invisible is a song from The Hobbit that came out of thinking about Bilbo's irritation at how the rest of the party treated him during the first part of the adventure. Update: 2/1/2009
• All The Good Songs (September, 2005) I wanted to write a song about ships...or spaceships...or something like that. I wrote All The Good Songs instead. Update: 2/1/2009
• Traitor Wind (September, 2005) For my first trip to OVFF, I wrote Traitor Wind to enter in the Shipwrecked-themed song contest. True to the subject, it sank without a trace. Update: 2/1/2009
• Ways To Die (January, 2006) About the time Bilbo and friends are snatched from burning trees by giant eagles, I imagine him pondering how many Ways To Die he has suddenly discovered. Update: 2/1/2009
• Childhood Friends (January, 2006) I don't know about Childhood Friends. I like it, but in spite of fantasy references, it hardly seems filk. Too autobiographical, perhaps. Update: 2/1/2009
• Tea At Four (February, 2006) Though I'll probably write more songs from The Hobbit, I see Tea At Four as being sequentially last: Bilbo contemplates the outcome of his adventure, getting it mostly wrong. Update: 2/1/2009
• Adult Situations (March, 2006) I posted the words to Adult Situations on LiveJournal some months before getting enough ambition to write down a tune. Update: 2/1/2009
• Earth Magic (April, 2006) Many things combined to inspire Earth Magic, including Orson Scott Card books, the traditional Shady Grove, and Escape Key's Ladies Don't Do Those Things. Update: 2/1/2009
• One Hurt Wonder (May, 2006) In February 2006, I posted a 'challenge' on the FKO lyrics list, saying there weren't enough SF love songs and suggesting people should write some. One Hurt Wonder is my own attempt. (I think I now know why there aren't so many SF love songs.) Update: 2/1/2009
• Beorn (On The Plain) (June, 2006) You know about Alternate Reality stories. Beorn (On The Plain) is not one of those...at least, not the 'Reality' part. It started as just another song from The Hobbit, but mutated. Update: 2/1/2009
• Found And Lost (June, 2006) Everybody has been portraying Gollum as a conflicted and slightly sympathetic figure. Me too, in Found And Lost...a song about choices. Update: 2/1/2009
• True Monsters (July, 2006) True Monsters is based loosely on a character from The Truth by Terry Pratchett. Update: 2/1/2009
• Bedtime Stories (September, 2006) Bedtime Stories was written for the 2006 OVFF song contest with the subject Too Tired To.... Second place! Wow! Thanks, people! Update: 2/1/2009
• Abby (September, 2006) Abby is a song that was inspired by the setting for three Richard Chwedyk short stories. It's not funny. Update: 2/1/2009
• I Don't Think They've Noticed (December, 2006) While I was filling in time by doing a bit of guitar practice, the last line of I Don't Think They've Noticed's chorus arrived with no warning. It turned into speculation on the nature of life and death. Riiiight! Update: 2/1/2009
• The Heart of the Mountain (February, 2007) Thorin gets a moment to apologise for his tunnel-vision (Oh, bad! The song's not like that, I promise.) in The Heart of the Mountain. Update: 2/22/2009
• I'll Remember (March, 2007) I was walking to the grocery store one day when I got a mental image of two people in a sick room, one in bed and the other beside it. The result was, I'll Remember. Update: 2/22/2009
• Trout (May, 2007) Trout is another of those ideas that arrived while I was working on something totally different. But I have had a long-time feeling that the displays of live "food" in stores and restaurants was a bit grotesque. Update: 2/22/2009
• For A Storyteller (June, 2007) For A Storyteller was written as a tribute to John Morressy, who died early in 2006. I was a fan of the short stories of his, published in Fantasy & Science Fiction, about Kedrigern the wizard and his princess wife. Update: 2/1/2009
• Southbound (June, 2007) Southbound is based on an idea that had been kicking around in my head for a year and a half: What if there were sensitive Orcs who were upset and dismayed about the management of the Mordor forces? I think it works better up-tempo than in its earlier, thoughtful incarnations. Update: 2/1/2009
• Cheerin' For Chess (July, 2007) While trying to learn the guitar part for Seanan McGuire's Maybe It's Crazy, I came up with the idea of Cheerin' For Chess. What if highschool had been the kind of place where guys like the one in her song were the most popular? Update: 2/1/2009
• Powders & Signs (October, 2007) Powders & Signs is part of an experiment where I attempt to tell an original story using songs (Naming Quest) to advance the plot. Update: 2/22/2009
• Insubstantially Yours (October, 2007) Insubstantially Yours is a song about a ghost who seriously cannot take a hint. It tends to cause arguments about which character is the victim. Update: 2/22/2009
• Pennies (November, 2007) If someone took the phrase, "A penny for your thoughts," to heart and made it their motto, Pennies might be the result. Whimsical. Update: 2/1/2009
• Don't Love The Hero (December, 2007) The direct inspiration for Don't Love The Hero was a Firefly episode, but the concept of disposable love interests seemed universal. Update: 2/1/2009
• Smaug's Lament (December, 2007) In Smaug's Lament the dragon narrates his encounter with Bilbo and the adventures that follow. Update: 2/1/2009
• Lemonade (December, 2007) There's a certain saying that suggests you should consider adversity as an opportunity. Lemonade explains that the strategy doesn't scale well. Update: 9/6/2009
• Burning Ages (December, 2007) Burning Ages is the second song that I've written in my attempt to tell a full length story in songs (Naming Quest). This may take some time. Update: 2/1/2009
• Sweet Nightmare (February, 2008) Sweet Nightmare is Bombur's song from The Hobbit. For all the real-world troubles, the dreams were the biggest problem. This was written for the 2008 FilKONtario song contest. Update: 2/1/2009
• Differences (February, 2008) Sometimes I imagine that there's music in everything. Differences suggests that you just have to be attuned to it to find it in nature, or aliens, or that filker on the other side of the room. Update: 2/1/2009
• Moonlight (April, 2008) Thorin and his grandfather, Thror, have a conversation across the ages in the form of an ancient map. The writing only appears when read under the same light as was in effect during its creation. This strikes me as a parallel to the existence and life of dwarves generally. Update: 8/2/2010
• Frozen April (May, 2008) There are any number of songs that celebrate the joy of a person being selected to go off into space, leaving everything and everyone behind. Frozen April looks at it a bit differently. Update: 2/1/2009
• Basketweaving (July, 2008) Basketweaving was written for the 2008 OVFF song contest, using the theme, A funny thing happened on the way to.... Apparently not funny enough. Update: 4/12/2009
• Don't Call It Magic (August, 2008) Don't Call It Magic returns to the world of the witch girl and friends from Burning Ages and Powders and Signs (Naming Quest). Update: 4/12/2009
• Inside A Flame (September, 2008) What does the Phoenix think about? What are its goals and ambitions? Inside A Flame was a response to a song challenge posted on a filk mailing list. Update: 4/12/2009
• Watching One Another (February, 2009) The universe is full of strange alien creatures who all want to study human beings. Why? Watching One Another talks about the extreme case. Update: 4/12/2009
• Solitaire (April, 2009) Winner of the 2009 FKO song contest on the topic of "Space Games". Solitaire is about what happens when your life support system runs the Windows OS. Update: 4/12/2009
• Beautiful Morning (June, 2009) Symbolism in movies, TV, and literature can be a bit heavy-handed. You might think the characters would catch on to even the milder forms of "dark and stormy night" syndrome. Beautiful Morning deals with those aware characters having wrong expectations. Update: 9/6/2009
• How To Fly (June, 2009) How To Fly was written in response to my own challenge on a lyrics mailing list. The idea was to look at the words to an existing song and find a missing piece or counter-argument. This has almost no resemblance to the source that inspired it, but I'm fine with that. Update: 9/6/2009
• Princess Charming (September, 2009) I started with a set of chords, a rhythm, and no idea what the song might be about. I then sat down with my list of song ideas and partial lyrics, playing the music while reading each one, to see if anything clicked. One of those ideas came from a single line in a song on a Bonnie Raitt album that says, "You ain't no Princess Charming." Therefore: Princess Charming. Update: 9/6/2009
• On The Radio (October, 2009) Since I'd already established the existence of an alternate world high school and culture with "Cheerin' For Chess" it seemed wasteful to ignore it. On The Radio is another song from that world, a little later in the story cycle and not nearly as bright. Update: 10/27/2009
• The Dreamer (December, 2009) From the "Naming Quest" series, we have Nate describing dream images and how they relate to his basic belief in only what his senses tell him. Update: 1/5/2010
• Nothing At All (December, 2009) In another "Naming Quest" song, Matthew begins to think for himself about belief systems and their symbolism. Update: 1/5/2010
• West Nirvana (February, 2010) A town with a direction in front of its name has an inferiority complex. It's not *really* Nirvana. Update: 5/17/2010
• Ghosts (February, 2010) A ghost is an impression of someone who isn't here anymore. The reasons may vary. Update: 5/17/2010
• Catnip Honey (February, 2010) There are catnip plants that grow in the flower bed by the back windows. Our cats spend as much of the summer as they can in the sunshine, watching the bees. Update: 5/17/2010
• Eve And Eve (February, 2010) A Naming Quest song where our travelling trio meet some people striking out from the rumoured city to start a new life. Update: 5/17/2010
• Curiosity (February, 2010) A cat might die from curiosity. On the other hand, a need to know what happens next might be the inspiration needed to keep on going. Some days I think it works for me. Update: 5/17/2010
• Running For Her Train (February, 2010) Part of this song was loosely inspired by something written by Charles de Lint, probably "Jack the Giant-Killer", though not much overlaps. Update: 5/17/2010
• Personified Death (February, 2010) This owes a bit to Terry Pratchett's books, not in any specific, but in the idea of Death being a physical being with individualized characteristics and problems rather than an anonymous and symbolic force. Update: 5/17/2010
• Time Traveller (March, 2010) While I was thinking of something to write for the FKO "Time Travel" song contest, I decided I wanted to write about the fact that we all travel through time. The song won 3rd prize. Update: 12/18/2011
• Poison Apple (July, 2010) What if the heroes in fairy tales were not only arrogant and self-assured, but also dupes? For every successful rescuer among them there were many that ended as nothing but a pile of bones. Who was responsible? Update: 1/19/2012
• Dance In The Sun (July, 2010) I wrote this as a continuation of my own song, I'll Remember, because I wanted to explore the other person's point of view. It was also the result of an online challenge to write the saddest song that I could without using any minor chords. Update: 1/19/2012
• Tickets (July, 2010) So, I wrote Frozen April and then Sue Jeffers wrote a follower for it and then I wrote this as a follower for hers. Update: 12/21/2010
• Talk To Strangers (July, 2010) This one was inspired by the non-relationship between Mal and Inara in "Firefly". Update: 1/19/2012
• Box Of Shadows (July, 2010) There's an author named Fred Chappell who has been writing stories about a world where shadows are collected, stolen, bought, and sold. This has nothing to do with a specific story but is set loosely in his world. Update: 12/21/2010
• Secret Of Long Lake (August, 2010) In The Hobbit it says that nobody ever braved the section of Long Lake where Smaug died. I figured someone would find a reason to go there eventually. Update: 12/21/2010
• Too Many Trees (August, 2010) Again from The Hobbit.... I quite liked the scene in the book where Bilbo climbs a tree to see whether there's any end to the forest they've been travelling through. He finds no destination, but gets to see butterflies and sunlight for a while. Update: 12/21/2010
• A Thousand Years Ago (February, 2011) I was a fan of Babylon 5's first commander. Rather than being a gung ho military type and avid politician like his successor, he always seemed slightly out of place and out of time. Eventually, we learn why. Update: 12/18/2011
• Stove Button Blues (February, 2011) This song came about because of an on-line conversation about blues music and the idea that there's nothing so trivial that you can't write a blues song about it. My original intent was to write it as a joke (and to pad my February total) and then throw it away. Oddly, some people like it better than the songs that required effort. [shrug] Update: 1/19/2012
• After The Rain (February, 2011) I admit it; this started with a title and the song came later. Some who take part in FAWM put their month's creations into CD form with a title. Since my first CD was called "Rain on the Sand", "After the Rain" became my working name for recordings of songs that came later. I've abandoned the idea but I like the song regardless. Update: 12/18/2011
• Null Hypothesis Blues (February, 2011) Here's another song that probably belongs in the same world as "Cheerin' For Chess". It's rock and roll for people who possibly take their math and science too seriously. Update: 1/19/2012
• Don't Tell (February, 2011) This one's a Firefly song about Jayne and how planning wasn't his strength. Update: 12/18/2011
• Hammers And Nails (February, 2011) I was thinking about the stereotypical high fantasy bard. They're often mentioned as the news sources of their day but, what if the news wasn't perfectly objective? What if the bard had an agenda? Update: 1/21/2012
• Hobbits On Mars (February, 2011) This came about because of a car trip from Montreal to Toronto. There was speculation about creating a band that would include me and Tom Jeffers. Tom has some notable songs about Mars; I write about Hobbits; this was a suggested band name. Some time later, I re-purposed the phrase as a song title. Update: 1/19/2012
• Sharp Edges (February, 2011) I originally thought this should be called "Carnival" but that seemed too bland. It's another song from the series I'm calling the Naming Quest. It fits in sequence immediately after Eve And Eve. Update: 1/19/2012
• May I Be (July, 2011) This was written after reading the fourth of Seanan McGuire's books in the Toby Daye series. I was taken by the idea that someone who seemed to have a single purpose could overcome that and attempt to become fully functional. Update: 12/18/2011
• BBW Blues (July, 2011) I didn't write this to reference Bill Willingham's "Fables" graphic novels but I'm sure that they influenced its direction. His BBW is troubled, mysterious, and dangerous; mine is just happy to be alive. Update: 1/19/2012
• Aliens (July, 2011) This is a song with a rather limited scope. It was written specifically as a follower for the classic filk song, Don't Push That Button. Update: 1/19/2012
• How Long Did It Take (July, 2011) I'm still writing Babylon 5 songs because: a) I'm trying to compensate for not knowing what filk was back when the show was current, and b) things that come to mind often remind me of B5 incidents. This one's about the end of the (mostly off-stage) Sheridan/Anna subplot. Update: 1/19/2012
• Girls And Boys (July, 2011) The human race dies off, leaving behind their toys. The toys turn out to be like their creators in some unexpected ways. Update: 1/19/2012
• Paradiso (July, 2011) Firefly, again. This time up-tempo country music with a bit of Mal-like philosophy. Update: 1/19/2012
• She Bleeds For Roses (July, 2011) I think the original idea for this title came from a character in a book but it developed in ways that took it far from that original concept. Think of it as a weird bit of invented mythology. Update: 12/18/2011
• Half-Finished (July, 2011) I frequently get ideas for songs where the traditional personification of Death shows up. This is another of those. Apart from that, it's about stories and wanting to know how they end. Update: 1/19/2012
• Tweedledee (July, 2011) Repressed and almost a pointless character by his very definition, could that other brother -- the one always mentioned last -- have plans of his own? Update: 12/18/2011
• Instrument Of Wind (August, 2011) The first filk song I ever heard on a recording was Karen Linsley's "The Dragon And The Maiden". Years pass and I find myself learning it on guitar so that I can play backup for Karen in concert. Strange. As often happens with me, I think about what would become of these characters later.

  I'm happy to say that Karen has endorsed this as a valid sequel. Update: 1/21/2012

• Queen Alice (August, 2011) This is about as closest to a straight love song as anything I've written. It features a number of characters from "Through the Looking Glass" and was inspired by their creative use of words. Update: 1/19/2012
• Her World (September, 2011) Taken from Babylon 5, Lannier is explaining to a group of fanatics (who just happen to be nominally on his side) that he didn't lie to protect them; he lied to protect Delenn's vision of them. Update: 1/19/2012
• Stealing The Sky (September, 2011) This song is based on a small section of the novel "His Majesty's Dragon" by Naomi Novik. It was written while I was reading that book, which becomes a more interesting fact by the time you get to books four and five in the series. Update: 1/30/2012