Filk Song: Difference between revisions

[[Self-Demonstrating Article|Self-demonstration]] aside, "filk" is best described as the music of fandom, or at least, the music of the filk community. Songs about SF books or movies, fandom in-jokes, or even just related topics such as computer geeky references are all common sources for filk. And, despite what the self-demonstration says, filk doesn't have to be new words to old music - that's [[To the Tune Of]]. (Nobody would call ''The Star-Spangled Banner'' filk, but the US national anthem uses the tune of ''To Anacreon in Heaven''. The song sometimes considered the "anthem of filk," ''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXteSV8rBwY Hope Eyrie,]'', has its own original music.)

The term is believed to originate in the 1960s in an early SF fandom 'zine, where the editor didn't do enough copy editing, and typo'd "[[Folk Music]]" as "Filk Music". The term stuck as a way to describe the peculiar style of musicianship, weird humor, and camaraderie of fandom musicians. (Some in the [[Society for Creative Anachronism]] claim it was actually ''their'' word first, and fandom got it from them; given the heavy overlap between SCAdians and fandom both then and now, it's probably a moot point.)