Category Archives: Poetry/Music

The current streaming landscape is dominated by a few major players, but with interesting nuances in who uses them. According to a recent Researchscape survey of 1,023 U.S. adults, YouTube Music leads overall usage at 38%, followed closely by Spotify at 36%, while Amazon Music rounds out the top three at 30%. However, raw usage numbers tell only part of the story.

Filk music is the folk music of science-fiction and fantasy fandom, often sung together at conventions. Like folk songs, filk songs often are new lyrics set to old tunes. Also like folk songs, they morph and change over time. The first two commercial albums of filk music were by Leslie Fish and the DeHorn Crew: Folk Songs for Folk Who Ain’t Even Been Yet (1976) and Solar Sailors (1977). Both are worth seeking out, if you’d like a taste of early filk; “Banned from Argo” (BFA)—from Solar Sailors—is the most famous filk song of […]

April is National Poetry Month, but few Americans name any contemporary poets when asked what poets they can think of and who their favorite poet is. In fact, it’s a Dead Poets Society for the Top 35 poets, all of whom are deceased. Four out of ten Americans name Edgar Allan Poe, making him the most famous poet by far. In fact, 29% of respondents named him first, and 18% said he was their favorite poet. A distant second is the Bard. William Shakespeare was named by two out of […]

Embarrassingly, my number one album this year was Subspace Rhapsody, the soundtrack to the Strange New Worlds’ musical episode. (Last year it was We Are.) After seeing my top songs from the album, I was curious about what others thought. I crunched the numbers for listener stats from Spotify and viewer stats from YouTube. The top three for Spotify were “Status Report” (the first song sung by the crew), “I’m the X” (Spock’s solo), and “I’m Ready” (Christine Chapel’s song). The top three for YouTube were “We are One” (the finale), “How Would […]

The Road goes ever on and onDown from the door where it began.Now far ahead the Road has gone,And I must follow, if I can. –       J.R.R. Tolkien I remember reading The Fellowship of the Ring on the school bus, arguing with my friend. I loved the songs and poems, but my classmate said they were awful and skipped right over all of them. Hey dol! Merry dol! Ring a dong dilly! He’s got a point that some of these are silly. Still, I’ve found there’s a […]

My players’ characters are visiting a village smithy, so I decided the local bard will sing this poem as they approach (then ask them for money!). Since our homebrew campaign world is set in Stone Age Eurasia, I changed the references to Christ and Sunday worship to more neutral items. My edited words are in italics. (With apologies to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.) The Village Blacksmith UNDER a spreading chestnut tree The village smithy stands; The smith, a mighty man is he, With large and sinewy hands; And the muscles of […]