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 all, with new lyrics for the folk song “The Boston Burglar.” For more recent filk artists, review the Pegasus Awards.

So originally I was going to create a top 10 list of filk music, but I couldn’t find any good streaming statistics, as many filk songs have not been recorded. Many of the searches I did for filk actually ended up with what I would call geek rock: commercially recorded songs about science-fiction topics.

Here is a top 15 of geek and filk music that I compiled from listening stats:

  1. “Re: Your Brains” by Jonathan Coulton
  2. “The Gates” by Da Vinci’s Notebook
  3. “Yoda” by “Weird Al” Yankovic
  4. “The Last Saskatchewan Pirate” by Captain Tractor
  5. “The Doctor is Dying” by Chameleon Circuit
  6. “The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins” by Leonard Nimoy
  7. “Dawson’s Christian” by Vixy & Tony
  8. “Space Worms” by Future Folk
  9. “Fire in the Sky” by Kristoph Klover
  10. “Space Shanty” by The Senate
  11. “Cruel, Cruel Moon” by Paul & Storm
  12. “Oh, Mr. Darcy” by The Doubleclicks
  13. “The Sun is Also a Warrior” by Leslie Fish
  14. “Hope Eyrie” by Julie Ecklar
  15. “Jedi Drinking Song” by Brobdingnagian Bards

The first version had most of its songs by three artists, so I revised it to only include one song from each of the included artists. I didn’t always pick their most-listened-to song, choosing a second or third song if I thought that was more representative (and if it occupied roughly the same position on the chart).

The topics cover many different fandoms: Star Trek, Star Wars, Dr. Who, The Hobbit, Price and Prejudice. There are also songs devoted to our history of space flight and songs about their own science-fiction stories.

Worth reading:

Image: Album cover art from Prometheus Music

See also: The Top 10 Songs from Subspace Rhapsody.