Steve.Savitzky.net / Songs / (index compact)

Filksongs by Steve Savitzky
This directory contains filksongs by Steve Savitzky [bio] [fanish home page]. If you don't know what filk music is, you need to look at interesting.places.to/Browse/forMusic. News:   20080706 Major website reorganization; the main user-visible improvement will be much shorter URLs for song pages. Eventually it will be possible to individually customize each one.

Short Index

Short index, with one line per song. Includes short file names, links to printable PDF files (with chords), HTML, Ogg Vorbis and MP3 audio files if present, and approximate timings.

Note: The index contains all songs in my repertoire for which I have permission to post lyrics and, where applicable, audio on the web. That includes both public domain material, and a few songs for which I have obtained explicit permission.

Note: The HTML files are automatically generated by a Perl script, and will almost invariably look a lot worse than the PDFs. They're improving, but slowly.

Memorials and tributes:

Keep the Dream Alive [ogg] [mp3]

was originally written in 1986 for the Challenger. It has (unfortunately) recently been updated, and a new verse added, for the Columbia.

     If you need comic relief and have a high tolerance for black humor, check out Thrill-Seekers' Waltz, and don't say you weren't warned. If you want to record Keep the Dream Alive you can send the royalties to a space-related charity instead of to me. Just drop me a note.

 

The Stuff that Dreams are Made Of [ogg] [mp3]

was written for my late father. He went to grad school with Isaac Asimov, and introduced me to both computers and science fiction.

 

For Amy [ogg] [mp3]

was written for my stillborn daughter Amethyst, and will be on my next CD, Amethyst Rose.

 

Quiet Victories [ogg] [mp3]

isn't a memorial, it's a victory march, for all the women in our lives whose quiet courage and fortitude rarely get the recognition they deserve, even from themselves:

    Here's to the women, gently brave
    Mothers, daughters, lovers, wives,
    And to the quiet victories
    We seldom notice in their lives.

Prize-winning songs:

The World Inside the Crystal [ogg] [mp3]

1997 Pegasus Award winner: Best Science Song.
Kathy Mar's performance on mp3.com is gone, along with the rest of the former mp3.com. (But here's a nice, fresh, and far too big .ogg for you.) The performance linked above is from my CD, Coffee, Computers, and Song!

 

Vampire Megabyte [ogg] [mp3]

2001 Kazoo Award: ``user unfriendly computer filk'' at ConChord 2001.
2001 Pegasus Nominee: best computer song.

Of note:

Ship of Stone [ogg]

by Don Simpson is one of the greatest filksongs ever written. This version was recorded at Baycon 2006, with me on vocals and guitar, and the lovely and talented Callie Hills on flute.

Song Index

Note: This index contains all songs in my repertoire for which I have permission to post lyrics and, where applicable, audio on the web. That includes both public domain material, and a few songs for which I have obtained explicit permission.

Compact index:

This compact index is here so that somebody who already knows the short filename of a song can find a link to it quickly without having to scroll.

aengus alphabet another babies barratry bbblues bigger black bog bugs calm can-t cap changing cicero cloths collarb crypto cypunk daddys demon deso-no diypl3 dmitri dream emerald eyes fanish ferret filking for-amy froggy guilty hackers heaven house-c inherit jabber lad lcm lfblues little lizard lullabye mad magic meeting memory merrymn mfarm mil-dawn monday mushroom nancy napster net oldtime owl-puss paper paul pigeon preorder queen quiet rainbow river rosie rrprayer runfree ship shores silicon silk sink small stolen store stuck stuff t-dragon t-fuel tbears teotw three thrill tool uncle vampire wannabe wheelin world y2k

Licensing:

Notes:

HTML Formatting:

Since the HTML is automatically generated by a rather stupid PERL script, don't expect the world's best typesetting. In particular, the spacing between verses is horribly inconsistent. This will eventually improve. For an example of what's possible, see the PDF files.

Audio Files:

We prefer to use the free, open Ogg Vorbis format -- it provides noticably better sound than MP3 and is unencumbered by patent restrictions. It's supported by most PC media players and some "mp3"-players. If you don't have one, here's a list of free player software. You might have good luck with jlGui, which is written in Java and so has a decent chance of running almost anywhere. We do provide MP3 files so that you can transfer them to legacy devices like iPods, Macs, and cell phones that don't understand oggs.

Editing:

For some reason, many people like to play their oggs with Audacity, an excellent cross-platform, open-source sound recording and editing program. I just use it for recording and editing. Being cross-platform it's great for collaboration, and it also makes short work of splitting a concert recording or ripped cassette tape into song files.

     For text editing, I use GNU Emacs. In the past Emacs has been derided for being bloated and slow, but back then 1MB was a lot of memory, and 1MHz was a blazingly fast CPU clock. These days, it's about a tenth the size of the popular Firefox web browser (which, like Emacs, is mostly written in an interpreted language), and I don't hear many people complaining about it.

Printing:

Note that the indices no longer have links to postscript files, which were eliminated due to space considerations (they took up about 5 Mb at a time when I only had an allowance of 35). If you really want a printed songbook, send me a note at <steve+filk at theStarport.org> and if I get pestered enough I'll think about publishing one. They do have links to PDF's, which are pretty repulsive but easier for most folks to handle than .dvi's.

Coming Soon

Sheet music

I'm a lousy transcriber, so doing this right will probably require a voice-to-MIDI translator. Anyone have one that runs on Linux?

Better formatting

Customized Song Pages

Eventually it will be possible to customize every song's page individually. That will let them include things like illustrations, custom colors, and comments.