filk
/fɪlk/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 1.41 in modern English
11
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
About or inspired by science fiction, fantasy, horror, science, and/or subjects of interest to fans of speculative fiction; frequently, being a song whose lyrics have been altered to refer to science fiction; parodying. (However, much filk music is original rather than parodic.)
Example Sentences
- "The blame/credit (choose one) for the first filk song is a little dubious. Like the man who tried to sit on two stools, it falls in the middle, between Poul Anderson who wrote a filk song called Barbarous Allen and Karen Anderson who egged him on and published it in Zed #774."
- "And the permanent exhibit area offers a filk performance on a small stage so that neophytes can sample more esoteric interests."
- "2006, Robert T. Balder, quoted in Attitude 3: The New Subversive Online Cartoonists, Nantier Beall Minoustchine Publishing, →ISBN, page 97, I’m also involved in what is called filk music. This is music for and by fans of Fantasy and Science Fiction. […] Filk is nearly as big a part of my creative life as comics, and I have similarly made many friends among the creative people in that community."
- "Music can be very important in fan texts and activities. Fans write and perform songs at gatherings about characters from television shows, not unlike the way that folk songs are sung in folk clubs. This can be seen in the name of this fan form: filk song. According to Jenkins [in Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture], filk songs take their cue from commercial culture. They are about the characters from commercial television series, but ‘Filk turns commercial culture back into folk culture, existing as a mediator between two musical traditions. Its raw materials come from commercial culture; its logic is from folk culture’ (1992: 270)."
- "Filk turns commercial culture back into folk culture, existing as a mediator between two musical traditions. Its raw materials come from commercial culture; its logic is from folk culture."
- "The style of music generally used for creating filk is folk or popular music. That brings up one of the key points. Most, but not all, filk is created by "borrowing" the music of other songs and creating lyrics to fit the singer's particular circle of fandom."
Etymology
Originally "filk music" was a typo for "folk music" in a never-published essay on the influence of Science Fiction and Fantasy on folk music. Its first known deliberate use was by Karen Kruse Anderson in Die Zeitschrift für Vollständigen Unsinn (The Journal for Utter Nonsense) #774 (June 1953), for a song written by science-fiction author Poul Anderson.
Usage
Subject
Wiktionary places this term in Music.