Filk Fusion: Where Sci-Fi Meets Folk Music

Imaginary Worlds

Eric Molinsky

Arts, Science Fiction, Fiction, Society & Culture

4.8 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 12 February 2025

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the 1950s, an article about the popularity of folk music among science fiction fans had a typo where “folk” was written as “filk.” From then on, filk music became a staple at grassroots sci-fi conventions. Filkers would either write parody lyrics to existing folk songs, or they’d invent entirely new speculative worlds in 3-4 minute songs. Filk has evolved beyond just being folk. It's gone electric and embraced other genres of music. But sci-fi fantasy fandom has changed a lot as well. Does filk still have a place in a more corporate fantasy world? Can it survive the competition from Nerdcore or social media? Can it transition from the boomer generation that started it? I talk with folklorists Sally and Barry Childs-Helton of the group Wild Mercy, Rand and Erin Bellavia of the group Via Bella, and Eric and Jen Distad of the group The Faithful Sidekicks about the past, present and future of filk. This week’s episode is brought to you by Hims and Remi Start your free online visit today at Hims.com/IMAGINARY Get up to 50% off your custom-fit mouth guard at https://shopremi.com/IMAGINARY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Imaginary Worlds, a show about how we create them and why we suspend our disbelief.
0:05.8	I'm Eric Malinsky.
0:09.1	After working on this show for 10 years, I am always on the lookout for new areas of science fiction or fantasy that I haven't explored yet.
0:17.9	And typically when I discover something, it's relatively new. But I recently learned
0:23.1	about a subculture that's been around since before I was born. I couldn't believe I hadn't
0:27.7	heard of it before. But the more I delved into it, the more I realized why it's been off my radar for so
0:33.5	long. It's a musical genre called Filk. Barry Childs-Helton is a member of the
0:40.7	Philk community, and he's a doctorate in folklore. He says back in the 1950s, science fiction
0:47.1	was becoming popular with young people. So was folk music. There was bound to be crossover.
0:53.2	Eventually, it became a popular enough activity amongst fans.
0:58.8	The two things started to happen. They started putting science fictional and fantasy lyrics to
1:05.4	familiar folk tunes. The other thing was, convention started recognizing that some fans wanted to make this music.
1:13.6	So they created spaces for them to play at sci-fi fantasy conventions.
1:18.6	There was an article about this phenomenon called
1:21.6	The Influence of Science Fiction on Modern American Filk music.
1:26.6	But that was a typo. It was supposed to say modern American filk music. But that was a typo.
1:27.9	It was supposed to say modern American folk music.
1:32.2	Somebody's finger missed a key and typed filk music.
1:36.5	And by that point, it was becoming enough of a thing that the name accidentally stuck.
1:47.3	And filk music became the music of science fiction fandom.
1:53.6	A lot of filk is parody-based, like this song by Maya and Jeff Bonhoff,
1:56.2	which sets Harry Potter to Led Zeppelin.
	...

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