Filk: What Do You Hear In These Songs

TTTO What Do You Hear In These Sounds by Dar Williams;
new lyrics (c) Me, November 9 2010
Scansion is lightly mutable but generally fits the original nicely. I had the germ for it yesterday and sneezed it out just now.

I don't go to circle to find out if I'm a freak
I go and I listen to my friendly singing SF geeks
It's not just me in the memories that follow
Through convention singing at some late ungodly hour
And we sing through the music inspired by the novels
That line all the bookshelves of our mansions and our hovels
And it's so fine, I think I want to sing you something
But I know it's so much better if it's not just by myself
And we sing

So Fa, Mi Do, what do you hear in these songs?
And Ti La, Re Do, what do you hear in these songs?

I listen on the edges with an ear not quite believing
All the people that are coming and performers who are leaving
And they say, "bye", I say "Bye, you know we'll miss you"
They say "Yeah, but we are tired
And awake-itude is fired"
So we smile very softly with some hugs received and given
And the circle wanes and waxes with that song for Larry Niven
And it's all mine, that's the tale, that's the story
So tell me, where does the arrow point to?
Who invented coffee?
And

So Fa, Mi Do, what do you hear in these songs?
And Ti La, Re Do, what do you hear in these songs?

(La So Mi-Do, who has the follower?
La So Mi Do….
La So Mi-Do *tap tap tap tap*
La So Mi-Do, Filkerrrrrrrrrr Up!)

And when I talk about filkery I know what people think
That you're really on the fringes as a substitute for drink
But oh how I loved most everybody's music
when I finally had a chance to play the song that I just wrote….

And I wake up and I ask myself just where I've been
And I think of the music and I grow this tremendous grin
I had this wall and what I knew of music
Was what the teachers taught me and I what I could hear on radio
And I thought if I came I would only start performing
And the others would be waiting, a twisting and a storming
But the wall came down and there we stood together
With their laughter and their crying and their singing out just like me… and…

So Fa, Mi Do, the stories that nobody hears - and
Ti La, Re Do, I collect these songs in my ears - and
So Fa, Mi Do, that's what I hear in these songs, and
Ti La, Re Do. that's what I hear in these, that's what I hear in these
So-o-o-ongs
Ohhhh, Ooooooooooh
That's what I hear in these, that's what I hear in these songs.