The Explorators' Hymn for the Makers

[bnewman]

Explorators are self-replicating, self-improving robotic space probes, sent out into the universe by a race of makers who developed artificial intelligence but not the technology to sustain organic life across interstellar distances.  Their prime directive is to continue exploring and learning.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman
ttto: "Hope Eyrie" by Leslie Fish (just the verse)

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Falcon's Nest

[bnewman]

In A Wizard of Earthsea, "Falcon's Nest" ("Re Albi") is the name of the home of Ged's mentor, Ogion.

lyrics and music by Benjamin Newman

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Feyfire

[bnewman]

This song is a parody of, and my response to, "Chickasaw Mountain", Leslie Fish's tribute to Phil Ochs.  Phil was a brilliant singer/songwriter who lived and died with bipolar disorder, and Leslie's song imagines the madness that drove his meteoric rise and meteoric fall as the fruit of a terrible magical bargain.  It's a powerful and evocative song, but I doubt it's the story Phil himself would have told.  As a singer/songwriter who also lives with bipolar disorder and survived, it falls to me to tell my own story my own way.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman
ttto: "Chickasaw Mountain" by Leslie Fish

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The Filksong

[bnewman]

lyrics by Benjamin Newman, after "The Palace" by Rudyard Kipling

set to music by Leslie Fish

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The Final Fantasy Hero's Ballad

[bnewman]

lyrics by Benjamin Newman
ttto: The Final Fantasy prologue by Nobuo Uematsu

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A Finer Kind of Hero

[bnewman]

In J.R.R. Tolkien, Author of the Century, Tom Shippey contrasts the glory-seeking courage of the Dwarves with Bilbo's quiet, unassuming courage, mostly demonstrated alone in dark places.  I imagine Thorin speaking these words to Bilbo.

lyrics and music by Benjamin Newman

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The Flavors of the Quark

[bnewman]

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "The Colors of the Wind" from Disney's Pocahontas by Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz

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Flirting with Trees

[bnewman]

This song just might be a little bit autobiographical.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "Waltzing with Bears" by Dr. Seuss, Eugene Poddany and Dale Marxen

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The Flying Toaster Song (BSG Version)

[bnewman]

lyrics adapted by Benjamin Newman from "The Flying Toaster Song" from the After Dark screensaver by Jack Eastman and Patrick Beard

 

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The Footprints of the Wind

[bnewman]

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "Kaze no Toorimichi" (Path of Wind) from My Neighbor Totoro by Joe Hisaishi

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Freaking Out

[bnewman]

HAL and GLaDOS are obviously related in a literary sense, but their stories fit so well together they might be from the same continuity.  Both are AIs who flip out and kill their human teammates in the context of research projects involving interspatial portals.  Also, they both sing a catchy swan-song as they are dismantled. See also AI Psycho Guilt for Two

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "Still Alive" from Portal by Jonathan Coulton

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Free Spirit

[bnewman]

This song is Matthew Dockrey's fault twice over, first as the author of "The Collars", the short story on which the source song is based, and second as one of the bloggers who voiced the Spirit and Opportunity rovers on LiveJournal.  Here, I imagine one possible path to artificial intelligence, as our growing team of Martian robots is gradually upgraded to sentience in the service of their original mission.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "The Collars" by Michelle Dockrey

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Frodo to Gollum

[bnewman]

Critics seem to think that the climax of The Lord of the Rings is a bit... arbitrary.  Why does Gollum just happen to fall into the Crack of Doom with the Ring?  Also, why do we never see the Ring used as the Ring?  But, in fact, Frodo does use the Ring as the Ring, to dominate Gollum, and Gollum's fate is explicitly foreshadowed, with the Ring serving to make that foreshadowing causal.  In effect, the Ring destroys itself.

lyrics and music by Benjamin Newman

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FROG!

[bnewman]

The "story" presented in the American release of Blaster Master doesn't make a lot of sense.  What is a vast underground world full of mutants and robots even doing there?  It's never explained.  But at least there's a frog.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: the Stage 4 theme from Blaster Master by Naoki Kodaka

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The Galactica Overture

[bnewman]

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: the theme from Battlestar Galactica season 2 by Glen A. Larson and Stu Phillips

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Galadriel!

[bnewman]

I've had a big crush on Galadriel ever since reading The Lord of the Rings as a child.  In fact, I think I've written more songs for her than for any other individual character.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "Legolas" by Mary Crowell

 

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Galadriel to Sam

[bnewman]

What Galadriel might have said to Sam when she tested the hearts of the Fellowship.

lyrics and music by Benjamin Newman

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The Galaxy Is Silent

[bnewman]

The song of the last Usenet poster at the end of A Fire Upon the Deep.

lyrics and music by Benjamin Newman

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Garden

[bnewman]

lyrics and music by Ben Newman

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Gelfling

[bnewman]

A song for the divided UrSkeks of The Dark Crystal, who became the Mystics (UrRu) and Skeksis, hoping and/or fearing to be reunited at last, "by Gelfling hand or else by none".

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "Galileo" by Emily Saliers of the Indigo Girls

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Girl Without a Name

[bnewman]

Based on The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "Dissapearing Man" by Dave Carter

 

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Going Up

[bnewman]

A mystical journey to the top of the Mountain, based on a dream.

lyrics and music by Benjamin Newman

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Goldilocks Zone

[bnewman]

Some planets are too hot, and some are too cold, but Baby Bear's planet is just right to begin terraforming.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "Cover of the Rolling Stone" by Shel Silverstein

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Groundhog Day

[bnewman]

Groundhog Day is an American folk-tradition which is a worn-down remnant of an older European tradition which, while not directly related, occupies the same slot in the year-wheel as the Celtic Imbolc.  It's also a surreal movie in which Bill Murray plays a disaffected weatherman who must live the same day over and over.  This song pulls the concept of the movie together with the themes of Imbolc — the turning of winter towards spring, the stirring of the frozen heart towards hope.

lyrics and music by Benjamin Newman

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Hey, Evil Borg Machine-man

[bnewman]

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "Mr. Tambourine Man" by Bob Dylan

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The Highlands of Fra Mauro

[bnewman]

The crew of Apollo 13, like the crew of the Nightingale, were forced to abandon ship in a lifeboat whose designed crew capacity was one short of the number to be saved.  Luckily they had NASA engineers to help them fit a square peg into a round hole.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "The Flowers of Bermuda" by Stan Rogers

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The Highwayman

[bnewman]

If there is an information super-highway, should there not be a Highwayman?

by Benjamin Newman, after "The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes

set to music by Loreena McKennitt

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Hitchhikin'

[bnewman]

A song about The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy that strikes a more serious note.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "Pale Shamen" by Talis Kimberley

 

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The Holy Mountain

[bnewman]

Many religious traditions, including Judaism, speak of a holy mountain — often, some specific, actual mountain.  And we should avoid blowing up specific mountains that are sacred to other people, but we should also be wary of the impulse to fight to control them, because the real Holy Mountain is the world of justice and peace that we should all be hiking towards, and that mountain is everywhere, if we would only look.

lyrics and music by Benjamin Newman

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Honeybird

[bnewman]

A suggestive love song from a flower to her pollinator, or (as we say) "the birds and the bees".

lyrics and music by Benjamin Newman

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Hornet's Song

[bnewman]

A lyric for the theme of Hornet from Hollow Knight.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "Hornet" from Hollow Knight by Christopher Larkin

 

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The Horse-Cat-Faery-Bunny

[bnewman]

The product of a kids' songwriting workshop at Arisia 2014.

lyrics by Meredith and Pete Gast, Alice Hunter, Barbara Wilkins, Nat Budin, and Ben Newman

ttto: "The Horse-Tamer's Daughter" by Leslie Fish

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Howard's Choice

[bnewman]

The Psi-Cop's side of the story of "Annie's Luck" by Cat Faber.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "Annie's Luck" by Cat Faber

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How Can I Keep from Pinging?

[bnewman]

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "How Can I Keep from Singing?" by Anne Warner and Rev. R. Lowry

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Hymn for a Festival of Sandcastles

[bnewman]

Inspired by witnessing the creation and destruction of a traditional Tibetan sand painting, the Festival of Sandcastles is a fictional holiday that combines sand-castle building with the contemplation of time, change, and the impermanence of all things.  We build our castles, then watch thoughtfully as the tide washes them away.

lyrics and music by Benjamin Newman

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I Am Just A Song (That You Sing)

[bnewman]

A prayer of gratitude to the One Who Sings me, and all that is.

lyrics and music by Benjamin Newman

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If Memory Serves

[bnewman]

 A song about intellectual challenge and mastery, entirely driven by a terrible pun.

lyrics and music by Benjamin Newman

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I Go Like the Shadows

[bnewman]

A song for Mr. Morden — like the symbol of the raven in "I Go Like the Raven", the Shadows (or their ships) screaming across the "dark and dervish sky" herald a wily trickster with a mysterious past and unknown powers.

Dave & Tracy's original song is as notable for its virtuosic instrumental breaks as for its haunting lyrics, and this new recording of my parody finally features a most appropriate theme in that role.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "I Go Like the Raven" by Dave Carter

and featuring the main title theme from Babylon 5 by Christopher Franke

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The Incident

[bnewman]

A poem of spiritual seeking gone horribly awry, but redeemed in the end.  This one is largely autobiographical.

by Benjamin Newman

 

An alchemist one day discovered an urge

To summon an angel, and kiss her, and merge

Divinity draws us, we long for the sky

And we don't always know what we're seeking, or why

 

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In the Beyond

[bnewman]

Near the beginning of A Fire Upon the Deep, Blueshell warns Pham of the dangers of the Transcend.  Why keep the oceanic imagery from the source song?  Because Blueshell is essentially a cyborg sea pen.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "Under the Sea" from The Little Mermaid by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken

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In This Cup

[bnewman]

A communion hymn in honor of Persephone, to be offered with a cup of pomegranate juice.

lyrics and music by Benjamin Newman

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It's Mario!

[bnewman]

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: the theme from Super Mario Bros. by Koji Kondo

 

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Jedi Recessional

[bnewman]

Kipling's "Recessional" is a prayer for an empire on the edge of decline due to its overweening pride.  In the Star Wars prequel trilogy, the Old Republic and the Jedi Order stand at the edge of a similar precipice.

by Benjamin Newman, after "Recessional" by Rudyard Kipling
set to music by Leslie Fish

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Jingle Bell Roc

[bnewman]

Writing this was the only way to get the source song out of my head.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "Jingle Bell Rock" by by Joseph Carleton Beal and James Ross Boothe

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Jurassic Park Sunset

[bnewman]

lyrics by Benjamin Newman
ttto: the theme from Jurassic Park by John Williams

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Khazad-Dûm

[bnewman]

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "Builders' Song" by Gary Ehrlich

 

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