Sentient Chili and Stranger Filk: Lyrics to 107 Songs of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Fandom

By Chris Weber

Chris Weber is a writer of television, comic books, an internationally syndicated comic strip, and all the songs in this collection of 107 lyrics. Topics range from travel through space and time, to a variety of movies from the 80s, to the impact of science on day-to-day life. Humor, history, and heart spill out of these verses. You'll meet familiar characters from all forms of s.f. media and new denizens of the science fiction worlds of filk music.

Filk was a typo in an article about "science fiction folk music." The name stuck. You can find the songs of this "genre within a genre" at conventions, home sing-a-longs, and in a wide variety of analog and digital media. While some of Chris's songs are to original tunes, most can be sung to familiar songs from traditional ballads to modern pop-rock.

With topical sections and an index by title, these pieces are ideal for perusing in small bites or sharing in filk circles of friends or family.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chris Weber
• Release date: Sep 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005543068

Chris Weber

CHRIS ALLEN WEBER is a professional writer who has worked in wide variety of arenas: television animation, comic strips, comic magazines, interactive multimedia, technical specifications and musical lyrics. Working frequently with his wife and co-writer, Karen Willson, he has penned over 50 episodes of television animation from GI Joe and Superman to ADR material for Digimon. His current books include He-Man and the Masters of the Universe: The Newspaper Comic Strips and Sentient Chili and Stranger Filk.

Book preview

Section Two

Horror

The horror genre relates closely to science fiction and fantasy, sometime overlapping. I wrote these filk songs to tilt in the direction of chills up the spine.

One

One of the all-time great musicals is 1975’s A Chorus Line with music by Marvin Hamlisch. For this exercise in horrific filk, I borrowed the tune from the show’s finale, One.

One... terrifying evening,

One that you will not forget

One... hapless victim screaming.

It will get much worse yet.

One glance and you'll wished that you had just turned to stone.

You really blew it when you went out late alone!

One... monster slowly creeping.

Sneaking up behind your back.

It will never give you any slack, Jack.

It's time, you should understand it.

It's too late for you to lam it.

You're the one!

It walks into the room dripping gore,

You'll see

Every inch, a hideous sight

More than enough to cause bad dreams all night.

It wants you (or some parts) as a snack --

It's a hungry thing.

Surely…

You'd best say your last prayers while you can.

Slowly…

Crashing in your bedroom door

And bellowing, slavering on your linoleum.

It walks up to your bed, and you know at last

Your time has come, there's no escape

Hope that you're wearing your burial cape.

This is what you call terror!

The time has come; boy, you were dumb!

Whimper… grovel…

You're the victim now, and your number is up!

Eat Your Brain

I went with my wife on a romantic anniversary trip to Hawaii. She smiled warmly when she saw me scribbling away on the back of our airline reservations. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d produced some heartfelt lyrics for her. Her smile chilled when I presented her with my work. Felicitous scansion and a warped imagination led me to… a zombie filk to the tune of Richard Carpenter’s 1970 Close to You.

Why do zombies on the ground

Follow you all around?

It’s quite plain.

It’s their refrain:

Eat your brains!

And when they stumble in your wake

Plain to see, no mistake,

What they’ll do

If they catch you,

Eat your brains!

On the day they passed away

A witch doctor or virus

Laid an awful curse that

Raised them from the dead.

Now they wander blindly ‘cross the land

And they are after what is in your head!

That’s why all the walking dead

Are behind and ahead.

Their delight, morning and night:

Eat your brains!

Aaaa-aaa-aagh!

Eat your brains!

Till the Sun Comes Out

Legoland, California runs an annual Halloween promotion they call Brick or Treat. For one of its 2021 musical shows, the producers slightly altered the lyrics of a song by the group, One Republic. Love Runs Out (Tedder, Kutzle, Brown, Filkins, and Fisher), is a song originally released in 2014. I decided the tune needed a full filk treatment.

I am the one you fear so late at night.

There in the dark I prowl and cause you