1. |
Song Mice
02:48
|
|||
Words seem to scurry, like little white mice,
Bringing lyrical tidbits that lure and entice
They hum in the morning and sing in the walls
As the dusk like a curtain at evening falls
Here little mouse, I will do you no harm,
Come sit on my hand and come run up my arm
You needn't be frightened, for music transcends
Sing to me, song-mouse and let us be friends.
I pluck and I hum and I pause and resume,
Breathing possible notes, like a waft of perfume,
Spinning from nothing a musical strand
Leashing the song-mice that come to my hand.
Here little mouse, I will do you no harm,
Come sit on my hand and come run up my arm
You needn't be frightened, for music transcends
Sing to me, song-mouse and let us be friends.
One little song-mouse can fill out a line
And one more can make melodies dance and entwine
Three can breathe harmony into a tune
Four can pull epics or sing down the moon.
Here little mouse, I will do you no harm,
Come sit on my hand and come run up my arm
You needn't be frightened, for music transcends
Sing to me, song-mouse and let us be friends.
|
||||
2. |
||||
When you come to a convention, step right up and take a turn
There’s a hidden infrastructure, with a lot to see and learn
Make new friends with one quick offer that is certain to endear
Wouldn’t it be fun to volunteer?
Take a shift at registration and say hi to all your friends
Or help us out at teardown, when this great convention ends
It’s not a huge commitment, just pitch in and give a cheer
Wouldn’t it be fun to volunteer?
Mind the consuite for an hour for a little change of pace.
Are you really good at Tetris? Help us pack the storage space!
We can always use a person who is good at moving gear—
Wouldn’t it be fun to volunteer?
So much good will and knowledge our convention scene can boast
But it won’t be here forever if we all decide to coast.
Come help us do it better when we put it on next year;
Wouldn’t it be fun to volunteer?
Wouldn't it be fun to volunteer!
|
||||
3. |
Miniature Zombie Goats
02:06
|
|||
I married an Alpha Werewolf,
Knowing he was a were;
I knew it had ramifications,
But how did I wind up here?
Reviewing the life decisions
That lead me to burn my boats
While all of the werewolves are running around
After miniature zombie goats
Miniature zombie goats. Miniature zombie goats;
Yesterday night they were dead on the ground
But now they are feeling their oats.
All of the werewolves are running around
After Miniature Zombie Goats.
If you thought goats were trouble
With one thought in their brain
I promise it doesn’t get better
Once they can feel no pain
One got into the water.
Catch it before it bloats—
All of the werewolves are running around after
After miniature zombie Goats
Miniature zombie goats. Miniature zombie goats;
Yesterday night they were dead on the ground
But now they are feeling their oats.
All of the werewolves are running around
After Miniature Zombie Goats.
I don’t really mind looking silly
That’s not why I’m mad today
These adorable critters were somebody’s pets
And someone is going to pay
They bleat and they snap and they scramble
While somewhere a sorcerer gloats
All of the werewolves are running around after
After miniature zombie goats.
Miniature zombie goats. Miniature zombie goats;
Yesterday night they were dead on the ground
But now they are feeling their oats.
All of the werewolves are running around
After Miniature Zombie Goats.
Miniature zombie goats. Miniature zombie goats;
Yesterday night they were dead on the ground
But now they are feeling their oats.
All of the werewolves are running around
After Miniature Zombie Goats.
|
||||
4. |
Battle Cove
01:42
|
|||
Walking out from Wintress Maiden
Past the dunes to Swancomb Head;
Rowan in your fist and pocket
Guards against the Drowned Dead.
In this lovely desolation,
Welcomes, warnings, interwove--
Have a care or come to grief while
Walking over Battle Cove.
On the cliffs the wind will whisper
False direction in your ear;
Locals have defaced the signs to
Turn away the ones they fear.
In this lovely desolation,
Welcomes, warnings, interwove--
Have a care or come to grief while
Walking over Battle Cove.
Carry iron, salt and silver,
Where the winds and waters churn;
With a kiss from one who loves you
You’ll walk safe and safe return.
In this lovely desolation,
Welcomes, warnings, interwove--
Have a care or come to grief while
Walking over Battle Cove.
|
||||
5. |
Not Gonna Say Nothin'
03:12
|
|||
Right out of the blue, and in public too,
Mad at yourself but you turn it my way;
I can’t set it right, you know I hate to fight
I just give in but it isn’t okay.
I’m not gonna say nothing
Oh-- I’ve got nothing to say
To answer tonight, Would just start a fight;
When you’re feeling this way-- No answer is right--
Someone’s gotta be patient,
How long is someone gonna be me?
I could always decline and its not a good sign that I
Find I’m wondering how to get free
You lay into me, like an enemy,
Like the face you see isn’t a friend.
As you remonstrate, I just abdicate,
Stare out the window, and wait for the end
I’m not gonna say nothing
Oh-- I’ve got nothing to say
To answer tonight, Would just start a fight;
When you’re feeling this way-- No answer is right--
Someone’s gotta be patient,
How long is someone gonna be me?
I could always decline and its not a good sign that I
Find I’m thinking how to get free
Practiced harmonies filling my memories
Trying my heart to ease, peace to attain
There’s no way to win; all the time I put in
I have to chew off to be free of this pain
I’m not gonna say nothing
Oh-- I’ve got nothing to say
To answer tonight, Would just start a fight;
When you’re feeling this way-- No answer is right--
Someone’s gotta be patient,
How long is someone gonna be me?
I could always decline and its not a good sign that I
Find I’m planning how to get free
|
||||
6. |
Still We Have To Choose
02:36
|
|||
I found a river in my head
Like a slender silver thread
Cascading in a shining spate
Where the sable rocks await
In the web of light I read my fate
Never knowing what we gain or lose
Choosing blindly, still we have to choose.
And like a dawn-lit pyramid
I see revealed what once was hid
The grief and care that might have been
The love and joy I didn’t win
The other roads I never did begin
Never knowing what we gain or lose
Choosing blindly still we have to choose.
I hear it with my dreaming eye
A call with which I must comply
An urgency that must be met
A duty, or an unpaid debt
Again I sink in dream, and I forget.
Never knowing what we gain or lose,
Choosing blindly, still we have to choose.
Never knowing what we gain or lose,
Choosing blindly, still we have to choose.
|
||||
7. |
Daffodils
01:30
|
|||
O the daffodils are daff-ing
With the little budlets laughing
They soon will spit in half-ing
When they blossom like a cheer
When the daffodils are dilling
And the tulips showing willing
And spring is coming here
Still we thrill when silly little rills
Overspill with frilly daffodils
When the tulips are a-blooming
And the kitty cats are zooming
We are sure that spring is looming
On the far side of the hill
Then the birds will all be warning
And their foes likewise performing
Way too early in the morning
And we’ll wish that they would chill.
Still we thrill when silly little rills
Overspill with frilly daffodils
Still we thrill when silly little rills
Overspill with frilly daffodils
|
||||
8. |
The Nature Of A Road
02:07
|
|||
A road by nature is a place
Where one can cross both time and space
A way between, that feels the tread
Of both the living and the dead
Where both can leave a lasting trace
Where one may walk the ancient ways
Dating back to Roman days
And where a bridge has fallen prone
Find great dragon-teeth of stone
While on the banks the white sheep graze
Or meet, where winds are winter-wild
A walker with a bundled child
Who may return when they are grown
Leading children of their own
Here where the years are reconciled
And turning home when dusk is nigh
In the shadows we may spy
In shawls and cloaks of days of yore
The shades of those who passed before
May pass again before our eye
So let us leave our safe abode
To offer what the land is owed
Crossing space and crossing time
Both prosaic and sublime
That is the nature of a road.
|
||||
9. |
Silver, Clay and Frost
01:16
|
|||
At the battle’s end we found
When we stood to count the cost
Blood upon the barren ground—
Silver, clay, and frost
As if in grief for hearts that tore,
By autumn storms the trees are tossed
We know the wages born of war;
Silver, clay, and frost
The flower of our youth lie dead
White-haired parents mourn the lost
Fields unplanted, vows unsaid—
Silver, clay, and frost.
And when the stones so bare and bleak
With time and rain grow worn and mossed
Only these are left to speak--
Silver, clay and frost.
|
||||
10. |
Who Will?
02:13
|
|||
The world is running out of time,
As a river runs downhill,
The world is running out of time,
We need a better paradigm.
The drive to change it calls us still
For if we do not, who will?
The bigotry we thought was done,
As a river runs downhill,
The bigotry we thought was done,
Is marching bare-faced in the sun.
The drive to change it calls us still
For if we do not, who will?
As drone and missile fill the sky,
As a river runs downhill,
As drone and missile fill the sky,
In dust and wreckage children die.
The drive to change it calls us still
For if we do not, who will?
As we wait the planet warms,
As a river runs downhill,
As we wait the planet warms,
Fueling fires, droughts and storms.
The drive to change it calls us still
For if we do not, who will?
We can fight and heal and tend
As a river runs downhill
We can fight and heal and tend
Which means these wrongs are ours to mend
The drive to change it calls us still
For if we do not, who will?
|
||||
11. |
Entropy Wins
02:28
|
|||
Entropy runs through the world that it binds
Powering life as a mainspring unwinds.
It won’t last forever; we know, for our sins,
Live while you can because entropy wins
The forces in balance, like sunset and dawn
Are what made life happen and why it goes on
But even the sun has an ending someday
Disorder increases, and heat fades away
Illness and injury bring us alarm,
We do our darnedest to dodge out of harm.
Not by the hair of our chinny chin chins—
Though wolf and pig struggle, yet entropy wins
The forces in balance, like sunset and dawn
Are what made life happen and why it goes on
But even the sun has an ending someday
Disorder increases, and heat fades away
And thus we bring energy, effort to tend,
To make things more ordered, to make, or to mend,
Yet back to the hour that life first begins,
There’s only one ending—that entropy wins.
The forces in balance, like sunset and dawn
Are what made life happen and why it goes on
But even the sun has an ending someday
Disorder increases, and heat fades away
|
||||
12. |
Palais Garnier
02:19
|
|||
How many stories are stored in here,
Tucked away under the stage?
How many people both cruel and dear
How many places both far and near
Written on history’s page?
Music and theater, dance and band,
Actors and audience understand.
Here in this place, through time and space
The past and the future waltz hand in hand.
Forests and houses and harbors and streets
Painted on canvas and lath:
Settings of deeds done by heroes and cheats,
Victories, setbacks and bitter defeats,
Scenes of rejoicing and wrath.
Music and theater, dance and band,
Actors and audience understand.
Here in this place, through time and space
The past and the future waltz hand in hand.
Here possibilities rise and embark
Piled like wheat in a sheaf
Places like pages stacked deep in the dark
Weigh on reality, leaving a mark
Drawn by the strength of belief.
Music and theater, dance and band,
Actors and audience understand.
Here in this place, through time and space
The past and the future waltz hand in hand.
|
||||
13. |
Planxty Pulgar
01:28
|
|||
14. |
Good Neighbors
03:56
|
|||
Good Neighbors,
lyrics and melody by Cat Faber
After a prompt by “Write it M***rf***ckers”
It’s a sleepover, two in the morning,
In my dad’s cousin’s cabin in Vail,
And while the fire burns we’re all taking turns
At telling the creepiest tale.
When our phones get a ping: unknown number
With a warning I’d not seen before
“By all that is true, whatever you do
You’d better not answer the door!”
Just then came a tremulous knocking
And a calling “Is anyone there?
I know that it’s late; I’m willing to wait—
“Do you have any honey to spare?”
I promptly lit out for the kitchen
And brought for our caller to take
A big golden jar, and bade “au revoir”
To the honey we bought by mistake.
Beware when the neighbors come visit
To see if you have what they need
It’s only the night breeze—or is it?
But they’re very good neighbors indeed!
Too fast for my friends to prevent me,
I swung the oak door open wide
“As it happens, we do, here’s the whole jar for you
With our compliments ma’am,” I replied.
She smiled, with grin slightly wicked
Said “you’re good at the mischief—make more!”
Then she strode down the drive, looking much more alive
Than she’d seemed as she stood at the door.
Beware when the neighbors come visit
To see if you have what they need
It’s only the night breeze—or is it?
But they’re very good neighbors indeed!
With every leaf-scritch at the window
We started awake in the night
And the morning’s estate was perhaps rather late
As we stumbled out into the light.
On the mat something shiny was gleaming
Unmolested by vandal or thief—
A whistle so fair, the brass shiny with wear
With a “thank you” writ out on a leaf.
Beware when the neighbors come visit
To see if you have what they need
It’s only the night breeze—or is it?
But they’re very good neighbors indeed!
|
Cat Faber Tennessee
I write music about science fiction and fantasy subjects, commonly referred to as "filk."
I write much faster than I can record. Recent songs may be found at my website--the URL is given below.
Streaming and Download help
Cat Faber recommends:
If you like Cat Faber, you may also like:
Bandcamp Daily your guide to the world of Bandcamp