Filk
Filk is a genre of music which is based on western folk music, but with lyrics about fantasy, science fiction, role-playing games and similar topics. Filk is often performed at science fiction conventions, though specialized filk conventions also exist. The activity of performing filk songs is called filking.
History
Filk music was born at science fiction conventions where people gathered to sing folk songs with new lyrics about science fiction topics. The term filk originated as a misspelling of folk in the 1950s in an essay by Lee Jacobs, "The Influence of Science Fiction on Modern American Filk Music". Many filk songs, sometimes with traditional music but often with original music, were written in the following years. In the 1970s, specialized filk music conventions emerged, such as FilkCon (Chicago, 1979).
