The Dogs

1 week ago by @philkmills

The Dogs

philkmills

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Liner Notes

Here's a #filk song that came from the #intothewoods challenge: roll one die to follow a URL, pick a story by title, and roll a second die to pick an aspect of the story. (See forum for more details.) I rolled 6 and 4.

The story I got ("The Dwarfs") has that odd folktale logic of a sequence of events happening with little connecting plot. This one had three separate things going on, so I picked one of them. You still have to spend disbelief to make it seem coherent.

Technically, I tried something I've been wanting to learn how to do. I recorded the guitar with no metronome or guide, just by feel. I then created a tempo map so that my playing would be a guide for any MIDI tracks I created. Fun, but very much backward from my usual thing of creating guide tracks and playing to those.

Lyrics

I float on the water.
I live on the sea.
Small people on a hundred boats,
They all depend on me.
If the land would take us
Long enough to dry,
We’d find a place to settle
Between the grass and sky.

Dogs bark on the shoreline.
Dogs command the beach.
The slavering of fearsome packs
Puts safety out of reach.
The dogs ate up our children
And follow where we go.
They’ve torn our tents to pieces.
They’ve gnawed upon our bones.

When the North wind blows a storm our way,
We face the threat of ruin that it brings.
I wait at the forefront, magic moved,
And I sing.

The sky is clearing to the east with crested clouds.
The sky is clearing to the east with crested clouds.
The sky is clearing to the east with crested clouds.
The sky is clearing to the east with crested clouds.

Waves lap light and calmly.
It’s my inborn gift:
Protect the tribe from nature’s wrath
Or bring them seals and fish.
Against dogs, I’ve no power;
Can I but drift away
And reach some far safe haven?
There’s no one who can say.

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