Alas My Friend

Copyright 2005 by Jeff Suzuki

After Hurricane Katrina and the failures at all levels that compounded the disaster, I wanted to write a filk about it. But something I learned from Asimov (see the introduction to “Rain, Rain, Go Away” in Buy Jupiter) is that it's best to avoid contemporary references unless you want to date a story. So I didn't want to write a filk about Katrina; rather, I wanted one that applied to Katrina but was more timeless.

Some history: Richard the Lionhearted is, in the popular mind, considered The Great King of England. Yet during his 10-year reign, he spent less than six months actually in England; most of the time he was off on (a mostly unsuccessful) crusade. Indeed, while Bad King John was a less than exemplary monarch, much of the blame for John's taxation policy can be laid at Richard's feet. So in theory, this could be a song about Richard. One advantage to not writing about Katrina: no one's blasted me for “getting my facts wrong.”

This was another fast filk: I got the basic idea on the Sunday evening after Katrina destroyed New Orleans, and finished it on Wednesday. This might mean I'm getting faster.

Now all I have to do is get better...after I posted it to rec.music.filk, Kate Gladstone gave me some very good suggestions for strengthening the meter, scansion, and audibility of the song. Subsequently I went back, got a copy of the Greensleeves, and between Kate's suggestions and my rewrites after hearing how badly my original scansion was off, this is the result. Since part of what I hope to do is to make this a “How (Not) To Filk” site, I want to show what a good critique can do for a song, and I've flagged the places where I adopted some of her suggestions.

A few weeks later, I decided I didn't like the tone of it (basically it was too negative for my own taste), so I added the last pair of verses.

The tune is Greensleeves.

Alas, my friend you've done me wrong, To treat my home so discourteously, You've burned and pillaged while I was away, Oh what I have done to thee? “You've shown me the prosp'rous life With things you have made in far-off lands, Then you've kept them all yourself, So I'll steal what I want when I can.” Alas constable you've done us wrong, And failed to protect in our time of need, Your men have taken what they desire, In a display of unbridled greed. “Rich men can take care of themselves, Tradesmen and merchants hence did flee, None cared for those left behind, And there's no one to take care of me.” Alas my Duke you've done us wrong, Your wall's decayed from lack of repair, And when a mighty foe breached the wall, You and your men were not there. “I was away on important tasks, Hunting and hawking and planning campaigns, Good walls require corvees or gold, But a good wall brings me little fame.” Alas my King you have done us wrong, And gone to war in a far-off land, When there's so much to be done at home, Where your very own people stand. Wrongs to right, and the sick to heal, And many still live in daily fear, The war you wage inflames our foes

And you've not won your battles right here. So thanks, dear friends, who have served us well And given more than some ill-planned schemes You've given us hope and helped rebuild Our lives, our homes, and our dreams. You've shown there's still good in the world Where evil and apathy seem to prevail Rise up to engage these foes, In this battle we dare not fail.

The Notes

1. I originally wrote “my neighbor”. Kate pointed out this has too many syllables, and “friend” increases the irony.
2. Actually this is a place where I kept the original (constable) and rejected the suggestion (police). Kate suggested the change in part because as written, you must stress the second syllable (conSTAble) which will grate on modern ears.
3. Originally this was “from this town did flee” and, again, it has too many syllables. Kate also suggested “traders” instead of “tradesmen”, because it was less gender-specific. After some thought, I kept “tradesmen” for two reasons. First, traders sounds too much like traitors, and that was a can of worms I wanted to avoid. Second, due to the peculiarities of the English language, a trader is someone who trades (thus a merchant), while a tradesman is someone who works at a trade, and I wanted to refer to the second.
4. This was “Those left no one cared about”, and I have no idea why I missed the verse Kate suggested: it's 1000% better.
5. The original was “Your city wall's failed from a lack of repair”, which again has rather bad scansion.
6. I had “And when a mighty foe breached the defense”. Kate suggested “And when at last the foe rushed in”, but I wanted to keep the “mighty foe”
7. I had two different versions of this line: “Gone off to war” and “Gone to war”. I posted the first version (and I don't know why); Kate suggested the second. It scans much better.
8. Here the original was “Your war gives our foes pretense.” Kate suggested “The war you wage exalts our foes,” but not quite what I wanted to say. Not-that-this-song-is-about-the-present-day-but inflames seems to fit better.