A Filk for Communal_Creators
Sep. 15th, 2023 11:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elisemFor Communal_Creators, I wrote a filk on the WGA strike:
Why We Need Writers
(tune: The Sounds of Silence)
In the spring of ’23
We saw the AMPTP
Offer no contract satisfaction
Writers voted to take action
And the words of strikers were written on the picket signs
(spoken: “Now I Am Become the WGA, Destroyer of Corporate Greed”)
Creative minds
Is what you find in writers
The heat was ninety-plus degrees
When Universal sheared the trees
No more shade there for the picket
The City Council told them to stick it
And the words of the strikers were written on the picket signs
(spoken: “Pencils Down ’Til Pay Is Up!”)
Our favorite lines
Who thought them up? The writers
And from the east to west we saw
Ten thousand picketers or more
From Netflix down to Paramount
Plus more actors than you could count
Then SAG-AFTRA came and brought their picket signs
(spoken: “Temba! His checks blank!”)
So get behind
The actors and the writers
“Fools!” said AMPTP
We’ll outwait you, wait and see!
Wait ’til writers lose their housing!”
That’s the plan they were espousing
But the words still filled the picket signs
(spoken: “Hey AMPTP! We have a few notes for you!”)
Out you will find
If around you try to F with writers
More than nineteen* weeks to date
(Not as long as ’88)
And the picket signs keep coming
Studio execs keep bumming
As the words of the strikers are written on the picket signs
(spoken: “I Told Chat-GPT to Write a Picket Sign and It Sucked”)
Like they’re designed
To show why we need writers
* at the time of writing, Friday 15 September 2023
I am too tired to remember how to post the link to communal_creators https://communal-creators.dreamwidth.org/ or to put in the tags and all. It's been a really fierce few days/weeks/months here, and I'll come back and put them in after I'm rested. But I wanted to see if I could still do this.
I tried to make the syllable count match the original, line for line, EXCEPT for those final three sung lines (and the interpolated spoken line), and I have commentary about how unsingable the original is in terms of scansion. But I matched it because I love you all, and you should have to wrestle with it like I did. :-)
Also, I sat down to write my filk at a little after 10:11 tonight. On a midnight deadline. Without having chosen subject yet, or song to filk. (That's the "this" I meant when I said I wanted to see if I could still do this.)
Why We Need Writers
(tune: The Sounds of Silence)
In the spring of ’23
We saw the AMPTP
Offer no contract satisfaction
Writers voted to take action
And the words of strikers were written on the picket signs
(spoken: “Now I Am Become the WGA, Destroyer of Corporate Greed”)
Creative minds
Is what you find in writers
The heat was ninety-plus degrees
When Universal sheared the trees
No more shade there for the picket
The City Council told them to stick it
And the words of the strikers were written on the picket signs
(spoken: “Pencils Down ’Til Pay Is Up!”)
Our favorite lines
Who thought them up? The writers
And from the east to west we saw
Ten thousand picketers or more
From Netflix down to Paramount
Plus more actors than you could count
Then SAG-AFTRA came and brought their picket signs
(spoken: “Temba! His checks blank!”)
So get behind
The actors and the writers
“Fools!” said AMPTP
We’ll outwait you, wait and see!
Wait ’til writers lose their housing!”
That’s the plan they were espousing
But the words still filled the picket signs
(spoken: “Hey AMPTP! We have a few notes for you!”)
Out you will find
If around you try to F with writers
More than nineteen* weeks to date
(Not as long as ’88)
And the picket signs keep coming
Studio execs keep bumming
As the words of the strikers are written on the picket signs
(spoken: “I Told Chat-GPT to Write a Picket Sign and It Sucked”)
Like they’re designed
To show why we need writers
* at the time of writing, Friday 15 September 2023
I am too tired to remember how to post the link to communal_creators https://communal-creators.dreamwidth.org/ or to put in the tags and all. It's been a really fierce few days/weeks/months here, and I'll come back and put them in after I'm rested. But I wanted to see if I could still do this.
I tried to make the syllable count match the original, line for line, EXCEPT for those final three sung lines (and the interpolated spoken line), and I have commentary about how unsingable the original is in terms of scansion. But I matched it because I love you all, and you should have to wrestle with it like I did. :-)
Also, I sat down to write my filk at a little after 10:11 tonight. On a midnight deadline. Without having chosen subject yet, or song to filk. (That's the "this" I meant when I said I wanted to see if I could still do this.)
