Newsgroup posting by Tom Holt

"I wanted to be the first kid in our street to filk Not The Way To Get Laid; but the #1 version was born weak and sickly, so I thought i'd abandon it on this hillside to die. Anybody wants to take it home and bring it up with the other wolfcubs, be my guest."

If you want your filksongs sung
But you're weak in heart or lung
Or your mouth's too small for your tongue,
I'll tell you the way to get played.

Don't write half an hour of ose;
Songs that scan and rhyme like prose;
Life's too short for more of those.
This is not the way to get played.

Don't heap 'stars' with gold or furs
Or fill their mugs with beer.
Filkers all are amateurs
Or else they wouldn't still be here.

Don't write dirty songs for men;
Don't write songs that sneer at fen;
Don't filk 'Kraken' yet again;
This is not the way to get played.

Don't filk books that no-one's read,
Books by authors long since dead,
Books you wrote inside your head;
This is not the way to get played.

If your song's too gross to sing,
(Not even for a bet)
That's one song you'd better sling,
Or post up on the Internet.

Don't waste spirit, time or wealth
Stalking pros with guile & stealth;
Sing the goddamn thing yourself -
That's the only way to get played.