[filk] Somewhere Only Piro

[cidjen]

Wow nice

How about some of this Keane song...

The Cidjen Imagination Barf Presents...

Somewhere Only Piro
I walk across
Otaku land
I know the walkthrough
like the back of my hand
I lost the ground
Beneath my feet
Stood by the bookshelf
And it made me complete

Oh simple girl
Where have you gone
I'm getting tired and
Need someone to rely on
So tell me when
You're gonna let me in
I have no money and
Need somewhere to begin

I came across
A fallen idol
She thinks that no one
Likes her but I still do-o
I brought my friend
Who is a nutjob
They gamed together
And now they are together

A girl brought food
To my apartment
Got spooked by Ping
Got drunk on fail
Got mobbed by the fan base
I felt her heart
Is buried deep
She played my former lover
And it made us complete

Not-simple girl
Where are you from
I'm getting anxious
I need someone to replace one
So tell me when
You gonna let me in
I really want your love
I need someone to begin

And in the end why really why don't we go
Talk about it somewhere only -- Piro ...
This may be the end of everything
So why don't we go
Somewhere only --- Piro!

[darrin]

It's considered polite to put a new work in a new thread for that work.

[cidjen]

I'd rather hide it behind yours, cause yours is way better

[paarfi]

[mod note] I split this off into it's own thread.

Nice to see some filks again, and I like them both. Pretty impressed with cidjen doing a filk in english, with it not being his native language and all.

[cidjen]

:gomen:

Side question: is filk an acronym or something like an idiom related to 'flick'?

[paarfi]

Apparently it started as a typo for "folk", as in "folk music". But being science fiction folks, they naturally liked the typo better, so it stuck.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filk_music

[darrin]

First off I should say I had never heard of Keane, and having listened to the song in question I confess it does not do much for me. I hope that doesn't bias my evaluation of the filk but I am disclosing that to be safe.

I agree completely with what paarfi says above. I did not notice any obvious issues in scansion (occasional variations from the original but the meter there seems pretty flexible to begin with, so again nothing jumped out at me as "wrong"). That, as paarfi notes, is an impressive feat, especially given English's variable stress system, a particular difficulty for someone coming from a language like Polish with (as far as I know) regular stress (penultimate unless I'm misremembering?). Russian for example to this day poses great difficulties for me in terms of stress (irregular but in a very different way from English), so well done there.

Similar comments apply to the word choice and phrasing. While I didn't see anything that really smacked me in the face and made me say "Wow, that's an awesome line," the original for me at least (apologies to Keane fans) seemed a bit on the vapid side, so if anything cidjen's was an improvement there (again possibly bias, as I care more about the MegaTokyo crew than whatever the original is about ). If I had to get down into nit-pick territory, then the rhyme of "together" with itself in the third verse is a bit unfortunate; and I found it slightly odd that the song seems to be from Piro's POV, but at the end he is suggesting she go "somewhere Piro" with him... I'm afraid it reminds me a bit of the cheesy "once you go X you'll never Y" joke.

But I did like the seamless transition from Erika being the object of the song (until she gets "together" with Largo), to it being Kimiko. Not that Piro ever had a thing for Erika but he certainly did seem to go through a lot of confusion of various kinds as he "walk[ed] across otaku land".

So overall, very nice work, thanks for posting it.

[cidjen]

First off I should say I had never heard of Keane, and having listened to the song in question I confess it does not do much for me. I hope that doesn't bias my evaluation of the filk but I am disclosing that to be safe.

That's OK, I understand this might be the 'generation' thing.

I agree completely with what paarfi says above. [...] so well done there.

thanks - this I guess mainly came from listening to this song every so often, purely phonetic and rhytmic to the words.

I found it slightly odd that the song seems to be from Piro's POV, but at the end he is suggesting she go "somewhere Piro" with him...

The last 2 lines I was imagining Piro having a conversation with Kimiko, him wanting to go somewhere only they know (something like the original song did) and Kimiko first just interrupting '- Piro...' and then shouting '-Piro!' to get him out of the moping zone

But I did like the seamless transition from Erika being the object of the song (until she gets "together" with Largo), to it being Kimiko. Not that Piro ever had a thing for Erika but he certainly did seem to go through a lot of confusion of various kinds as he "walk[ed] across otaku land".

The first verse I could not decide whether 'the simple girl' should refer to Yuki or to Kimiko, from the time of the bag, sketchbook and railcard incident.
(Yeah I know, Kimiko is hardly 'simple', but Piro did not know that then, right?)
Piro may not have had a 'thing' for Erika, but he was 'the biggest fan' (there was another comic where Tsubasa says that but I ran out of time trying to find it). And Yuki and her friends thought he came to Japan to see Erika (Yuki even thought they are going out together).
So the verse is vague in this sense, as in, it's not about Erika, but choose your own interpretation