THE BALLAD OF FINITY’S END
Lyrics and music (c) 1984 by C.J. Cherryh
1. (Em) Finity’s End is a (Am) far-trav’lin’ ship
and wide (Em) space is the (D) deep that she (Em) knows.
Infinity’s black is the (Am) emblem she bears,
and (D) never a mark does it (Em) show.
CHO:
And (Em) no sun can hold us and (Am) keep us for long,
for in-(D)-finity’s ours, and infinity’s (Em) free.
No star can own her and (Am) no world’s her own,
for (Em) Finity’s (D) End is (Em) she.
2. The stuff of dead suns is her iron and her steel;
in the light of a new, she was made.
She set out to travel the day she was born
in the free-runnin’, longhaulin’ trade.
3. The Company thought then they’d make them a law,
and have all the ships for their own.
“You’re all Company ships and Company crews,
and you’ll pay us and serve us alone.”
4. James Robert the First was her captain that day,
and he sent out to crews like our own:
“Farewell to their ports and good luck to them all,
for what they can’t catch they can’t own.”
5. And wonder to tell, Mother Earth changed her mind,
and she called back her magistrate too,
for no ship would haul beyond Alpha or Pell,
and no mail and no cargo got through.
6. Then Unionside came with their ships and their guns
and they closed up the ports one and all.
“You’ll haul for us,” then the Union man said,
“And you’ll come and you’ll go where we call.”
7. Now Captain James Robert was vexed and annoyed,
and he sent out the word like before:
“We’re free ships and crews and we go where we please,
and we’ll haul you to hell and no more.”
8. Then Unionside haulers like Candice and Fay,
Merry Gold, Carina, and Fame,
From Unionside ports reached the wide deep of space,
and to Finity’s End they all came.
9. “Ah, well, now,” said Earth, “you must come to our side,
for there is no place now left you can be.
But Captain James Robert he sent out the word,
that all ships from now on must be free.
10. And no ship would come and no true ship would go,
but the traitor Shalleen and her kind.
Shalleen drifts in pieces around Shalleen Point,
and never a rest will she find.
11. The treaty was signed then and sealed and made sure,
for ports to be open to trade;
and borders there be none to check us or bind,
and no law on our decks but the law we have made.
CHO.
Uhmmm, did you have any particular tune in mind to go along with those chords? I’ve been in too many choirs to be very good at improv… 🙂
There is a tune: I wrote both. Dunno if I can write the musical notation: last time I wrote in notation was, oh, more than 50 years ago. But it starts with an E# for four notes and rises to A# for four quarter notes, back to E# and down to D, and it’s pretty simple. You could hammer it out on a piano and add appropriate glissandos and gracenotes, and you’d probably find it. Leslie Fish recorded it, but she changed the melody, and I prefer my own. 😉
Is your version recorded anywhere? Con footage, maybe?
Actually it isn’t, but I still play, and Jane plays better. SOmeday maybe we can get a recording going. We’ve been meaning to do that. Keep after us periodically: there’s a lot of filk I did, including this, Sam Jones, that I do, and Machiavell, from Heroes in Hell, that Jane does really well.
So, can we expect a filk .mp3 (or better still .flac) offering in Closed Circle? Anytime soon?
CJ, Science channel is now advertising a series of science fiction programs starting on 26 November called “Regenesis.” Apparently they are stories based on biosciences, artificial genes, etc. I’m looking forward to them.
Have they asked about use of your title/stories? Are any of the stories based on Cyteen/Regenesis? If people go searching for Regenesis at least they will come up with your book as one of the alternatives, so it can’t be all bad.
Last week Science channel started a series on seminal works in SciFi Called “Prophets of Science Fiction.” First episode was on Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein.” Science channel is doing so much more to support Science Fiction as a genre than SyFy channel ever did.
You can’t copyright a title; you can trademark a word that you made up, or a version of it—I trademarked a number of the key words in Merovingen. So if they used Cyteen (my word) I’d have an argument, but regenesis is just plain old English. I hope we do get some lookup confusion: couldn’t hurt me.
Regenesis is a Canadian TV show that ran from 04-08. I watched it recently on hulu. It’s about a fictional NorthAmerican Bioscience Center, and deals with epidemics, bio-terrorism, and environmental disasters. It’s a pretty good show (except the end sucks).
I understand Science channel also ran the Firefly TV series. Bravo to them for supporting more science fiction.
Thanks very much for the words and chords for the ballad. Finity’s End is one of my most favorite books.
My brother, who was an active con-goer at one time and was interested in filking, had a copy of the “Finity’s End” tape, with the Leslie Fish version.
I especially remember “Finity’s End”, “Pride of Chanur”, “Sam Jones”, and “Serpent’s Reach”. It’s too bad that tape is no longer available; those songs deserve better circulation among your musically inclined fans. Maybe a recording is something that could go on Closed Circle?
It could.
Jane’s the one with the voice. I’m kind of a contralto of indifferent musical value, but Jane has a range and a beautiful tone. Her mother was extremely gifted, and it came down to her kids. Jane’s brother, in his retirement from a senior airline captain, is now doing musical comedy in San Fran small theater; her nephew ditto; and Jane herself is remarkable.
It SHOULD!! wouldn’t that be great. Also, not that you have all that much spare time, but people would probably pay a lot to buy recordings of you reading your books. I know that would take forever to do. But it would be wonderful, wonderful!
Very cool! Seeing this reminds me how much I am looking forward to purchasing and reading the Finity’s End ebook, along with Tripoint. The physical books are somewhere in the garage, but having gone digital, it is really hard to go back!
http://www.youtube.com/user/FilkZombie#g/u
The album has been too long out of print. Hear it here.
Share the music, love it and sing!
It’s not piracy; it’s salvage.
Would you please post the lyrics to Sam Jones? I’ve transcribed it from the YouTube clip as best I could (and can post the transcription here or email it to you if you’re lacking an electronic copy) but the punctuation and some of the words are my own guess.
Getting back to this a little late. All due respect, in verse four, rhyming “own” with itself seems a little awkward, a misstep by a master wordsmith. As performed on the album, the text was thus:
James Robert the First was her captain that day,
and he sent to all ships in the deep:
“Farewell to their ports and good luck to them all,
for what they can’t catch they can’t keep.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwAodwkCQIo
Was Leslie applying artistic license, or are you misremebering what you wrote that long ago? Truth be told, I like this version better…
Oh wait, I see now, this was FISH’s melody, too. Hmmm.
But I still like the text better.
Fish changed the lyrics a bit and changed the tune a bit. I prefer my own, but every musician tends to tailor things to their own breakpoint and feel.
The last line of the above is ‘what they can’t catch they can’t own.’ And I think the rhyme pattern goes to the four lines above.
Would it be alright if I posted my transcription of Sam Jones?
Is the tune used at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRsVJezFRi4 yours or Leslie Fish’s?
The tune is mine, except on first and 3rd lines Leslie sings a low note and I sing an open-straight-ahead note, identical to the opening note of the line.
I’m reviving an ancient thread, I know, but you said, “Keep after us periodically.”
I never learned to play an instrument, but the LilyPond engraving program can generate MIDI. I’ve been testing it on the song sheets from Minus Ten and Counting, and it seems to do a credible job.
So I’ve been trying to apply it to the description of Finity’s end you mention: “it starts with an E# for four notes and rises to A# for four quarter notes, back to E# and down to D, and it’s pretty simple.”
Well… simple it’s not. The chords you give indicate pretty heavily that this is in 3/4 or 6/8 time, so the “four quarter notes” seems suspect. Also, neither E A E D nor E♯ A♯ E♯ D sounds much like a singable melody.
Have you got any other hints that might lead me to something recognizable as what you’d intended?
I’ve been listening to some of the Finity’s End songs for quite a while without actually realizing the significance of them. XD Does anyone know where I can find the lyrics to all the songs? Lullaby in particular. And does anyone know what books they pertain to? (I come late to these, so bear with me, lol)
Lullaby is a story in itself, relates to no story. Talk about a dive into the sun and die song—filkish for, boy, can it get any more-ose? But I was just thinking about time, and distances.
Keep nagging. Jane’s finishing up her Netwalkers series ending book, and I’m trying to hurry with this one—we got whacked with some serious bills—but we are interested in doing an audio, maybe.
I’ve been singing “Signy Mallory” at the top of my lungs. I may be pissing my neighbors off at this rate… XD
I love these, they’re so catchy. And they tell good stories on their own.
Did you ever write anything pertaining to the Foreigner series? I think I could dig a song about the loss of Phoenix or something. 🙂 Or first contact.
CJ and Jane taught me “Speed of Light” in September….I don’t play it the way it’s played on the album, I think they’re using a 12-string, while I fingerpick it on a 6-string. There are a lot of chord changes very quickly, and sometimes, I get them mixed up, but I love the song…..capo on 1st fret, begins in Am…..