Come all those sailors from the blackest sea of space,
Burned by air that turned to fire, And yet whose feet still reached the shore
Come all the miners, the 33, blinded by the dust, while the rich were blinded by greed, And who still found their own way home
Come all the fathers, who today teach their sons, And tomorrow will be the students
Come all who raised their voice to The great wound upon the sky, Until at last the scars faded
And now the sun rises, and fades every stain on another page of the endless story
(Note: This song was actually partially written as a group thing on the way back from Norwescon after a filk circle!)
Taking the train home from con
It’s shaking me all the way home from con
and it’s rocking and rolling and pitching and
groaning
and taking us home from the con
Why do we do this year after year
ten hours on your feet after three hours sleep
and you stand in long lines to get your books
signed
and the price just goes up every time
But it’s more than the shows and the books and the
games
it’s the stories we’ve told and the songs that we’ve sang
it’s the times that we shared and the memories
we made
and the friends that we met along the way
Chorus
You’ve worked on your costume for weeks months
or years
and to find the last piece almost brought you to tears
Even if it’s not perfect you gave it your best
So keep that in mind when you look at the rest
Chorus
These are our stories these are our songs
these are the places we feel we belong
so put on your costume stand in that line
If you’ve been here forever or if it’s your very first time
Chorus
Does anyone else remember when it was cool to have a personal site? When the closest thing to clickbait was Viagra ads? When the internet didn't feel like a depressing place that tells you that every idea you have has already been done? When you weren't afraid of accidentally scrolling down into the terrible void know as the comments section, which seems to be the same on every video?
What exactly happened? An obvious answer would be that the design trends changed. Before you used to cram in as many animated GIFs and autoplay MIDI files as you could.
Now you use the maximum amount of JavaScript code and the most minimal aesthetics you can possibly imagine. That creates a different feel, one that's a lot more “commercial” or “upscale”, and that encourages different kinds of content.
Design is important, but is that the whole story?
Facebook's endless scrolling and non-chronological listings create a bit of anxiety, like you never know where you are in the page, so you better keep looking in case you missed something, and you better keep churning out short tweets, because anything longer is just going to get buried.
But that doesn't quite explain when the internet in general seems to have changed.
Another easy answer is that we have smartphones now. The internet isn't a place you go anymore, it's something you carry with you always.
But that doesn't quite seem good enough to explain why it seems like going online is… not the same anymore.
Is it really the internet that changed, or did we all just stop looking for the cool stuff? Why do we go to those boring clickbait sites anyway? Why don't we read about stuff we're interested in instead of refreshing Facebook far more times than needed.
Maybe the internet has gone to crap because it's trying to make *us* go to crap. The internet was a great place to talk about what was going on. But when the time-wasting and unenjoyable websites take over your life, there's nothing to talk about anymore.
Most of the stuff people enjoy looking at or reading takes effort, and there's always a Facebook tab there telling you “Stop reading that book. Don't you want to know how many likes you got?”. There's still cool stuff on the internet, but it demands more attention than “just one more” listicle.
To take back the internet, you have to take back yourself.
It seems so familiar to any power metal listener. Like it should be obvious what it means. But what exactly ARE “The Eyes of the World”?
One of the first things Google will show you pretty much amounts to Everyone Else's Opinion. The eyes of the world are a flawed way of seeing things, as opposed to a higher spiritual perspective.
It's all the useless hate, the greed, and just plain incorrect ideas.
This is an important idea, but it doesn't sound quite the same as what Power Metal is talking about.
The first big reference in music seems to be the Grateful Dead, imploring us to “Wake up and see that you are the eyes of the world”.
As opposed to the “Following the crowd” interpretation, this seems to be reminding us that our opinion is just as important as a theirs, and that it's up to us to find and share the truth. And if the rest of the eyes of the world aren't doing their job, we need to fix that.
Another related popular idea is that “The eyes are the window to the soul”.
I do not like or agree with any of Wagner's Very Bad Awful Ideas, but he was influential on the metal scene, and I've heard that eyes were important in his work, revealing a character's inner thoughts and intentions.
So perhaps we should be thinking in terms of looking *into* the eyes of the world, seeing the pain of the land under the Lich-tyrant, and the hope that someone will come to defeat them, or just having a bit more empathy for the guy you pass in the sleeping bag under the bridge.
But coming back to power metal, “Seeing through the eyes of the world” seems to be a specific, purposeful act. What is it?
Is it just an attitude, or is it some gift of visions granted to the worthy?
Knowing the general themes, I can imagine an old wandering wizard gazing into his crystal, or into some ancient well, and seeing through the eyes of the birds, from the knotholes in the ancient trees, and up through the shimmering lakes the land over.
Maybe while he's looking, he hears a few whispers of how the well feels about what he sees (Most things are alive, to some degree, says Elodin the Master Namer).
So what does it all mean for us? What does it mean to See Through the Eyes of The World in a power metal song?
It means to look from every perspective you can, both *through* the eyes, at the hard facts and logic, and *into* the eyes of those you share the world with.
It means to scan from the tops of trees, looking for the Stranger who wasn't there before, the flecks of blood the thieves left behind, or… the important post-it note that fell on the office floor?
It means seeing all the nonsense, lies, and bias the world has to offer, and knowing exactly why you should ignore it all.
It's looking *through* the eyes of the world, but also with your own.
It's the wide search and patrol, and the close up investigation, and the trial where you sift through to find the truth, all in one.
But watch out, the people telling those nonsense and lies feel just as confident as you!
Frank Hayes, Leslie Fish, Julia Ecklar, and Alexander James Adams are well known to the filk community. But what exactly is Filk?
We know it's not just music about SciFi/Fantasy. Plenty of wonderful songs seem to be from mythology, from personal experience, and from original fictional settings that seem to exist just for that one song.
A friend mentioned that Tom Lehrer was doing Filk long before it had a name. One might even call Johnny Horton an early filker, with his historical songs you've almost surely heard.
Filk is the folk music about stuff nobody else writes about. It's the stuff that might or might not have happened, but we can all relate to anyway. It's everything everyone else thinks is too ridiculous to bother singing about, but you do anyway.
Because this stuff matters. Because people meet their best friends at the DnD table. Because your favorite fantasy novel might help you find the strength to speak up when you need to, or shut your face when you don't.
Because there's stuff that people care about, but nobody talks about.
The current algorithms on the internet don't show us that kind of thing. They show us the slickest new tech with the biggest marketing budget, the biggest controversy, and a thousand insufferable “Life pro tip” videos with excellent editing and highly obnoxious content.
So you have to look for it. Nothing's changed there. Before the internet, the first cosplayers, the first LARPers, all had to find things themselves.
Even the early computer programmers, the people who planned litter pickup projects before #trashtag, and a million others mostly found their own path.
So if you're feeling like that expensive metal drinking straw isn't savings the planet, Facebook likes aren't real connection, and everything's going to crap….
You'll just have to find what you're looking for yourself, just like we always have.