jere7my | Pinewoods 3: the band just seems to know one song

(Fair warning: if I sound like I'm a bit full of myself here, it's only because I am. I'm pretty darn chuffed, in fact.)

A Pinewoods ceilidh is a skit night-cum-talent show. I was uncertain about entering this year, as I didn't have any particularly good ideas. I thought maybe I'd play a random Dylan song and pass it off as "American folk tradition."

Then, the morning of the ceilidh, I woke up with an idea for a filk, about a Scottish dancer who finds himself bewildered by English dancing. "Hmm," I said. "That's actually pretty funny. Too bad I don't have time to write it." I walked down to the camp house, and listened for a while to a conversation...that some Scottish dancers were having...about being bewildered by English dancing. "Okay, God," I said. "I get it."

Casting my title as the World's Slowest Filker into serious jeopardy, I spent the afternoon and half of the evening's dance frantically scribbling lyrics on the back of my Pinewoods orientation packet (with helpful input on dance arcana from

adfamiliares). I made a fair copy and practiced it for the first time about an hour before the ceilidh, performing for the empty chairs of the camp house. And then the camp house filled up, and my name appeared on the list stuck to the refrigerator, and with knockling knees I went on.

Intro: Hello Pinewoods! Do we have any Dylan fans in the audience? All right. Well, you might know that Bob Dylan won an Oscar a few years ago, in 2001, for the song Things Have Changed from the movie Wonder Boys. What most people don't know is that Bob is actually a very traditional Scottish dancer, and he wrote the original version of that song after accidentally attending ESS, where he was shocked and dismayed by the presence of English dancers. I happen to have recently uncovered that original song, which went something like this:

A Scottish man at an English dance
I should've known that I just hadn't a chance
There's a woman on my left, and her feet aren't in third.
The music started with a 9/8 beat
Nobody asked us if our sets were complete
There was a talkthrough, but I only got about every other word.
Everyone said the music would tell me what to do.
Well, it must've been speaking Portuguese or something, 'cos I didn't have a clue.

People are crazy, the sets are long.
The band just seems to know one song.
I used to dance, but things went wrong.

The caller said that I should honor my partner
So I compared her to Jean-Paul Sartre
I thought she'd like that, but I just got the evil eye.
The guy said, "Hey!" and I said, "What?"
He said "Turn single!" but I already was.
When he told me to rant, well, I was happy to oblige.
I broke for tea when he said, "Do-si-do."
I thought he was talking about the cupcake—how was I supposed to know?

People are crazy, the sets are long.
The band just seems to know one song.
I used to dance, but things went wrong.

This place ain't doin' me no good
I'm at the wrong camp—shoulda gone to Ramblewood.
Just for a minute there, I thought I had it pegged.
The next dance was Red House—I got excited!
I started reeling—everybody collided
But it's okay—we only broke three legs.
When that dance ended, I thought I had a reprieve
But then they started talkin' 'bout maggots, and it was time to leave.

People are crazy, the sets are long.
Okay, the band knows two songs.
I used to dance, but things went wrong.

(Now, you may be saying to yourself, "Hey, there aren't any do-si-dos in English dancing! And anyway, a Do-si-do is a Girl Scout cookie, not a cupcake. jere7my is a wanker!" This is why we do not customarily write, practice, and perform filks in twelve hours, without having run them past anybody else. Regardless...)

The reaction was very positive. The audience roared with gratifying laughter, and afterwards I lost count of the number of people who came up to congratulate me. If I were making a promotional poster, quotes I'd include would be: "Arguably the best act of the ceilidh." "You and Dave Wiesler [!] are always worth the price of admission." "[enormous hug from Ron Wallace]" "Oh my God, that was so good. The lyrics were great, but your delivery was...ah!" (That last came from a trio of wicked cute crewpersons, who declared themselves my groupies. O, the pain of celebrity.)

In fact, for the next day and a half, I had a little trouble getting anything done, as people continued to tell me how much they'd liked my act and/or asked me for an encore. English dancers came up to tell me it made them feel less intimidated by the Scottish dancers to know that they were sometimes baffled, too. I had trouble writing a postcard at the ball, because cute girls kept asking me to dance. It actually made me a little shy, and I was unsure how to handle the sudden social spotlight—am I being humble enough? grateful enough? should I say something cleverer than "Thanks, glad you liked it"?—but I did a lot of beaming. I can't say I was at all displeased—I've dreamed for ten years of finding this kind of affirmation-bombing at Pinewoods.

What happened was this, I think: I noticed an undercurrent in the camp's mood, and had the sense to follow it to what turned out to be a rich vein of comedy. This particular filk probably wouldn't work very well anywhere else, but at ESS it really resonated. A photocopy of my lyrics was placed in the Pinewoods Archives for posterity; I don't know how often that happens, but I consider it an honor.