Uploaded August 2022 | Updated September 2026, 8 minutes ago
Quite a lot of interviews and conversations were filmed for Finding the Future (2003), a documentary on SF fandom. We have received permission to post the segments featuring Leslie Fish here. If you have enjoyed them, why not look up a copy of the full movie, with nearly two hours of similar footage?
Finding the Future was directed by Casey Moore, edited by Casey Moore and Joseph Formichella, and produced by Joseph Formichella, Charles Moore, and Michael R. Pryor.
Quite a lot of interviews and conversations were filmed for Finding the Future (2003), a documentary on SF fandom. We have received permission to post the segments featuring Leslie Fish here. If you have enjoyed them, why not look up a copy of the full movie, with nearly two hours of similar footage?
Finding the Future was directed by Casey Moore, edited by Casey Moore and Joseph Formichella, and produced by Joseph Formichella, Charles Moore, and Michael R. Pryor.
![Aislinn (Anne Prather) - High Wings [HQ]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Z0gUF2vmhsk/mqdefault.jpg "Aislinn (Anne Prather) - High Wings [HQ]
High Wings track 6. Thanks to rocketman0739 for providing high-quality versions of these songs.
Download the album here: https://archive.org/details/filk_high_wings
Lyrics:
I feel my soul is growing
Shining wings to reach the sun
And I feel a wind come calling far and higher
I think Ill soon be going all my journeys just begun
As I lift through shining realms of shifting fire
I feel the starwinds blowing
Through the feathers in the air
Through white and ghostly wings of silver wonder
The winds are Heaven calling
And the winds are rising where
I shall go into the heavens riding thunder
Ive watched the sky with yearning
Unbidden through all my years
With no clear understanding of the meaning
The dreams they all are burning
With the pain of drying tears
With ship, or soon without it
Ill be leaving
To fly, and still fly further
Than our ways may know or tell
Of mystic tides of starshine
Ill take measure
I go—I dont know whether
Its to paradise or hell
But the beauty of the journey
Is the treasure.")
![Leslie Fish - Still Alive [HQ]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ZpDbwpL0Ce0/mqdefault.jpg "Leslie Fish - Still Alive [HQ]
Firestorm track 12. Thanks to rocketman0739 for providing high-quality versions of these songs.
Download the album here: https://archive.org/details/filk_firestorm
Find more of Leslie Fishs music at: https://lesliefish.bandcamp.com/
Lyrics:
Running from the future
Running from the past
Running from the mirror
How long can you last?
Dont look back—the thunders rolling
Dont look back—you know whats there
Dont look back—the sight will break you
Look ahead and forget to care
Running from the darkness
Running from the day
Running from the voices
See no other way
Cross my name out of your pages
Turn your face away, forget the sight
Put back the stone you found me under
Dont drag me back into the light
Running from the living
Running from the dead
Running from the memories
Just one jump ahead
But youre still alive—theres a face in the mirror
Still alive—the dead dont bleed
Still alive—life is a changer
And youre no stranger; come take what you need
There will be an answer
The sun will rise
Love is a survivor
Open your eyes
Running from the future
Running from the past
Running from the mirror
How long can you last?
How long can you last?
How long can you last?")
![Bob Kanefsky/Heather Alexander - White Unicorn II [HQ]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/_J4LUgUztR4/mqdefault.jpg "Bob Kanefsky/Heather Alexander - White Unicorn II [HQ]
Tapeworm I track 9. Thanks to rocketman0739 for providing high-quality versions of these songs.
Download the album here: https://archive.org/details/filk_tapeworm_1
Lyrics:
I am he you stick on your window-pane.
I am he that haunts your days.
I am he that maidens once sought in vain.
Long dead, and now the latest craze.
When you get letters from your friends,
Each page of them I will adorn.
My reign of cuteness never ends:
I am the white unicorn.
My horn of silvery tinsel is honed.
My shoulders bear butterfly wings.
I am the teddy bear you never owned.
I am the song the Smurfs all sing.
One look into my big brown eyes,
No deeper than a children’s poem.
Adults are so quick to hypnotize:
You’ll buy me and you’ll take me home.
My coat is white as the purest snow.
My face is too cute to hide.
Prison me not in that box with a bow;
I’m scared it may be dark inside.
Oh, what a cruel blow you have dealt:
You gave me to a child of three.
Her heart’s too pure and will not melt,
And she is as cute as me!
I am he that’s stuck to a candy cane,
Off-white, and with a bright blue patch.
I am he, with chocolate smeared through my mane.
By gosh, I think I’ve met my match.
How could you leave me in her care,
Mistreated and forlorn?
Her grubby hands clenched in my hair:
One shabby white unicorn.")
![Aislinn (Anne Prather) - (The Wind Is) A Game Played by Two [HQ]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/_nHZoGkjA3E/mqdefault.jpg "Aislinn (Anne Prather) - (The Wind Is) A Game Played by Two [HQ]
High Wings track 9. Thanks to rocketman0739 for providing high-quality versions of these songs.
Download the album here: https://archive.org/details/filk_high_wings
Lyrics:
Take me away to a sky dappled blue
Where each passing moment brings
Something else new
But the joys still the same
And the wind is a game
Played by two.
Ah how the silence is growing out here
Where I cant touch the ground
It touches my worries, my hopes and my fears
With a freedom new-found
And it brings me round
To perfection right here.
Let me fly
With the wings of a bird
In a free-wheeling ecstacy
Far beyond words
Where the sun greets the dawn
And the breeze ripples on, undeterred.
Let the myriad stars
Be my guide
I sit here in mid-air
So caught up inside
But my soul seeks the wind
And each flight begins
A new realm of delight
Ah how the silence is growing each day
In the arms of the wind
The airplanes that opened the sky to me say
Theyre my allies and friends
And each flight begins
In a dazzling new way
Take me away
To a sky dappled blue
Where each passing moment
Brings something else new
And the wind is
A game played by two
The wind is
A game played by two.")
![Jordin Kare - The Designer [HQ]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/_w3whakzRGg/mqdefault.jpg "Jordin Kare - The Designer [HQ]
Fire in the Sky track 07. Thanks to rocketman0739 for providing high-quality versions of these songs.
Download the album here: https://archive.org/details/filk_fire_in_the_sky
Lyrics:
The designer sat at his drafting board
A wealth of facts in his head was stored
Of what can be done with a radial drill,
A turret lathe, or a vertical mill
But above all things a knack he had
Of driving machinists completely mad
So he mused, as he thoughtfully scratched his bean,
“Just how can I make this thing hard to machine?
If I make this body perfectly straight,
The job would surely come out first rate,
But that would be easy to cut and bore!
It never would make the machinist sore.
“So Ill throw in a compound angle there
And a couple of tapers to make them swear.
Now brass would do for this little gear,
But thats too easy to carve I fear,
So just to make a machinist squeal
Ill have him machine it from tungsten steel.
“And Ill put the holes that hold the cap
Down underneath where they cant be tapped.
Now, if they can make it, theyll do it by luck,
Cause it cant be held with a dog or a chuck.
And it cant be drilled nor planed nor ground,
So I think my design is completely sound.”
The designer sat back. His plan he surveyed:
The screwiest thing he had ever made.
He signed his name with a line so thin
Then put down his pencil and started to grin.
He shouted in glee, “Success at last!
Ive designed a part that cant even be cast.”")
![Leslie Fish - Walk Through the Night-Side [HQ]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/aSWgpp1Jcws/mqdefault.jpg "Leslie Fish - Walk Through the Night-Side [HQ]
Firestorm track 03. Thanks to rocketman0739 for providing high-quality versions of these songs.
Download the album here: https://archive.org/details/filk_firestorm
Find more of Leslie Fishs music at: https://lesliefish.bandcamp.com/
Lyrics:
Empty street of beads of light
None spell safety in my sight
Lend me a knife
Lend me a life
So I can make it home tonight
Chorus:
Walk through the night-side
Walk like a beast
Stalk like a caveman
Starved rock-bottom changes least
Stalking down the silent stone
Distance, keep me safe alone
With a ready grip
On a scrap-iron strip
Sure as a club of bison bone
(Chorus)
City jungle, yes, its true
Thats what cops and robbers do
Try to get free
Thats how to be
Strong enough to walk it through
(Chorus)
So come on, junkie, rapist, crook
Stop and take another look
Im still alive
And mean to survive
Its all down in Darwins book
(Chorus)")
![Jordin Kare - Heart of the Apple Lisa [HQ]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/abUzg20OIPs/mqdefault.jpg "Jordin Kare - Heart of the Apple Lisa [HQ]
Parody Violation track 21. Thanks to rocketman0739 for providing high-quality versions of these songs.
Download the album here: https://archive.org/details/filk_parody_violation
Lyrics (TTTO Heart of the Appaloosa, Fred Small):
In the land of high-tech ventures, by the waters of Frisco Bay,
Hewlett Packard up by Stanford, IBM in San Jose
The Hackers of the Apple wrote their code and schemed their schemes
In the valley known as Silicon, where fortunes grow from dreams
And they built some fine computers, if you skip the Apple III
But they vowed to build a new machine that would the market please
They would ease the users burden; the command line theyd replace
With the magic known as GUI, Graphic User Interface
Chorus: Windows-Scrolling-in-the-Valley,
Lead the Hackers off on a GUI tide
Theres blood on the chips down at HP, DEC, and MIPS
But the heart of the Apple Lisa never died!
Then from Xerox came the Alto, never marketed nor sold
Bringing mice and multitasking, and menus that unfold
Desktops sprouted metal rodents, bitmaps glowed upon the screen,
And printers put on WYSIWYGs to print just what was seen
Nearly lost in Big Blues shadow, incompatible with DOS,
The Lisa, slow and costly, seemed sure to be a loss,
But then came Macs and Fat Macs, LaserWriters, IIs, and more
And word would come from Microsoft: You realize this means war!
(Chorus)
The Chief said to the Hackers, in his anger and his pain,
I am no more John Sculley; Scrolling Windows is my name!
They condemn us to niche markets, call our products vaporware.
We will sue them if we must, but well retain our market share!
They climbed on board that SCSI bus, with Postscript in their hearts
They won in desktop publishing, they won in graphic arts,
Till Bill Gates, he saw his strategy, and sent the e-mail down
To copy those GUI features, wherever they be found
(Chorus)
Three Windows versions later, past the Pentium divide
The strangest of bedfellows, IBM now on their side
Three thousand applications on the PowerPC run,
But the buyers and the users still are leaving one by one
Windows-Scrolling-in-the-Valley said, My heart is sick and sad.
The future now looks RISCy, the old chips are dead.
The lawyers take our spirit, but Ive stock options galore.
From where Scott McNealy stands, I will fight no more!
(Chorus)
They were sent to Intel platforms, Michelangelo [virus] ran rife
But more hackers quit from boredom, and went off to get a life
And the man once known as Sculley with great glee is heard to state,
Theyll get Windows 95 debugged in 19 zero 8! (Goddamn Y2K bug...)
But sometimes, without warning, in some dull commercial app,
A hack of wondrous cleverness emerges from the crap
A metaphor thats graceful; a real need that it can fill
Double click upon that icon—the Apple Lisas living still!
(Chorus)")
![Jordin Kare - Wanderer / Fire in the Sky [HQ]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/asLRX7QOPwE/mqdefault.jpg "Jordin Kare - Wanderer / Fire in the Sky [HQ]
Fire in the Sky track 12. Thanks to rocketman0739 for providing high-quality versions of these songs.
Download the album here: https://archive.org/details/filk_fire_in_the_sky
Lyrics:
Once I walked an endless land with a wanderers swinging stride
And once upon a mighty steed forever I could ride
And once a tall ship rode the tide at midnight from the bay
And I could climb aboard her and travel far away
Through centuries and lifetimes, no journey twice the same
With love or fear to guide me on, seeking death or fame
Or hearing just a still, small voice that said “You cannot stay”
I could leave the past behind me and travel far away
But now the great jets thunder and they sing of distant lands
But all their promised wonders turn to dust within my hands
For I can travel half the world and return in half a day
And I fear that only death remains to take me far away
For with steel and steam and gasoline and turbines whining scream
They have trapped me in a nightmare that is someone elses dream
Of a world so small and guarded, you could hold it in your hand
A world that knows no land called far away
So I waste my lives in dreaming or in bloody, useless war
But somewhere theres a flash of fire and a mighty rising roar
And I pray godspeed to those who ride, and I live now for the day
When I leave my world behind me and travel far away
Prometheus, they say, brought Gods fire down to man
And weve caught it, tamed it, trained it since our history began
Now were going back to Heaven just to look Him in the eye
And theres a thunder cross the land and a fire in the sky.
Gagarin was the first, back in 1961,
When, like Icarus, undaunted, he climbed to reach the Sun.
And he knew he might not make it, for its never hard to die,
But he lifted off the pad and rode a fire in the sky.
Yet a higher goal was calling, and we vowed to reach it soon,
And we gave ourselves a decade to put fire on the Moon.
And Apollo told the world we can do it if we try,
For there was one small step and a fire in the sky.
Then two decades from Gagarin, twenty years to the day,
Came a shuttle named Columbia to open up the way.
And they said shes just a truck, but shes a truck thats aiming high.
See her big jets burning, see her fire in the sky!
Yet the gods do not give lightly of the gifts that they have made
And with Challenger and seven, once again the price is paid.
Though a nation watched her falling, yet a world could only cry
As they passed from us to glory, riding fire in the sky.
Now the rest is up to us. Theres a future to be won.
We must turn our faces outward—we will do what must be done.
For no cradle lasts forever; every bird must learn to fly.
And were going to the stars, see our fire in the sky!
Yes, were going to the stars, see our fire in the sky!")
![Leslie Fish & the Dehorn Crew - Freedom Road [HQ]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/asfuILFVJJM/mqdefault.jpg "Leslie Fish & the Dehorn Crew - Freedom Road [HQ]
Its Sister Jennys Turn to Throw the Bomb track 16. Thanks to rocketman0739 for providing high-quality versions of these songs.
Download the album here: https://archive.org/details/filk_its_sister_jennys_turn_to_throw_the_bomb
Find more of Leslie Fishs music at: https://lesliefish.bandcamp.com/
Lyrics:
Did you think it was easy to change all of tomorrow?
Did you think youd never meet time, defeat, and sorrow?
Did you think all the walls would crumble and youd never lose a fight?
Get back up on your feet and do it right!
Chorus:
Freedom Road is a long haul,
Freedom Road is a long haul,
But its worth the ride
Even if you never get there at all.
Did you think the first leader come preachin down the pike
Could give you one big answer, as if we were all alike?
Well, theres no set salvation, you should have known all along
That Jesus, Marx, and your guru could be wrong.
(Chorus)
This is the lonesome valley that youve gotta walk yourself.
Go out and find your answers; you cant take them off the shelf,
And youve gotta make tomorrow from just what youve got today,
So get up off your ass and find a way!
(Chorus)
Time comes down like thunder, and you can ride or fall,
And let the millstones grind you till nothings left at all,
But weve got just two choices, and ones to get home free,
And second best is nothin you wanna see!
(Chorus)")
![Leslie Fish & the Dehorn Crew - Soul Stealers [HQ]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/aslnt_L_wKY/mqdefault.jpg "Leslie Fish & the Dehorn Crew - Soul Stealers [HQ]
Its Sister Jennys Turn to Throw the Bomb track 13. Thanks to rocketman0739 for providing high-quality versions of these songs.
Download the album here: https://archive.org/details/filk_its_sister_jennys_turn_to_throw_the_bomb
Find more of Leslie Fishs music at: https://lesliefish.bandcamp.com/
Lyrics:
They come to your cradle early when you’re still too young to fight,
And they pull away the covers, and they take away the light.
And they put your Mom and Dad to sleep, so it does no good to yell.
Soul Stealers come to steal your soul and cast you into hell.
They slip a black sack over your head, and they whisper, “It’s only a dream.”
They paralyze your body, so you cannot run nor scream.
Helpless and invisible, they carry you away
Right past your sleeping family just at the break of day.
Chorus:
Soul Stealers! Soul Stealers! Catch you in their plan.
Soul Stealers! Soul Stealers! Resist them if you can.
Soul Stealers’ ways are many and hard to understand,
For they murmur words of comfort as they take you by the hand.
They’ll show you the painted horses, and they’ll tell you what to feel.
And if you disagree with them, they’ll break you on the wheel.
And when you’ve learned to agree with them and that struggle won’t avail,
They’ll teach you games to play with them; they’ll teach you how to fail.
They’ll slip cold shackles around your feet, and they’ll beat you in the race.
And they’ll teach you that’s your lot in life; they’ll teach you that’s your place.
(Chorus)
They steal the light out of your eyes and the thoughts out of your brain.
They steal the songs right off your lips and the life blood from your veins.
They’ll bend your back and they’ll break your heart; they’ll use you as they will.
They’ll teach you how to work for them, and your soul they’ll take and kill.
And now you know why your Daddy drank and why his hair turned gray,
And why your Mum so seldom laughed, and why they could not play.
And now you think that the Soul Stealers were a nightmare long ago,
But you’re haunted by an emptiness that will not let you go.
(Chorus)")
![Julia Ecklar - Black Widows in the Privy [HQ]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/b13TGvHmI0I/mqdefault.jpg "Julia Ecklar - Black Widows in the Privy [HQ]
Horse-Tamers Daughter track 09. Thanks to rocketman0739 for providing high-quality versions of these songs.
Download the album here: https://archive.org/details/filk_horse-tamers_daughter
Find more of Julia Ecklars excellent music at: https://www.prometheus-music.com/
Lyrics:
Everyone knows someone wed be better off without,
But best not mention names, for we dont know whos about.
But why commit a murder and risk the fires of hell,
When black widows in the privy can do it just as well?
Now poisons good, and daggers, and arrows in the back,
And if youre really desperate, you can try a front attack,
But are they really worthy of the risk of being caught,
When black widows in the privy need not be bribed or bought?
So if theres one of whom you wish most simply to be rid,
Just wait till dark, then point the way to where the widows hid,
And say to them, “I think youll find that this one is the best,”
And black widows in the privy will gladly do the rest.")
