John McDaid

John G. McDaid is an sf writer and folk/filk singer-songwriter from Portsmouth, Rhode Island. Over his 40 years of performing, he's played his geek-inflected songs at political events, science fiction conventions- including the 2019 Dublin Worldcon- and folk venues from Boston to NYC's Speakeasy and Folk City. His songwriting has earned recognition, including prizes at FilKONtario, NEWhere, and the Ohio Valley Filk Fest. In 2020, he took first place at the Common Fence Music Community Hoot and was a nominee for a Best Writer/Composer Pegasus Award.

You can find his music at johnmcdaid.bandcamp.com.

Representative Work for the 2021 Pegasus Awards

Light At The End (mp3)

Words and Music: Copyright ©2021 by John McDaid ASCAP
All Rights Reserved
Lyrics posted with permission of the author

When you're whistling past the graveyard
Hear bones singing in the dark
Don't you ever start to wonder
If this whole world's jumped the shark

In the valley of the shadow
Halfway to Halloween
We've been sold a tale of failure
And regression to the mean

It's a dream of angel armies
Descending from the sky
They have come to end the madness
Time for everyone to die

CHORUS
No more foregone Armageddon
No half-buried Liberty
No more third-act desperation
No descent to sunless sea
That's the way we used to do it
Ain't the way it goes today
Put on your ruby slippers
Cuz the future's on the way

Well we heard that Blood's a Rover
Saw the shape of Things to Come
Felt despair on that Day After
Watching Pickens ride the bomb

Now we're walking toward the future
Learning how to do no harm
Turn our back on hollow nightmares
And await our final form

Act in the living present
Like that old dead poet said
Don't you follow alt-White Rabbits
And take the time to feed your head

CHORUS

We used to cringe at heat death
Genuflect to entropy
But now we know that time's becoming
Is emergent complexity

We ride Lanaikea
Tracing faces on the flow
Poised between the void and plenum
As above, so below

We watch the Light from the beginning
Or perhaps it is the end
But we're in a tunnel of love
On a journey to transcend

CHORUS