W. Randy Hoffman

W. Randy Hoffman, a lifelong resident of Southwestern Pennsylvania, attended his first con and his first open filk at Marcon in Columbus in 1989. While there he wrote his first filk song (which, fortunately for humanity, has been lost to history) for which he was accompanied on guitar by a red-haired gentleman he never saw again.

After that he remained active in fandom, but didn't return to filk until he listened to a basement tape produced by his college buddies Rand Bellavia and Adam English and said, "Boy, these guys need an appreciative audience, and I know where they can find one!" He accompanied said buddies to several open filks and filk concerts over the following two years and finally decided he liked the scene himself.

Since 1989 he's written dozens of poems and over 150 filk songs; some of them serious, more of them funny. A lot of these are available on his four albums.

He's won songwriting contests at numerous Eastern and Midwestern conventions, and has placed in the top three in such contests more often than almost any other filk songwriter over the past fifteen years. The duo "Partners in K'RHyme", in which he performs with his singing compatriot Kira Heston, has been Interfilk Guests at Consonance and Toastmasters at Concertino.

His contribution to the filk community of which he is most proud, however, is probably his organization and presentation of the filk programming at Confluence in Pittsburgh since 1997, including full-weekend tracks since 2001.

Representative Work for the 2012 Pegasus. Note- this is NOT a song nominated for the 2012 Pegasus Awards.

Railgun

Copyright ©2010 by W. Randy Hoffman- All rights Reserved
Used by Permission

[spoken:] I was just standin' there.
[sung:] I was stuck on a French Guiana boardwalk
Watchin' rocket trails burn through the sky
I felt the leaden hollows in my pockets
And I said aloud, "I wish I could fly!"
A voice behind me spoke, "What's to stop you?" --
An old man with telltale creases in his hair --
"It's not rocket science you need, boy,
It's the atom-smasher tech will get you there.

[Chorus:]
"Ride a bullet into the black yonder
Take that freeway out toward your dreams
Let the magnets propel you to heaven
'Cause the trip's not as far as it seems
If they tell you can't -- if they raise a halting hand --
Just pick up and head out today
Hit the trail, son, on the railgun,
And you'll be on your way."

[spoken:] I was not impressed.
[sung:] I said, "That's quite a laugh coming from you;
Your whole life has been a rocket ride
But I'm no captain in the Navy
Haven't worn that cap or won a bounty prize."
He replied, "Rocket cabins are tiny,
But a railboat carries dozens at once,
And rockets use precious propellant,
But a railtrack is juiced by the sun.

[Chorus]

[spoken:] The old man started whisperin' to me.
[sung:] "Yeah, I'm rich enough to ride on the rockets,
But if I did, who'd take the seat next to mine?
I'm the man who used mass drivers on Europa
And no one's forgiven that kind of crime.
So instead of spending all my blood money
On a yacht that thirteen people can board,
I sunk it on a hundred-mile launcher
With a ticket even you can afford.

[Final chorus:]
"Ride my bullet into the black yonder
Take my freeway out toward your dreams
Let my magnets propel you to heaven
'Cause the trip's not as far as it seems
If they tell you can't -- if they raise a halting hand --
Just pick up and head out today
Hit the trail, son, on my railgun,
And you'll be on your way!"

THE END