Thursday, August 6, 2009

Sci-Fi Song #20: George R.R. Martin is Not Your Bitch




I'm a big fan of George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series of fantasy novels. As most people in the SFF community know, the author is long overdue in delivering the next book in the series. Many have criticized the author for being late. Others have defended his needs and desires as an artist and a human being to take as long as he needs to finish the next novel properly.

A few months ago, author Neil Gaiman defended George R.R. Martin in a now famous blog post. To paraphrase; one of Gaiman's readers wrote him to ask if he had the right to feel let down by the fact that George R.R. Martin had yet to finish the next book in the series. Gaiman responded to this question by politely stating that: "George R.R. Martin is not your bitch." I couldn't agree with Neil Gaiman's sentiments more, so much so, that I was inspired to write and record this song, which is sung from Neil Gaiman's point of view.

Special Thanks to Ken Neth who suggested this song's topic in a comment to this interview here.

If you like this song, I have lots of other songs inspired by Science Fiction & Fantasy that you can download for free here.

I hope you enjoy it,
John Anealio

http://twitter.com/JohnAnealio



George R.R. Martin is Not Your Bitch
by John Anealio

I got an e-mail from a reader
who said he loved an author
who wrote epic fantasy

He asked me if I thought the writer
should feel like he's required
to finish up the series

and this is what I said:

George R.R. Martin is not your bitch
no matter how much you gripe
George R.R. Martin is not your bitch
so you might as well go get a life

I said: If you think the books are entertaining
it's best to stop complaining
writers just aren't machines

George Martin never signed a contract
to just work on that project
so find something else to read

Have you tried Fevre Dream?

Chorus

Here are some of the tools that I used to record this track.
  1. Yamaha Acoustic Guitar in Standard tuning, capo at the 3rd fret
  2. G&L ASAT Telecaster Electric Guitar for the power chords
  3. Fender Stratocaster Electric Guitar for the guitar solo.
  4. Washburn Electric Bass Guitar
  5. Rode NT-3 microphone for the vocals and acoustic guitar.
  6. Apple Logic Pro 8 recording software
    1. Logic's included EXS24 sampler for the piano and vibraphone sounds, the EVB3 for the organ sound, & the ESP for the synthesizer solo.
    2. Logic's included compression, EQ, delay, and reverb plug-ins.
    3. The electric guitar parts were recorded through Logic's Guitar Amp Pro plug-in
    4. The drum parts were created using Logic's Ultrabeat drum sampler

44 comments:

Neth said...

ahhh....excelent. I'll give it a listen tonight after work.

Balerion said...

Hilarious. Thanks for that. Quite like the way the guitar is handled, too.

Anne-Elisa said...

this is genius!

Juhan said...

Terrific song! And true!!

Juhan said...

how about something from ROBIN HOBB's oeuvre now? :D

John Anealio said...

Neth, Balerion, Anna-Elisa, & Juhan:

Thank you so much for the kind words! I'm glad to hear that you enjoy the song.
I haven't read any Robin Hobb yet, but I'll put it in my to-read pile.

Morgan said...

How frelling delightful! I want this on my ipod! wahoo!

pmrussell said...

Yes, indeed, he is not. Nice tune, too.

xiann said...

Awesome song. I'm going to be singing this to myself all day.

Azrra26 said...

jaja ... Just great!!

felicitaciones, muy buena

Luna said...

Priceless !

~V said...

:) Catchy.

I'll have to watch myself or the kids will also be walking around singing, "George R. R. Martin is not your bitch..."

Maybe not quite what their first grade and preschool teachers want to hear.

LOL

~Valya

Aline Mars said...

I just loved this song. Geek is the new black, yeah?

bzyglowi said...

Saw this on Neil's Twitter feed. :D Loved the essay, and the song is awesome too.

Gradual Instant said...

Was also directed here from Neil's twitter feed and think it's great. Thanks for the great song, I can't wait to explore the rest of this site!

CSInman said...

That's awesome. Fevre Dream has always been my favorite, so I'm tickled that you tucked it in there.

oboros said...

spot on!

Skyehaven said...

Outstanding!!!

For anyone who's upset with George R R Martin, I recommend they go check the publication timeline for another favorite series of the mine, "Earth's Children" by Jean M. Auel.

I waited TWELVE YEARS for book 4.

Alana said...

I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I dont know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.


Margaret

http://guitarlearntoplay.net

Yin Harn said...

Got here from Neil's twitter... cool song. And I love your blog - it combines scifi and guitars, two of my favourite things.

Coral Press said...

Also found your blog through Neil's Twitter. Hilarious song, super catchy! (Our intern agrees with the Robin Hobb suggestion.)

Axel said...

Fevre Dream is not his best work, try his short stories instead. They are excellent, especially "Sandkings", "And Seven Times, Never Kill Man" and "A Beast for Norn".

Cory said...

That song was simply beautiful. I'll be listening, d/ling and sharing your music with my friends.

Aldtai said...

Thank you for pointing it out. George R R Martin has yet to fail any of us(That's why we are still reading his books). If it takes him 20 years, that's how long I will wait. Nobody wants a hurried product. And to this point he hasen't delivered one. Take you're time I say, and thank you.

Terry said...

Love the song. Thanks for giving me and other readers something to put this long wait into perspective. By the way, I also like Bernard Cornwell. Some of his early stuff is a bit rough, but awesome all the same.

noiashui said...

this is so awesome :D Great job!

flyingfordanglia said...

although i'm really looking forward to the rest of the books, i find this hilarious!! also have you tried hunter's run?

Hedrigall said...

This song is so awful that it's hilarious.

mr_tingle said...

This song is wonderful!!!

liuia drusilla said...

George himself has featured your song in his (not a) blog.
Well done, it's really catchy! :)

lohang said...

That's bloody awesome :D

Odie said...

Bravo! :D

jacks said...

hi! i like your blog.. Thanks for the sharing.. easy to download more template

John Anealio said...

Thank you all for the lovely comments! It's great to hear from fellow fans of George R.R. Martin's work.

In addition to "A Song of Ice and Fire", I'm quite a big fan of "The Armageddon Rag". It combines my two favorite things: music and science fiction. If you haven't read that yet, you should check it out.

Thanks again for stopping by. If you look at the sidebar, I have lots of other songs inspired by Science Fiction and Fantasy. They are all free, so download as many as you'd like.

I release a new original song, remix, or podcast each week, so feel free to subscribe to the blog via RSS or you can follow me on Twitter.

http://twitter.com/JohnAnealio

Thanks again!

Susanne said...

This? Is awesome. And beautiful. But mostly awesome. Thanks for this!

Anonymous said...

I came by way of twitter as well. Simply fantastic. I'll be checking out your other work as well.

*lynne* said...

Hi there,
Dropping by via GRRM's post (I also follow Gaiman on Twitter but must have missed his tweet on this).

Love it!

I remember reading Gaiman's answer to that question and thinking "Way to go!". This song is, therefore, fantastic, IMO.

Cheers,
*lynne*

Simey said...

Well I'm in two minds on this one! While I understand that no artist should be at the whim of the reader, in this case Martin did cause the problem by splitting a book into two - and thus teasing the writer.

At the end of the day there's nothing I can do and at least he didn't go to the extreme that Douglas Adams did, and die during the production of a book! *grin* if you know Douglas Adam's and his writing, he'd appreciate the irony of my comment!

lumberjack said...

Wonderful song! :D
Thanks for kind permission to download it, this song is SO going to my iPod.
And I do agree with others that Robin Hobb's novels are great way to pass time when waiting for the Dance of Dragons.

austin said...

Great song, I really like your style. Completely agree that GRRM is an artist and as such shouldn't be rushed to finish a project. Furthermore this series is his baby, if he decided tomorrow to drop the project and never speak of it again that is completely his prerogative. Also, to Simey, GRRM was against splitting the book but was forced to do so because of publication issues. The paperback edition would have been much to large for type of glue used in those books to keep it together. The book would have been falling apart left and right.

alleahna said...

Well done sir! Came here through Martin's Not a Blog.

Julie said...

this was recommended to me by george himself, and I thort it was very true, and HILARIOUS!!! (esp the lead break). Keep up the good work

GMSN said...

]insert sycophant comment]

Alberto said...

great work!! the song is very good and funny but I really agree with whoever wrote the email...