Writing Prompt Tavern Song (or not)

[YuriDoggo]

In worlds, there are often taverns or bars. Within, you find stories of your world being told through music.

What are some world-relevant poems and songs you might find being sung in such taverns, if any?

 

[Monk_Origins]

Well, there has been plenty of songs about love honor and whatnot, but there is one thing I have seen missing. Political propaganda gossip.

You know, in our world there are legends of Catherine the Great, queen of Russia having a 'thing' for horse genetelia. Perhaps a similar story could be sponsored by a malicious power to be spread by bards, to demean the position of an inheritor of a kingdom.

 

[BenJepheneT]

Brontosaurus

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

www.youtube.com

This entire album can be sung by a fantasy bard and no one will even notice

 

[TRNRLogan]

Where are all the sea shanties?

Major lost potential. Like hell even ASOIAF (Game of Thrones) doesn't really have any.

 

[NotaNuffian]

The usual popular characters and their exploits, I mean taverns might even have plays on how the heroes met, linked by their noble cause they go on a quest and stuff like that.

Or porn, most of the listeners are men, why not porn.

 

[Suryae]

Anarcho Capitalist propagandas

 

[Monk_Origins]

I play the vocal Irish-Japanese fusion-weeb-folk song card! Pretty much the EXODIA card of the fantasy tavern songs. Can't beat this shit.

 

[OvidLemma]

In my novel, Scions, the main character wins a contest to be named battle-maiden by singing a drinking song. See if you can deduce the super duper subtle song influence I borrowed to write this viking-esque drinking song:

"I sailed across the churning sea
and could not take my drink with me,
but here I stand on balmy land,
so put some spirits in my hand!
We warm ourselves with Sigurd's mead,
but our steel is cold, so all take heed:

We come from the land of the ice and snow,
with the midnight sun, where the ale doth flow.
We come from the line of the god of war,
throw your heads back, friends, and we'll drink some more.

Oh!"

 

[OvidLemma]

Anarcho Capitalist propagandas

I'd like to read/hear some of that! In my steampunk novel, Sisters & Brothers (in-progress, unpublished, loosely based on social strife and worker's movements in the 19th Century), many of the songs they sing are thinly-veiled revolutionary Socialist anthems. Here, the goal is usually to inspire the workers to protest or riot against the factory owners without mentioning anything so inflammatory that the authorities crack down on the union social houses.

I was not born here in the city,
I am just a simple girl,
orphaned when I was so young,
entrusted to a nunnery,
and now I am a runaway,
and now I sit upon your stage,
my working gentlemen and ladies.
Please do not scoff, nor walk away…
I did not have a song in mind,
nay my whole repertoire is empty,
but I recall a lullaby,
soft-sung upon my mother's knee,
hummed as I sit before you gathered folk
as fine as gilded gentry.
This song I sing for you, my friends,
but I am not sure what it means,
an orphan girl singing proud
a tune more fit for kings and queens.
I do not walk their hallowed halls,
my bare feet trailing filthy,
this gown is sewn of cutting-scraps,
my shoulders have grown weary.
I was not born here in the city;
I am just a simple girl,
but it seems to me that life,
it need not be so weary…
I need not work myself to tears
for table scraps, my fingers sore,
my blisters bleeding, hovel in arrears,
that I was meant for something more.
But I am told I'm out of place -
and have you not been told it, too?
To question not these ancient ways,
that you ought labor all your days,
and of your wage be happy?
But, though my mother is long gone,
I will not live life crushed and poor
because I know she would have wanted
for her girl a life that's more.

It started slow - slow and sad, and Stella could barely hear the piano despite the hush of the crowd. But slowly it grew in volume, Lyra's fingers dancing across the keys, her voice lilting in perfect pitches that Stella had never heard her achieve - had never heard anyone achieve. And by the time her song reached its full volume, her fingers were fluid, filling out more notes than ought to exist in the space of a breath, and coins flew into the little silk hat she'd placed at the front of the stage - pennies, tinpennies, and even a few marks. And when the song was done, there was no applause, because they all sat there, transfixed. Even Stella had to remind herself to breathe. Had to remind herself that this was Lyra, who could barely play a whole chapel processional without making a mistake or two. But it was Lyra - she slowly uncurled from the piano bench and stepped to fetch her silk hat, making a very Lyra-like curtsy, adorable and slightly embarrassed.

"More!" somebody shouted from just out of view. If Stella had seen who it was, she might have smashed their head for such presumption. But Lyra smiled.

"Enough melancholy… who wants a drinking song?" she shouted, and the crowd cheered. And, as the evening drew on, more people pressed through the crowd at the door.

 

[ForestDweller]

It would probably be about heroes throughout history, from the Legendary Hero himself to minor heroes like a general who wins a war for the country.