The Star Trek Songbook

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Zine
Title: The Star Trek Songbook
Publisher:
Editor(s): Ruth Berman
Type:
Date(s): 1971-1976
Medium: print
Fandom: Star Trek: TOS
External Links:
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The Star Trek Songbook is a gen Star Trek: TOS zine. There are three issues.

From the publisher: "A compendium of all the songs sung in episodes of Star Trek and some that weren't, along with scenes discussing Federation music."

Issue 1

front cover of issue #1
back cover of issue #1

The Star Trek Songbook 1 was published in Summer 1971 and contains 39 pages.

"The Star Trek Songbook is a compendium of all the songs sung in episodes of 'Star Trek' and some that weren't, along with scenes discussing Federation music."

The interior art is composed of various screen shots.

From the zine:

The transcriptions of the music were taken from tapes of the shows, except for "Beyond Antares" and the second verse oi "Maiden Wine" (available on records -- "Leonard Nimoy Presents Mr. Spock's Music from Outer Space" and "The Touch of Leonard Nimoy," respectively) and the songs available in published versions ("I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen," and. Good Night, Sweetheart"). Within the limits of the equipment and my own ear, the transcriptions are accurate as to tune, chording, and key. However, I transposed "Maiden Wine" from BbM to DM, as the latter is easier to play and, for most voices, easier to sing; and, in the case of "Alexander's Song, where the accompaniment was a single chord struck in the intervals between phrases, I omitted the chording. I have made no attempt to give the orchestration, except in the case of the Brahms waltz (which was a piano piece and fairly easy to decipher). It happened several times that the words as sung differed somewhat from the words in the script. Where the difference is large enough to be interesting, both versions are given; otherwise, the words are given as performed. Acknowledgements: Michelle Malkin and Kathy Surgenor, for giving me the idea; S. Cornelie Cole, Dorothy Jones Heydt, and Robin Root, for loaning tapes; L'Shaya Salkind, for her list of composer credits.

From "Etc.", an example of the low-key accessibility many fans had with TPTB:

Originally, I had assumed that Barry Trivers and Alexander Courage, the author and background-music-composer of "Conscience of the King, " had composed the song performed in the course of the episode. However, in transcribing "Beyond Antares," I i noticed that the record credited it to Coon-Hatch. I wrote Gene L. Coon to ask if that meant he and Wilbur Hatch (one of "Star Trek's" music supervisors) had composed the song. Also, as "Devil in the Dark," an episode Gene L. Coon wrote, is one of my favorites, I mentioned that fact and added that a fan-made Horta had received one of the prizes for "most BEMish" at the 1971 Westercon costume ball. He replied:
Right. I wrote the lyrics to "Beyond Antares," which Nichelle Nichols sang so well in "Conscience of the King." Wilbur Hatch, who died several years ago, did the music. You might be interested in the creative processes involved. The lyrics were pretty far out. Although I wrote them, I no longer remember them, and I don't even have a copy of them, but I tried to write a love song that tomorrow's space travellers might well have sung. I told Bill Hatch to write some pretty far out music. You wouldn't believe how far out a good musician can go, once he's given his head. I listened to that incredible progression of dissonance -- made John Cage sound like Ma Bailey. So I told Wilbur next time not quite so far out, and we sat there at the piano together, Wilbur and I, and finally came up with the current version -- still probably the most technically advanced popular-type song ever written. "Very pretty, too, once you get used to the strange patterns.

I was charmed to hear that the Horta was back, at least for a little while, in the egg-laying business. The genesis of

Devil in the Dark," and the Horta, is an interesting one. Hollywood stuntman Janos Prohaska, who delights in building monsters out of plastic foam and rubber, crawled into my office one day inside the Horta, which, of course, looked like nothing on earth. I fell in love with it, put a hold on the delightful glob, and sat and wrote "The Devil in the Dark" In four days. On the sixth day we started shooting. The Horta, of course, is a delightful monster, but there are bad monsters in the universe. They, however, all have two legs, two arms and two eyes.

  • Star Trek Intro and Theme, music by Alexander Courage, words to theme, by Gene Roddenberry (5)
  • Naked Time - I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen, by Thomas Westendorf ("a song of the American-Irish, mangled by Kevin Riley over ship- wide intercom; it is presumably since then taboo on-.the Enterprise.") (6)
  • Alab Wes-Craunish, by James Blish and/or John D.F. Black [1] (9)
  • Charlie X - Uhura in re: Spock and Charlie Evans, words by Gene Roddenberry, music: "Charlie is My Darling" (10)
  • Beyond Antares, words by Gene L. Coon, music by Wilbur Hatch, from Conscience of the King (12)
  • Good Night Sweetheart by Ray Noble, Jimmy Cmapbell and Reg Connelly, from City on the Edge of Forever (13)
  • Of period music, jewel-song, and bird-song, commentary on the first draft of the episode that was by Harlan Ellison (14)
  • Of Vulcan Music by Theodore Sturgeon, from an early draft of "Amok Time" (17)
  • Maiden Wine by Leonard Nimoy, from Plato's Stepchildren (18)
  • Alexander's Song ("a slightly garbled version of John Hookham Frere's exceedingly loose translation of the Frog-Chorus, 11. 288-35 from Aristophanes' "The Frogs.") (20)
  • Way to Eden - Stiff Man Putting My Mind in Jail (21)
  • Hey Out There, from "The Way to Eden" (22)
  • Looking for the Good Land, from "The Way to Eden" (24)
  • Heading Out to Eden, from "The Way to Eden" (25)
  • Requiem for Methuselah - "Brahms Waltz" by Ivan Ditmars, from "Requiem for Methuselah" (26)
  • Music for the Dance by Jerome Bixby, from "Requiem for Methuselah" (28)
  • The Peace Day Song by Jerome Bixby, from "Day of the Dove" - includes commentary and description of the original draft of the script (31)
  • Of the Vulcan Lyre by John Meredyth Lucas, from "Elan of Troyius" - includes commentary and description of the original draft of the script: "The following scenes from "Elaan of Troylus" were probably cut to save time, as it was an unusually long script." (33)
  • Etc. (38)
  • Errata (39)

Issue 2

The Star Trek Songbook 2

Issue 3

The Star Trek Songbook 3 was published in 1971 and contains 42 pages (first edition -- summer 1971 and second edition -- fall 1973) or 27 pages (third edition -- summer 1976). The cover portrays Uhura as Aida and is by George Barr. It is reprinted from T-Negative 19. Other art by Connie Faddis, Doug Herring. The back cover of the third edition may be of Vina as a dancing slave girl, reprinted from the back cover of T-Negative #10. The back cover of the first and second edition are movie stills.

sample page from issue #3

Publisher's note on how the editions differ: "The second edition had a good deal of artwork reprinted from T-Negative and here omitted; it added some music form the animation episodes and one letter; this edition moves from mimeograph to photo offset reproduction and adds "Uhuru's Hum" and the complete music and text of "Yr Hufen Melyn'."

This is the Table of Contents to the third edition:

  • Star Trek Intro and Theme, music by Alexander Courage, words to theme by Gene Roddenberry (3)
  • Naked Time - I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen by Thomas Westendorf (4)
  • Alab Wes-Craunish, by James Blish and/or John D. F. Black (7)
  • Conscience of the King - Beyond Antares, words by Gene L. Coon, music by Wilbur Hatch (7)
  • City on the Edge of Forever - Good Night Sweetheart by Ray Noble, Jimmy Campbell and Reg Connelly (8)
  • Of period music, jewel-song, and bird-song by Harlan Ellison (9)
  • Please by Leo Robin and Ralph Rainger (10)
  • Charlie X - Uhura in re: Spock and Charlie Evans (13)
  • Amok Time - Of Vulcan Music by Theodore Sturgeon/a Romance Theme (14)
  • The Squire of Gothos - Of harpsichod music, by Paul Schneider (15)
  • Sonata K 159 in C by Domenico Scarlatti (16)
  • Way to Eden - Stiff Man Putting My Mind in Jail, Hey Out There, Looking for the Good Land (18)
  • Requiem for Methuselah - Pseudo Brahms by Ivan Ditmars (20)
  • Music for the Dance by Jerome Bixby (21)
  • Day of the Dove - Of "The Peace Day Song" by Jerome Bixby (22)
  • Two Variaations on a humor theme //Animation Star Trek Theme by Ray Ellis (23)
  • Plato's Stepchildren - Maiden Wine by Leonard Nimoy (24)
  • Mudd's Passion - a song fragment sung by Scott (24)
  • Elan of Troyius - Of the Vulcan Lyre by John Meredyth Lucas (25)
  • Once Upon a Planet - Urhura's Hum (transcribed by Steve Vander Ark) (26)
  • the Lorelei Signal - Ur Hufen Melyn (traditional words by Eifim Wyn and AP Graves (26)
  • letters: The zine editor sent off a series of letters to Gene L. Coon, Fred Steiner and Gene Roddenberry asking questions about the music and score. These letters were reprinted at the end of the zine (27)

References

  1. ^ This may be found in James Blish's first volume of Star Trek novelizations. Apparently a draft of the script had Spock retiring to his quarters to play his lytherette and sing Vulcan songs rather than break down crying, and they actually had a few lines of the song.