The Pegasus Awards

	Andrew Ross IF

Pegasus Awards
Award	Year	Category
	2020	Best Writer/Composer

Pegasus Nominations
Year	Category	Song	Sample
2019	Best Writer/Composer
2017	Best Writer/Composer
2013	Best Writer/Composer
2011	Most Badass Song	Crispy Danish

Andrew Ross (also known as "Miles Vorkosigan" on Facebook, "Admiral Wordsmith" in general fandom, and "Juniper Coeur de Lapin" in the SCA) is a person of several identities who was dragged to a filksing in 1997 by an over-enthusiastic friend, and found the first members of his adopted family in fandom. Today, his songs tend to focus on various media plots, political rants, and true stories from legal situations too crazy to make up.  He occasionally performs with a geek band called Possible Side Effects.

In the mundane world, Andrew is an attorney and proud father of three in Eugene, Oregon.  Outside the Pacific Northwest, his songs are most accessible via back issues of Xenofilkia and under the "Song-O-Matic" (52 songs in 52 weeks) caption on Facebook filk pages.

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Representative Work for the 2020 Pegasus Awards

Shelter (mp3)

Lyrics Copyright © by Andrew Ross, All rights reserved
Used by permission
(Tune: "Grandfather, by Gary Hanak)
(Recording by Tracy Grammer- you can find more of her work at TracyGrammer.com)

I was born and raised in Israel, till the day I had to leave
To my Grandpa's house, in Dearborn, USA
My father had been murdered by a bomb in Tel Aviv
I vowed I'd get revenge on them someday

My Grandpa built his house himself in 1961
With hidden nooks and great big paneled walls
But I saw hidden danger, or an Arab with a gun
When playing in the lonely, darkened halls

They said, to fight the terrorists required Martial Law
And a curfew was in place from dusk till day
Then one night, I was shocked and hurt, when I woke up and saw
Who grandpa had invited in to stay

Hey Stranger, with your foreign clothes, how dare you come in here
Your presence puts us all in jeopardy
You've always been our enemies, you're everything I fear
You people--they're not anything like me

One boy, two girls, a mother with a hijab on her head
America had banned their kind last year
Rewards for anyone who turned them in, alive or dead
My grandfather had welcomed them in here

To have a Muslim in your house could land you in a cage
The Bannonites could kill you on a whim
I saw them shaking. I shook too, though not from fear, but rage
As I yelled at my grandpa, "Are you dim?"

"Those people's people killed your son! My father! Don't forget
"Their practices are not the American Way
"How can you show them mercy? With one phone call we could get
"The Bannonites to take them all away"

Hey Strangers, with your foreign clothes, how dare you come in here
Your presence puts us all in jeopardy
You've always been our enemies, you're everything I fear
Your people can't be anything like me

They all stopped short and looked at me. Their faces scared and sad
And Grandpa knelt and hugged. His face was drawn
"I know you've always had it in for terrorists, my lad
"It's time you learned which side you're really on."

"You know I built this house myself in 1961
"With hidden nooks, and great big paneled walls
"I built secret rooms behind them, for I thought these days might come.
"That's where they'll stay until the morning calls."

"Their luggage leaves tomorrow, and the man who comes to carry it
"He makes his home in Detroit, but his ancestors were led
"To Michigan from Tennessee, by the woman they called Harriet
"If she hadn't, they'd be dead.
Now he pays her deed ahead"

"Think hard on it, my boy, before you do that stranger harm
"For there is one more thing you have to see
"Long time ago, when I fled Germany, these numbers on my arm
"And made it to Algeria
"The kindness of a family
"Whose hospitality was life to me
"The child who needed sheltering, that day...that was me."

(instrumental)

Now I run the railroad underground myself, since Grandpa died
With help from friends in Detroit and Ann Arbor
But still, sometimes, I fight myself to hush that voice inside
That says, with each new family I harbor...

Hey Strangers, with your foreign clothes, how dare you come in here
Your presence puts us all in jeopardy
You've always been our enemies, you're everything I fear
Your people can't be anything like me...

..So why is it you look so much like me?

 

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