JONATHAN COULTON: Thing a Week Three

Jonathan Coulton

Thing a Week Three

© 2006 Jonathan Coulton (634479434273)

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Well-crafted geek pop from the incredible Thing a Week series. Unspoiled, piping hot goodness, fresh from the muse.

notes

Springtime is Coultontime: sweater weather, and robins’ eggs; wine coolers in the park on the patchy, muddy grass struggling back to life, and of course, database software.


You will recall that the last time I spoke of Coulton, he had just begun work at a little software shoppe on 22nd Street called “Cluen.” Though the money was flowing in Silicon Alley, Cluen was an old fashioned affair—no big bonuses or stock options, just hard work and at Christmastime, maybe a Fresca. Coulton worked endless hours at his scriveners desk, quilling out recruiting database software under the eagle-eye of old Mr. Cluen, always watching from beneath the brim of his old stovepipe hat he’d made from the skins of child pickpockets.


Coulton was diligent, a dreamer, a prodigy. Those of you who appreciate the gimcrack love of technology that infects his songs will not be surprised that he always knew how to make the computers go. But I was still working in the Olde Media district, pasting books together as a literary agent. Let’s just say, I didn’t “get it.” I had dial-up. I still wore a tinfoil suit every time I powered up my computer. And I didn’t know that after Coulton slaved away at the visual basic, he’d then go home and make a theremin out of twine and pipe cleaners and use it to write a song about it all.


Code Monkey was discovering a new sound.

It was at an open mic night at a sweaty little whiskey bar called McGoverns that he first made his splash. This was a time when downtown pulsed with the sound of young songwriters looking to become contributing troubadours of national magazines.


Neither of us even owned a foil suit back then, and we’d hang over by the pinball machine listening to the punks take their shot on the little carpeted stage, shooting for the big time with their odes to men’s magazines and 8000 word Harper’s think pieces. I still remember that super skinny dude with the snare drum scat singing a little tune he called “Yahoo Internet Life.”


“Hey, you’re hot on the theremin,” I’d say to Coulton as he’d hit the multiball once again. “You could destroy these guys. A magazine would pay literally thousands of dollars for your songs.”

But he just nodded sadly no. He was singing about smart drugs and artificial wombs and a guy who fears his own robot butler. “I’m writing about science,” he said. “What magazine is ever going to care about that?"

Then he’d go up and sing a ballad about DNA that just brought a tear to every eye, while I’d be doing shooters in the back with the “Yahoo Internet Life” guy. “This dude’s the future!” I yelled to Jonathan as we walked out. Shows you what I know.


But Coulton kept on honing his eccentric, illuminating melodies about cyborgs and feelings. It was at a bar called, appropriately enough, Galapagos where Coulton took the next step, performing a song about the Mandlebrot Set before a gigantic projected image of same to a room full of head-exploded new fans: code monkey evolve. He worked the futurist conference circuit, where a few editors at Popular Science heard his robot-like crooning and invited him to join their masthead on the single condition that he a) relocate to the moon; and b) write one song about jets a day. He agreed.


Flash forward to today. McGovern’s is closed now, as is the internet. Old Mr. Cluen was kidnapped by Christmastime ghosts. And while not all of these songs are about technology (most, including and especially that old McGovern’s standby “Madaleine,” are about money and presidents and Tom Cruise and feelings), Coulton’s guitar was now firmly planted in the lunar soil, claiming this new territory for him alone, and pointing to the stars, and the future.

A future that would include Summertime. But that is another story.

reviews

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  • Coultan is incredible
    author: Andrew

    The CD was fantastic, probably his best album. Coultan is definetly one of the greatest musicians I've ever heard. And the CD arrived in a timely manner with no complications. CD Baby was more personal in the delivery than other stores as well.

  • Great CD, but using this website...
    author: Tim Rourke

    First, let me say the CD was great, and I like the artist. But Immediately after ordering something from this web site, a spam fire hose opened up on my e-mail account. I went from 1-2 spam messages a year to 10-30 PER DAY within minutes of using this web site. Beware...

  • code monkey is great, and the rest is worth a listen too
    author: Adam

    As befits a CD full of songs written in a week, some of them are more gimmicky than timeless. However, "Code Monkey" is a really great song, and several of the others are excellent as well - a song about presidents that is very reminiscent of TMBG, and an upbeat ballad about the perils of being too tall. Coulton is an excellent songwriter and creative with his melodies. Definitely worth buying.

  • Fabulous!
    author: Julie

    This CD is excellent! With topics ranging from celebrity insanity to nonhuman primates, what's not to love? (I hope Code Monkey got the girl.)

  • More awesome Coulton-ney goodness!
    author: Lockjaw, The Podcast Junkie

    Another amazing collection of TAW songs, and probably one of the best. I mean COME ON, how friggin' cool is Code Monkey, fer cryin' out loud! Quit reading this crap and buy the CD already. You know you want to!

  • Unspeakably delightfull
    author: mycotropic

    This CD in particular is a phantazmigorical collection of formidably delightfull wonder. Please buy it and play it and enjoy it and love it and be with it in a bad way.

  • Great Stuff!
    author: Beth Smith

    After getting Thing a Week 1 and 2 for Christmas, I was hooked-I had to get 3 and 4. I LOVE this one - Codemonkey, Til the Money Comes, Famous Blue Raincoat, Pizza Day...Listen to Pizza Day and you are instantly transported back to the middle school cafeteria - whether you wanna go or not. Great stuff!

  • Coderiffic!
    author: Sara Kornegay

    I live with a code monkey and he loved this c.d. The words amen and preach it brother were used when he first heard it played. I suggest you buy it for yourself and all your code monkey friends.

  • CD very witty. Guy lives in same world as me.
    author: Melville Washburn

    This is more about words than about tunes. Words very witty. Guy works in office, lives in USA, watches TV but not too much, thinks about politics, but won't tell you what he thinks. He's a lot like you. Only funnier and a little sad.

  • Say What?
    author: Sally O'Brien

    Oogaboogasuga yes that sounds right for this invigorating cd; loved Madaleine and Pizza Party!

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