Line #77 Music/JonathanCoulton


1	[[quoteright:280:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/6b5966e7_5328_4bcc_b9ca_d22705951933.jpeg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:280:Just like you, only he writes songs.]]
3
4	-> ''"I find it hard to write about myself—or to write from a personal point of view. So the way I get around that is by writing from the perspective of a giant squid."''
5	-->-- '''Jonathan Coulton''', [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyqBrux7BSg&feature=related in an interview]]
6
7	Jonathan Coulton (born December 1, 1970; occasionally shorted to "[=JoCo=]") is a primarily internet-based musician who writes songs on all sorts of stuff, though his more popular songs tend to cater to the nerd or pop-culture crowd. You probably know him best as the writer of ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'''s ending song, "Still Alive". He also gained fame before that for his "Thing-A-Week" series of albums, wherein he challenged himself to write and record one song a week for an entire year, and actually did it.
8
9	Notable for being one of the first musicians to fully embrace the online model of earning money for his songs -- most of his songs are available free on [[http://www.jonathancoulton.com/ his website,]] if you want to dig through his blog, but they're also all for sale through a variety of media. He also uses the Internet to gauge where to perform -- if enough fans petition him, he'll plan a concert for you.
10
11	He often performs with Music/PaulAndStorm, and has done collaborations with Music/MCFrontalot. He has been involved in several Podcast/RiffTrax, including playing some songs before the live ''Film/Plan9FromOuterSpace'' and writing the theme song. He's the resident musician on the Creator/{{NPR}} game show ''Radio/AskMeAnother''. He is also the "Official Contributing Troubadour" of ''Popular Science'' magazine, and sang the opening theme for their podcast. He also has a handful of songs featured in ''VideoGame/RockBand''. As mentioned above, he wrote the credits song for ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'', "Still Alive", as well as [[VideoGame/Portal2 the sequel's]], "Want You Gone". He's also long-time friends with Creator/JohnHodgman, has written songs for Hodgman's book tours (which he often participates in), and has appeared on all three audiobooks for Hodgman's Literature/CompleteWorldKnowledge series. Lately, he's done the [[PreviouslyOn recap songs]] for ''Series/BrainDead2016''. Basically, he's popular, is what we're getting at.
12
13	In other media, Coulton worked with ComicBook writer Greg Pak on a comic miniseries/graphic novel based on the characters from many of his songs, named ''ComicBook/CodeMonkeySaveWorld''. The {{Website/Kickstarter}} project finished with 872% of its goal.
14
15	You can go [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/crowner.php/BestEpisode/JonathanCoulton here]] to vote for his best songs.
16
17	[[folder:Discography]]
18	Studio Albums:
19	* ''Smoking Monkey'' (2003)
20	* ''Where Tradition Meets Tomorrow'' (2004)
21	* ''Our Bodies, Ourselves, Our Cybernetic Arms'' (2005)
22	* ''Thing A Week One'' (2006)
23	* ''Thing A Week Two'' (2006)
24	* ''Thing A Week Three'' (2006)
25	* ''Thing A Week Four'' (2006)
26	* ''Artificial Heart'' (2011)
27	* ''One Christmas At a Time'' (2012; with John Roderick)
28	* ''Solid State'' (2017)
29
30	Live Albums:
31	* ''[[PunctuatedForEmphasis Best. Concert. Ever.]]'' (2009)
32	* ''JoCo Live'' (2014)
33
34	Compilations:
35	* ''[=JoCo=] Looks Back'' (2008)
36	* ''Jonathan Coulton's Greatest Hit (Plus 13 Other Songs)'' (2012)
37
38	Cover Albums:
39	''Some Guys'' (2019)
40	[[/folder]]
41
42	----
43
44	!!Tropes Related to this Musician Include:
45
46	* AccidentallyCorrectWriting[[invoked]]: As he found out in 2007, Music/JoeJackson really ''was'' bitter about being overshadowed by "the great Music/ElvisCostello".
47	* AffablyEvil:
48	** Bob the zombie from "Re: Your Brains", who spends the whole song politely trying to convince Tom to open the door so he can eat his brains.
49	** The scientist who lives in Skullcrusher Mountain is downright friendly to his kidnapped "girlfriend", he just has no idea how to go about it. Scarface is likewise "a sweetheart".
50	* AffectionateParody: His song "Big Dick Farts a Polka" is one for/of his longtime touring partners Music/PaulAndStorm. They returned the favor with "Live", which riffs off Coulton's common "MadScientist In Love" theme.
51	* AndNowYouMustMarryMe: Near the end of "The Future Soon", the narrator fantasizes about capturing Laura and making her "his robot bride."
52	* AntiChristmasSong: "Chiron Beta Prime", framed as a Christmas family letter... after humanity lost a RobotWar and the narrator's family has been banished to an asteroid mining colony named Chiron Beta Prime. At least the robots seem to understand the meaning of Christmas, though it's all simply a cover for their dictatorship's militaristic ways.
53	* AntiLoveSong: A staple. Many of Coulton's songs ("Skullcrusher Mountain", "Code Monkey", "The Future Soon" "Till The Money Comes", "Want You Gone", and others) are essentially love songs with varying levels of [[DysfunctionJunction complete and utter dysfunctionality]]. And then there's "Someone Is Crazy".
54	-->''"The world's against you so you think or maybe wish it was\
55	And at least that way someone would care but baby no one does\
56	Not even you\
57	Baby someone is crazy and it's you."''
58	* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: The eponymous Creepy Doll's crimes against the narrator include sleeping in the narrator's bed, moving around when the narrator isn't looking, and ... requesting food whenever the narrator decides to eat something, and asking if he really needs that much honey in his tea.
59	* ArtisticLicenseHistory:
60	** Played with in "Ikea": The narrator thinks Sweden was founded by [[Myth/NorseMythology Thor]], and that Ikea was one of the first things to be created in the country, along with Vikings and longboats.
61	** "Kenesaw Mountain Landis." Every last word except for "Kenesaw Mountain Landis," "Shoeless Joe Jackson" and "baseball." It probably goes without saying that Landis was not 17 feet tall nor did he have 150 wives...
62	* AudienceParticipationSong: Parts of the chorus for "Re: Your Brains." [[StylisticSuck To be sung as zombies.]]
63	** He loses track halfway through a 2011 performance of 'The Presidents'; leading to the audience singing the rest of the song.
64	* BlatantLies: "Not About You", basically a BreakupSong for the hopelessly-in-denial.
65	* BodyHorror:
66	** "Better" is about a man who breaks up with his heavily cyberneticized girlfriend because of her hideous appearance. The woman is thirteen feet tall with infrared cameras for eyes, gills, wings, and built-in weapons.
67	** The half-pony, half-monkey monster from "Skullcrusher Mountain". The only descriptions we get of it are "I used too many monkeys" and "I ruined a pony", and judging by the fact that the unnamed love interest won't stop screaming, it's probably exactly as horrific as it sounds.
68	* BreakupSong: "Not About You" and "Always the Moon" among several others.
69	* CaptainOblivious: In "Betty and Me", the narrator misses the obvious signs of his wife cheating on him.
70	%%* CelebrityIsOverrated: "Tom Cruise Crazy".
71	* ComicallyMissingThePoint:
72	** The EvilOverlord from "Skullcrusher Mountain" about [[WhatIsThisThingYouCallLove love]].
73	** In "Re: Your Brains", Bob's idea of a "compromise" for Tom not opening the door for him and his zombie horde is "If you open up the door, we'll all come inside and eat your brains."
74	* CouldSayItBut: In "The Presidents":
75	-->"And I don't like to make political statements\
76	[[spoiler:''[[[SubvertedTrope remains silent for the last line of the song]]]'']]"
77	** [[spoiler:This itself was subverted in a performance that took place not long after the 2008 election. He ended up making a politcal statement at the end of the song after all: "But c'mon motherfuckers, Obama won!"]]
78	* TheCoverChangesTheGender: His cover of Alanis Morissette's "You Oughta Know" surprisingly averts this, lending an interesting twist to the song.
79	* TheCoverChangesTheMeaning: His cover of Sir-Mix-A-Lot's "Baby Got Back".
80	* CoverVersion: He's done a lot, from the aforementioned "You Oughta Know" and "Baby Got Back", to [[{{Music/Queen}} "We Will Rock You" and "We Are The Champions"]], and ultimately an entire cover album entitled ''[[ShoutOut Some]] [[Music/TheRollingStonesBand Guys]]'', where he takes on a series of [[TheSeventies 70's AOR classics]] from the likes of Music/TheBeeGees, Music/{{America}}, and Music/{{Eagles}} among others.
81	* CreepyDoll: The doll in "[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Creepy Doll]]" always follows you, has a ruined eye that's always open, and has a pretty mouth to swallow you whole. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking It also makes snide remarks about how you take your tea.]]
82	* {{Crossover}}: In his ending theme for ''VideoGame/LEGODimensions'', [[spoiler:[=GLaDOS=]]] mentions that she's met ComicBook/{{Batman}}, who is "kind of a big deal".
83	* CyberneticsEatYourSoul:
84	** "The Future Soon", although portrayed with [[LyricalDissonance very upbeat guitar and somewhat comical lyrics.]]
85	** "Artificial Heart" has the subject lose the ability to care after getting his [[TitleDrop artificial heart]].
86	* {{Cyborg}}:
87	** "Future Soon" is about a nerdy kid day-dreaming about replacing his body with cybernetics so he won't be "weak and strange" any more. His hypothetical future girlfriend also has bionic eyes.
88	** "Better" is about a man breaking up with his girlfriend who's modified herself into a 13-foot tall abomination.
89	** "Todd the T-1000" has the singer get a "smasher, like the trunk of a tree" and a saw implanted to intimidate his malfunctioning android butler into respecting him
90	* DancingRoyalty: ''Dance Soterios Johnson Dance" is about an NPR newscaster who lives a double life as one of these.
91	* DamselOutOfDistress: The princess in "The Princess Who Saved Herself". She overpowers a ''dragon'' who attacks, then makes friends with him and they end up in a band together.
92	* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment: From "Future Soon": "building inventions in my space lab in space."
93	* DesignerBaby: "Betty and Me" is about a loutish husband who (at least thinks) his son will be one ([[spoiler:it's pretty clear that his wife's cheating on him with the geneticist]]).
94	* DidWeJustHaveTeaWithCthulhu: "The Princess Who Saved Herself" single-handedly defeats a dragon -- and then she offers him tea, and he comes over to visit her weekly, and when the princess forms a band, the dragon plays bass.
95	* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: "The Princess Who Saved Herself" single-handedly defeats a dragon by tying his tail to a tree, tells him off to his face, makes him ''cry'', and gets him to ''apologize''!
96	%%* DoggedNiceGuy: "Soft Rocked By Me".
97	* DontYouLikeIt: The EvilOverlord narrating "Skullcrusher Mountain" is trying so hard to please his captive love interest, but doesn't quite understand that she wouldn't like a half-pony, half-monkey monster.
98	* DrivenToSuicide: The vampire in "Blue Sunny Day" is depressed over not being able to go out in the sunshine anymore (there are also hints that he's pining for a lover who left him). He decides on SuicideBySunlight as a result.
99	* DrowningMySorrows: "Nobody Loves You Like Me" begins with the narrator "drinking for two" at a bar, "drowning the man that [he] used to be." This appears to be in response to a divorce that he really doesn't want to go through with.
100	* EvilOverlord: "Skullcrusher Mountain" sung from the perspective of one in love.
101	* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: From "I Feel Fantastic": "All I know is that the steak tastes better when I take my ''steak-tastes-better'' pill."
102	* FauxAffablyEvil: The scientist in "Skullcrusher Mountain" has his affable facade slip when he reminds the girl that "this mountain is covered with wolves".
103	* FoeRomanceSubtext: "Nemeses".
104	-->''"Could it be that you need me\
105	To keep you out, to run you faster\
106	Promise me you'll let me be\
107	The one, the worst of all your enemies\
108	Pretending you're a friend to me\
109	Say that we'll be nemeses."''
110	%%* GadgeteerGenius: The narrator of "The Future Soon" envisions himself as one.
111	* GoldDigger:
112	** "Millionaire Girlfriend" has an average guy daydreaming about having one.
113	** "Till the Money Comes" is about a guy who hates his wife but decides to hang around until she comes into money so that he can divorce her and take half of it.
114	* GratuitousFrench: ''Je Suis Rick Springfield'' is written entirely in poor French. In his live shows, Coulton insists that it's the ''character's'' bad French, and not his. The bridge, presumably from the viewpoint of the people "Rick" is talking to, [[LampshadeHanging hangs a lampshade]]:
115	-->"Je ne comprends pas cet idiot[[note]]I don't understand this idiot[[/note]]\
116	Quelque chose sur un très bon chien?"[[note]]Something about a very good dog?[[/note]]
117	* GreatestHitsAlbum:
118	** ''[=JoCo=] Looks Back''
119	** ''[[SelfDeprecation Jonathan Coulton's Greatest Hit (Plus 13 Other Songs)]]''
120	* HeelRealization: Bob the zombie in "RE: Your Brains". Not that it changes anything.
121	-->'''Bob''': I'm not a monster, Tom... Well, technically I am... I guess I am!
122	* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, whose guilt in the 1919 Black Sox Scandal is a matter of some debate, gets characterized in "Kenesaw Mountain Landis" as a wife-beating, [[EatsBabies baby-eating]] {{Heel}}, as a foil to Landis (who gets a corresponding HistoricalHeroUpgrade despite his infamous bigotry regarding the racial integration of baseball). Of course, the entire song is PlayedForLaughs, as it also claims Landis was "seventeen feet tall and had a hundred and fifty wives" and conflates Joe Jackson the baseball player with Joe Jackson the pop singer (of "Is She Really Going Out With Him?" fame).
123	* HugeGuyTinyGirl: "Just As Long As Me" -- a folksy song about a Huge Guy who is tired of Tiny Girls and wants a woman of his size for once.
124	* HulkSpeak: "Code Monkey".
125	* IDoNotLikeGreenEggsAndHam: The narrator of "Ikea" is dismissive of the title store at first, but by the third verse he's singing praises about what a great deal it is.
126	* TheIgor: The narrator's assistant Scarface in "Skullcrusher Mountain," who was responsible for [[IHaveYouNowMyPretty kidnapping the person being addressed]].
127	-->''His appearance is [[TheGrotesque quite disturbing]]\
128	But I assure you he's harmless enough\
129	He's a sweetheart, he calls me "[[TheMaster Master]]"\
130	And he has a way of finding pretty things\
131	And bringing them to me''
132	* IHateSong: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zm3TayCgW0Q "I Hate California"]] doesn't exactly hide its point -- though it makes it clear that he's not blaming anyone in particular for the feeling, and the main problem may be that the object of his affection is there when he isn't.
133	* IHaveYouNowMyPretty: "Skullcrusher Mountain" is basically an extended (relatively polite but deeply insane) statement of the trope.
134	* IJustWantToBeNormal: That poor giant squid in "I Crush Everything" wants nothing more than to live a normal life. Too bad he's a ''giant'' squid.
135	* IntercourseWithYou:
136	** Subverted in "First of May", we think....
137	** Played straight in "Soft Rocked by Me".
138	* InTheStyleOf: Changed the iTunes listing of his "Baby Got Back" cover to a sarcastic "...(In The Style Of ''Series/{{Glee}}'')" after they stole his arrangement [[note]]including the [[SoundEffectsBleep censor quack]] ''and'' replacing "Mix-a-Lot" in the lyrics with "Johnny C."[[/note]] without his permission and told him he should be thankful for the publicity. However, he's donating all proceeds from the sale of the song to the It Gets Better Foundation and [=VH1=] Save The Music as a result.
139	%%* IWantMyJetpack: "The Future Soon".
140	* LocationSong: "I Hate California", about his hatred for California.
141	* LoveMartyr: The narrator of "Betty and Me." Betty repeatedly cheats on him and insults him and he's conned out of money by the other man. He still shows devotion to Betty. While he is honestly too stupid to realize that Betty is cheating on him, he just kind of accepts the insults.
142	* LyricalDissonance:
143	** "I Feel Fantastic" is a subversion. The guy with a different pill for every single occasion of his day is perfectly happy being drugged up to the max, even if we, the listener, are aware of how terrible it is.
144	** "Shop Vac" has an aggressively peppy beat, but is about the depressing, empty life of a man who obviously cares nothing about his wife anymore, spending all the time he can away from her, with the titular shop vac on to drown out any calls from her upstairs. Plus, a barely-heard news broadcast implies he snaps and then starts shooting people with a shotgun.
145	** "Blue Sunny Day" has a very upbeat tune, as the vampire character talks about the lovely things you see on a nice sunny day. Except he can't, being a vampire, and is thus really depressed. It gets to the point he decides on {{suicide by sunlight}}, with at least then being able to see a sunny day once more.
146	%%* MachineWorship: "The Future Soon".
147	* MadScientist: "Skullcrusher Mountain" is probably the best known, though "The Future Soon" and other songs contain similar themes.
148	* TheManIsStickingItToTheMan: "Sticking It To Myself".
149	* ManlyTears: "Soft Rocked by Me" has:
150	-->''"Have you ever been in love with a man who's sensitive?\
151	Have you ever spent the night with a man who cries?\
152	Well that's me, I'm sensitive\
153	And I cry, I'm crying right now\
154	In a manly way."''
155	* MixAndMatchCritters: The [[AllGirlsLikePonies half-pony]], half-monkey [[BodyHorror monster]] from "Skullcrusher Mountain".[[note]]Creator/SeananMcGuire made an [[http://seananmcguire.com/gallery.php?image=288 artist's rendition]] of it.[[/note]]
156	* MotorMouth: "I Feel Fantastic," a song about a guy with a pill for every occasion. Literally.
157	* MyFriendsAndZoidberg: His GreatestHits album is an inversion -- ''Jonathan Coulton's Greatest Hit (Plus 13 Other Songs)''.
158	* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: [[TheIgor Scarface]].
159	* NewscasterCameo: Soterios Johnson of [=WNYC=] Radio's [=NPR=] Morning Edition, the subject of ''Dance Soterios Johnson Dance".
160	%%* NoMrBondIExpectYouToDine: The general premise of "Skullcrusher Mountain".
161	* NonIndicativeTitle:
162	** "You Ruined Everything" is ''not'' a BreakupSong; it's actually a very ''happy and loving'' song. The full line is, "You ruined everything in the nicest way."
163	** On the other side of the coin, "Pictures of Cats" is not a cheerful song about cats (or really about cats at all).
164	* NoodleIncident: In "Uncle John": "He brings it up again; the famous apple crisp incident of 2010." This may or may not be connected with subsequent lines where "he loudly criticizes your cousin Jane/Who cries all the time anyway."
165	* NonResidentialResidence: In "Re: Your Brains", it's implied that Tom has barricaded himself inside a mall during the ZombieApocalypse.
166	* OurZombiesAreDifferent: "Re: Your Brains" features a very talkative, charismatic one who tries to talk a man into opening the door so he and the other zombies can eat his brains. You can almost imagine it working, he's that good.
167	* PowersuitMonkey: "Code Monkey" describes a monkey working as a programmer (or maybe just a monkey-like human programmer) who sings in HulkSpeak.
168	%%* PrettyPrincessPowerhouse: "The Princess Who Saved Herself"
169	* PunctuatedForEmphasis: His live album "Best. Concert. Ever."
170	* RedShirt: The official theme song of [[Literature/{{Redshirts}} the novel by John Scalzi]].
171	* RobotMaid: "Todd the T1000" is about a guy who feels threatened by his robot butler.
172	* RobotWar:
173	** "Chiron-Beta Prime" is set in the aftermath of one; with the POV character and his family "Toiling in a mine for our Robot Overlords-Did I say 'Overlords?' I meant 'Protectors!'"
174	** "Todd the T-1000" is a one-man robot war, with the POV character trying to reclaim his life from his evil android butler.
175	** "The Future Soon" has the narrator talk about starting one by creating a warrior robot race. The events of the war are unrevealed except that it led to Laura losing her eyes.
176	* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: "The Princess Who Saved Herself." She does. Twice. And then she forms a band with the dragon and the witch she saved herself from.
177	* RuleOfThree: He wrote the ending themes to both ''Portal'' games, both sung by [=GLaDOS=]. [[spoiler:So of course, he also wrote a song for her appearance in ''VideoGame/LEGODimensions''!]]
178	* SelfDeprecation: His GreatestHits album is titled ''Jonathan Coulton's Greatest Hit (Plus 13 Other Songs)''.
179	* ShapedLikeItself:
180	** "Shop Vac" includes the line "I like that Starbucks here, it's better than the other one/'Cause the other one's not as good." The bland, hollow, circular reasoning fits well with the song's theme of the bland, hollow, circular life the protagonists are leading.
181	** In "Betty and Me", Dr. Martin's method of making a DesignerBaby is described as "legal in the states where it wasn't banned".
182	** In "Kenesaw Mountain Landis", the title character will "always be remembered as Kenesaw Mountain Landis".
183	* ShoutOut: Manages to shout-out to ''himself'' on the ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'' soundtrack -- towards the end of "Still Alive", [=GLaDOS=] sings "'''I feel fantastic''' and I'm still alive..."
184	* SiameseTwinSongs: On "[=JoCo=] Looks Back", "Creepy Doll" does this... and leads into "[[MoodWhiplash Mr. Fancy Pants]]".
185	%%* StalkerWithACrush: Very common theme.
186	* StealthInsult: The chorus to "Betty and Me" becomes this when it becomes clear that Betty is cheating on the narrator, basically saying that the baby won't be as short, stupid, and all-around inferior as the narrator with Dr. Martin fathering it than if the narrator had fathered it himself.
187	* StepfordSuburbia:
188	** "Brookline" portrays the title town in such a manner, from the point of view of one of the people who still has enough self-awareness to notice its unsettling nature.
189	** "Shop Vac" also has shades of this.
190	* StrangeSyntaxSpeaker: Code Monkey
191	* StylisticSuck: The final chorus of "Re: Your Brains" is sung by a chorus of moaning, groaning zombies.
192	* SubvertedRhymeEveryOccasion: Unusually, "First of May" ends its chorus with a line ''more'' obscene than the one the rhyme scheme leads the viewer to expect.
193	* SuicideBySunlight: "Blue Sunny Day" is about a vampire who, despressed due to not seeing the sunshine anymore, deciding he'll die this way.
194	* ThirdPersonPerson: The titular Code Monkey of "Code Monkey" only ever refers to Code Monkey as such.
195	%%* ToiletHumor: "Big Dick Farts a Polka".
196	* UnreliableNarrator: Implied in "Creepy Doll", when the last verse reveals that "the bag of big-city money" is still sitting in the house. Was the narrator actually plagued by a creepy talking doll, or was he just nuts?
197	* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: "Kenesaw Mountain Landis" tells the story of the first Commissioner of Baseball and how he dealt with the Black Sox scandal. It has some relation to the actual events.
198	* YouAreNotAlone: "I'm Your Moon". Even if Pluto was demoted to a dwarf planet, its moon Charon doesn't care, and will always see it as one from its perspective.
199	* ZombieApocalypse: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQYjZc7gKXc "Re: Your Brains"]] is implied to take place during one, with Tom trapped in a mall while a horde of zombies tries to break inside to eat his brains.

Context Music / JonathanCoulton