Song Fu Final Challenge

Laika as Dave Bowman. I like it!

What I like most about JoCo is that though his songs are nerdy and clever, there's heart behind them. I never feel like he's singing the words for the sake of being clever... there's an honesty about them that make me proud to be a fan.

Thanks for another beautiful song. Good luck in the contest.

Awesome stuff.

I laughed out loud at the "I don't think I want to be a good dog anymore" line.

It's a sad story, though.

I'm really torn. They are both very, very good! It's like, which is better, fudge or brownies? THEY ARE BOTH DELICIOUS!

When I was in college, I took a class called Russia Then And Now, which involved a three week trip to Russia to do research for our term projects. Mine was on the Russian space program, and what had become of it. I visited this awesome museum in Moscow.

http://www.russianmuseums.info/M329

I'm not sure that page's image can properly convey the awesomeness of the building. It is truly majestic, and the sides have carved images of space scientists and cosmonauts. And inside, it was adorably retro, sort of like

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monument_to_the_Conquerors_of_Space

They had what appeared to be the taxidermied bodies of a couple of the space dogs. Laika burned up in re-entry, but I know they had one labelled Byelka. I am not sure if it was the actual dog, stuffed, or if it was a facsimile. I tried to ask the docent in my very, VERY poor Russian, and managed to communicate the question, I think, but was completely unable to comprehend her answer, seeing as how it had nothing to do with the location of a train station or whether Svetlana enjoys films. Alas. An opportunity squandered.

Oops, I didn't finish my sentence about what the interior of the museum is like. That's because it's indescribable, I guess. It's like the Bad News Bears of space museums, how's that? And like they set it up long, long ago and haven't changed anything since. It is completely awesome.

Laika played guitar?

Another fantastic song. Thanks!

Not to sound like yet another sycophantic fangirl, but that's one beautiful song, Dr. Coulton. Quite poignant. It makes my heart swell to bursting and my eyes a little misty. And a lovely, effective arrangement. I especially like the chorus.

By any chance, have you read Ray Bradbury's story "Kaleidoscope?" One of my favorites, and it has a somewhat similar theme.

Another great song, Jonathan! You fought the Fu every time. Maybe someday you'll meet Bowie and you'll have a nice chuckle about it.

Me? I'm still waiting for the full-length version of Monkey Shines. It's the catchiest thing you've ever written, and a show I'd definitely watch.

Great job, once again!

Wahh, I'm crying here, your song is so beautiful and sad. I have to keep telling myself the dog from the song arrived on some planet where it became a contributing member of society.

I'm sure you don't know this Jonathan, but today is my birthday. Other than the annual handmade card from my son, "Space Doggity" is easily the coolest gift I could receive today. :)

Excellent, excellent job. Even in expressing a sad story in a space setting (which is always my favorite scenario of yours), you still manage to get a couple laughs out of me: "Thanks for the dog food" and "Bawoiwoiwoing", indeed.

You, sir, have the Fu.

Hearing about the Soviet space program always reminds me of Omon Ra, a satirical novel on the subject by Victor Pelevin.

Jesus Christ Jonathan, you knew this was an unfair fight to begin with, and then you go and put THAT together? Jeff's song is fine and all, but "Space Doggity" is easily measured with your best work.

Now to get Bowie to cover it...

While I download, did you know that Moxy Fruvous has a song called "Laika" on their first album, Bargainville? The band is sadly no longer, but I heartily encourage you to check them out. They have a cappella in their souls.

http://www.fruvous.com/

Damn you. Crying again! Bastard.

Was it supposed to make me cry? Because it made me cry. Of course, so did "Big Dick Farts a Polka".

Well played, sir. I love the electric guitar at the bridge.

Well, that's just not right. All I have to do is think about Laika too long and I start crying (A little hypersensitive to doggy trauma? I THINK SO, YES.), so you have a seriously unfair advantage in this contest.

I couldn't help it, I had to vote for you, JoCo. I tried to be as just as possible, listened to both songs every time, made sure to keep in mind the quality of the song over my personal fandom. And your song is just better. I feel bad for Jeff, I almost gave him a pity vote, but I couldn't do it.

To echo Sarah, I came here to post:
"When I was 3, my mother said to me
Eat up your greens and say your grave
While on TV they put a dog in space
And left here there... you should've seen her face"

I have not yet listened to the song challenge songs, but Moxy Fruvous FTW
(Moxy Fruvous led me to listening to DaVinci's Notebook, which started me on Paul & Storm. I found JoCo through slashdot. And now you know the rest of the story).

Made me snivel also. That line, "Can they hear me bark from here," man. That got me.

any guesses on what other song he's referencing in the guitar solo?

There don't seem to be FLAC versions of the Song Fu songs in the store. Is this correct, or is there something hinky with the shop page?

Jonathan Coulton + dog = a good day.

Jonathan Coulton + giving Laika a happy ending = a perfect day.

Okay, a melancholy ambiguous ending...but still: a perfect day.

Mike:

To bring it even fuller circle...at our Toronto show, Dave Matheson was in the audience.

The band's playin' "Hail to the Chief",

P&S.

Both songs are good. Jeff MacDougal’s was a great extension of Bowie's original. JoCo's was a great tangent from the original. JoCo is the Ultimate Zen Master of POV poetry. You really feel for his "characters" - even the most obscure or mundane. I like his interpretation of Laika's story. It's like "I'm Your Moon" and "My Beige Bear" simmered together in a Bowie sauce with just the right dash of funny. (BAM!)

P&S: Hey I didn't see Dave Matheson there at the Toronto show - I would have said hello to him again. I last saw him when he opened for The Frantics a short while back; he did a great job, so I bought his CD.

vagabondmonk: "Laika played guitar?" No, -Ziggy- played guitar.

JoCo: Just a wonderful piece of work, man. Really well done. And VERY nice Pink Floyd reference on the guitar solo - who wouldn't get that? Just beautiful :)

It's nice to hear another Laika song. I'd say I'm an old-school Fruhead, but we're all old school these days. And yes, they led me to DaVinci's Notebook which led me to JoCo, and I feel like we're all repeating ourselves now.

Thanks for the new music, but I gotta tell ya, I am killing myself trying to figure out what the "other" song you reference is. If you'd be so kind as to share, I could get some work done at the office today.

FLAC versions will come soon, didn't get to it before I had to leave town for a while. Sorry about that...

No worries on the FLAC delay. I just want to give you more money :)

Great song, as usual. The production on this song is astonishing. Pink Floyd's Dogs reference fits perfect. Great great job!

Yet another song that brings me to tears. Geez, man. You have the Fu by a landslide.

It's beautiful... I like it more than the other two songs about Laika that I know of (I'm a new-school frühead, only discovered them a year or so ago through last.fm. The other song is in Spanish and I only have my friends' word for it that it's about Laika.) The only weird thing is the way it cuts off so abruptly at the ending. I kind of expect the 'here' to be drawn out longer, or something. Was that done deliberately, to emphasise the sudden lack of dog?

Man, I almost cried at the end of that song. And songs don't make me cry. That was an amazingly well-written song, down to the last note. :D Keep up the good work!

Moxy Fruvous (I didn't put the accent characters in) did a song called Laika on their bargainville album back in, oh, the early 90s I think.

"When I was 3, my mother said to me
Eat up your greens and say your grace
While on TV they put a dog in space
And left her there... you shoulda seen her face"

is how it starts.

I'm adding this to my growing collection of laika songs. now at 2!

Our mother shoulda just named ya Laika...
It's for your own good... It's for the neighborhood.

(When Daddy comes home you always start a fight
So the neighbors can dance to the police disco lights)

(Which is my way of saying that you oughta add Neighborhood # 2 (Laika) by the Arcade Fire to your collection, manstraw =)

3!

Thanks for the Floyd, Dog.

vagabondmonk's comment spawned this "oddity" inside my cranium:

"Laika played guitar, jamming good with Weird and Gilly, and The Spiders From Mars..."

"but mostly she died from being LAUNCHED INTO SPACE IN A FUCKING ROCKET" hahahahahahahahahaha

Yeah JoCo, tell us how your really feel !
Lovely song, btw!

I laughed, I cried, I dropped my vote in your ballot box, no hanging chad here.

**Claps hands**

I know everyone has already said what a beautiful song this is, and how it made them misty-eyed. Normally I don't contribute to what's already been said a thousand times, and I'm not the type to gush on forums, even if it's deserved.

However, here goes: this song made me watery. I've cried maybe twice in the past 7 years, and both of those occasions involved deaths, so that's pretty amazing. Thank you.

It was transcendental, it was good therapy, and as a musician, both redefined and reinforced what music can do.

SPROCKET
of Code Monkey Buy You Soda (WoW Guild - Rexxar)

Hey Cambiata,
Don't feel bad for Jeff. He doesn't need pity votes. Knowing him, he'd rather you kick him in the balls than vote for him out of "pity." If everyone liked the same music, there wouldn't be a contest to begin with.

Well, thanks to those above who confirmed the Floyd . Dogs solo reference. I was sure that was what it was :-)

Fantastic song, JoCo. Easily in the top bracket of your output to date...

I couldn't listen to the whole thing 'cause I kept thinking about that poor dog. It's mortifying to realize I'm this much of a sap ... so why am I announcing it to a website full of strangers?

Congrats on winning the first Song Fu competition! You deserve the crown, or trophy, or whatever cache of prizes that they're gonna give you! Are they gonna bring you back for the second competition (QSE's wrangling the new batch of contestants, starting on the 5th)? I have faith that you can hang on to the title twice in a row (three thimes, at least!).

Once again, great job, JoCo!

My wife makes fun of me because the graphic novel Laika by Nick Abadzis made me cry. I think I better not finish listening to this song.....

This reminds me of a strip from the late, great webcomic Whispered Apologies:

http://www.qwantz.com/apologies/000091.html

Thanks for the song, it's beautiful.

Thanx for that. I've always been a big Laika fan, so much so that that's going to be the name of my first spaceship.

Fantasmagorical tune, sir. Although, I have to admit I kept waiting for ELO's strings to come sweeping in and reclaim this song for their "Out Of the Blue" LP.

This song makes me cry every time I listen to it. Thank you.

--Dave

Jonathan,
thank you for a truly poignant song; it's a damn' good thing I dropped this into a playlist just ahead of Mandelbrot Set, or I would have completely. Lost. My. Sh*t.

Got it back together enough to recall another story of Laika - Storming the Cosmos, by Bruce Sterling and Rudy Rucker(?) - and wonder if they've heard your work yet.

Congratulations on the Song Fu victory!

- CJH / esper

We need to create a newer, higher category of brilliant so this song can have a place to call home.

Cheers,
Clay

Maybe it's the fact that I lost my own dog in May, or maybe it's the fact that animals being used in this way always upsets me (even if a greater good comes of it -- although it's arguable whether Neil Armstrong's second career in after-dinner talks is really a greater good!)... but damn, is thing song ever heartbreaking. A fine piece of work but, like I Am Legend, probably one that I can never play again for fear of losing my manly facade.

Good work, Jonathan. Very good work.

It's very late to be adding this - and if you blog like I do you'll never read this - but the next time fortune takes you to Los Angeles you must go to Culver City and visit the Museum of Jurassic Technology.

(I mean, assuming that you haven't, which is kind of a stretch now that I think about it. But if you haven't, GOOD LORD WILL YOU THINK IT'S AWESOME. Seriously. In fact, you're in SF tonight. Get on a plane. You can see it tomorrow. It's one of the best things in the entire world. Also, if Hodgman has never told you about this you should kill him over and over again until he apologizes. He certainly knows about it.)

Specifically, you need to go up to the second floor and see what Mr. Wilson built with his MacArthur Fellowship. Yes, it's Laika-related, but don't let anyone spoil it for you.

It's been a long time since a song has moved me in the way this one has. And I know emotion is the language of music, and a lot of it's purpose, so I decided to acctually take the time to let you know how deeply his song effected me.

It's been almost a year since I lost a little dog named Chip, and for some reason this song makes that part of my heart that misses him just ache. He was never a "Good dog" in the traditional sense. His loss was tragic, and broke my heart completely. The chorus "Now I'm floating free, And the moon’s with me, And it's bright enough, To light the dark" taps so deeply into that loss...

I just wanted to thank you for the song, and all the effort that went into it. It's lovely, and heartbreaking, and cathartic in a strange way. Thank you.

Damn it... I don't even like dogs, but I always respected Laika and this song makes me cry a little every time I hear it.

this is the saddest song I have ever heard every time it makes me cry why did they do this to that poor dog it never hurt anyone :'(

Love the music. Poor Laika.

Thank you Jonathan! Wonderfully touching song. I hope to see you perform it again this year in SF.

I introduced my 8-year-old daughter to this song on Christmas morning and she's been crying, singing, and talking about Laika non-stop ever since.