New Song – Blue Sunny Day
March 16th, 2009
Unbelievably, there is a new song. As I’ve mentioned the couple of times I played this live, I tried very hard to NOT make this about a sad vampire, but of course it is. It started out with the idea that I should just, for once, write a song that was kind of bouncy and happy. Though once I had decided to use the phrase “blue sunny day,” it was hard not to notice that the word “blue” can have another meaning. From there it’s only a quick jump to vampire suicide. I don’t know what happened to him exactly, perhaps he suffers from seasonal affective disorder? Or maybe he’s just sick of working nights.
I’ve had this chord progression and melody running around in my brain for a long time, so it’s nice to get it out. This was one of those songs where the arrangement started to build itself in my head before I had really finished writing, I could hear all those vocals from the very beginning. I’m stealing from all sorts of places of course, there’s more than a little Tally Hall influence, some Queen in there, maybe a little Jeff Lynne, and the bridge makes me think of XTC so much that I fear I may discover it’s a direct lift of something and I just haven’t realized yet (in which case, sorry Andy!).
Other cool things: Dave has already posted a video guitar lesson for this song here, as well as put the chords into the wiki.
As always, you have a choice: stream it, download it free, or buy it.
By the way, I have messed up the store link to the flac version somehow – sorry to everyone who’s trying to buy it, I will fix it as soon as I can, and then offer you some kind of lavish compensation for your trouble. UPDATE: Fixed. Let me know if you bought and ran out of downloads. This is very embarrassing.
Someone’s been hanging out with the dream king again.
Just want to be dorky and say hi from sweden and congratulate on yet another lovely song.. ( another one for my JoCo playlist ^^ ) Thanks
Really love it! The arrangement is very ear-catching. I can’t remember you ever using piano before, is it you playing?
Fantastic JoCo! Great new song, come to Atlanta!
A fantastically upbeat song Mr. Coulton. Keep up the good work!
The Jeff Lynne influence is obvious. First thing I thought of when I heard the verse melody and rhythm was “Mr. Blue Sky.” Maybe that was intentional, given the title of the song?
FUTURE JOCO SONG SUBJECT ALERT: bat (perhaps a vampire bat?) clings to shuttle fuel tank, rides out the launch:
http://www.livescience.com/space/090317-sts119-bat-shuttle.html
“The tank is very big,
a cold enormous rig…”
Love the new song!! Let’s see… zombies, robots, vampires… all we’re missing now are the werewolves, I think.
Keep up the amazing work!!
I hear this song and at first it sounds great for my baby-friendly playlist, but the more I listen to it, time and time again, the more I’m sure it’s not quite right.
And yeah, that small bat sounds like a Space Doggity 2 if there ever was one.
Love Blue Sunny Day!
Just curious…how do the early numbers for downloads/purchases compare to pre-twitter song releases? I hope lots and lots of people buy the song.
Very nice. Looking forward to hearing this live next time you’re in SF!
Blue Sunny Day, noun: see ‘awesome’
Also see ‘catchy’, ‘jaunty’, and ‘happy but not’
Another awesome song by one of my favorite internet artists…
Thanks for the new track JoCo!
It sounds like “Revenge of Out of the Blue” and I am lovin it!”
Fell in love with this song when you trotted it out in Chicago. Absolutely beautiful – you take what could have been a silly novelty song, and instead you walk a fine line between genuinely funny and genuinely touching. Pure Coulton. Thanks.
I don’t think I know another artist who can give a glimpse into the life and emotions of his characters in approximately three minutes like you can. And when I say characters I mean strange, unexplainable characters from zombies, to vampires, to giant squid, to test tube embryo. You have a way of personifying through song that is unmatched. Keep it up!
Love it! Your upbeat songs always get into my head and I have to listen to them a hundred times
I really, really like this song! It has it all: Catchy melody, interesting harmonic progression, and the wonderful disjunction between the musical “messsage” and the lyrical content. I’m just finishing up Palahniuk’s “Rant.” This tune seems to mesh with the Palahniuk vibe. Great job!
Love the new songs. This and Space Doggity are my new favorites. Keep it up.
I just found this two days ago and have been showing it to all my Couton-loving friends. The vampire is such an interesting character and the melody is so jaunty, everyone I’ve played it for has liked it.
I also hear a bit of ELO’s “Mr. Blue Sky” in this…. No surprise, given the title.
I really really love the song.
I just wish that it said “I’m wishing she WERE you” instead of “she WAS you”. It’s always jarring to me to hear the irregular conjugation of “to be” for past subjunctive neglected. I understand using “was” is colloquial to some but for me it always just sounds wrong.
This song ought to be either the theme song to a sitcom (shortened, of course), or the background music to a montage from a Farrelly Brothers or Judd Apatow movie. Way to knock one out of the park.
Mark: as an English major, I totally agree with you… but unfortunately the subjunctive seems to be disappearing from actual usage, the way “whom” is. Most people will probably not even hear anything wrong with it.
OK, I feel I should also make some non-smartass comments, so here they are:
I _really_ like the instrumentation. I know the drums aren’t recorded in the home studio, but they sound stellar; the vocal performance is fantastic, the choruses too, and the guitars sound _amazing_. Basically, you’ve just plain gotten REALLY good at this solo production thing. You’re raising the bar for what can be done in a basic home studio and inspiring your fans like me who also play and record music to keep on doing it!
I played it for my wife and she thought it was fantastic as well. She completely heard the Queen and ELO, although I don’t think she knows who XTC were (sadly enough) so could not pick up on that influence.
Well done!
So, I’m figuring out the piano chords right now and might post a video later teaching them. Has anyone already done this?
Completely fell in love with the song, Jonathan.
Absolutely fantastic. You, my good man, have earned yourself another dollar.
I like it — poppy, happy, but a little overproduced for my taste. JoCo, you are best when your ability to spin spare, creative tunes combines with your subtle, witty, cunning lyrics.
Though, yeah, it totally makes me think of the Dracula musical in Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
Were you perhaps humming Button Moon to yourself as you composed this one? It keeps reminding me of the theme…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu0o6u1VmGE
Another great song though!
Great song! The birds at the end remind me of Blackbird.
I’m hearing abit of Sweet Caroline in the way the strumming and general flow of the beat happens. Awesomazing tune
What can I say that hasn’t already been said, except I couldn’t buy it. I live in New Zealand and not having a credit card, the only way I could pay for it would be wiring it through, which incurs a $25 bank fee. Makes me wonder how come all the banks are going broke when they charge that much for typing a few numbers. Maybe you could write a song about a bank teller who has to defend his bank’s outrageous practices. No wait… Obama’s just doing that.
I don’t know about the bridge, but I know where the chord progression in the verse came from:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdxkVQy7QLM
This is going to sound absurd, but it’s been a long time since somebody wrote a song that I felt must have been about me.
For reasons that made sense at the time, I moved from California to Spain, and got a job working graveyard shift for Nokia-Siemens.
I really connected with the Beach Boys vibe, and now I really, really wish I could go to Denny’s.
“Sterner stuff”? Is that an echo from Python’s “Spanish Inquisition”?
So… when ARE you going to write a song that’s purely bouncy and happy?
Not complaining.
I purchased.
Looking forward to a karaoke version being posted. Love the song, excellent work, blah, blah, blah…
OMG. It’s genius. The bridge gives me chills of Partridgean wonder. The emo vampire’s lament. Have you read this?
Please, please, PLEASE put it on MySpace so I can add it to my profile playlist? Pretty please? They don’t make you pay for the privilege, do they?
*LOVES*
*Hate* MS but on the rare occasions that I go there, like to show good taste on me profile.
At the end, with the birds and other nature-sounds, I can faintly hear what sounds like a school bell. Is it?
P.S, this song is GREAT
P.P.S, The Aftermath needs album artwork.
MAYHAPS THE JOCO IN A BUSINESS SUIT
Amazing JoCo. Really enjoyed that, and the quality bar just keeps rising! Loved the birds at the end too.
Well done. I love the incongruity of the lyrics and music. I can’t stop playing the song.
Heard this on Jawbone. Does the chorus remind anyone else of Del Amitri’s “Roll To Me”.
That was a lovely thing. It contained every bit of that magic as the TAW’s. Just lovely. Makes me want to write a vampire movie just so that I could use it at the end and pay you $1 million for the rights. I totally see Anne Hathaway and Zac Efron as the leads! I’d call it “The Neck Romancer,” directed by Ron Howard and John Hughes. It would be huge, baby!
Is there some way to release your “Aftermath” tracks for Pandora and iTunes Genius? I need to know what they’ll say about this song–the influences and “sounds likes” listed here don’t capture what I want to replicate. Awesome stuff.
I was totally entertained… that’s the point, right ? Thanks.
Even my wife, who is fed up with ‘focking vampire’ (quoting a bartender in ‘Tex Arcana’) stuff, liked this.
‘My blood goes cold’ is one of the best jokes I’ve heard for awhile.
This is one of the jerkier things an appreciator of well-written songs can say to a writer of them who repeatedly shows that he knows what he’s about, but here it is, anyway: Whenever I find myself singing this, I find myself substituting ‘she’s so sweet’ for ‘she’s sincere’, which latter I don’t get (and which former is a cheap joke that might diminish the double-meaning joke I like a few lines later)…do you mind? What if I end up busking it, as does not seem impossible these days?
Does anyone know where I could get the backing MP3 for this (karaoke version)?
Hello Jonathon, i would like to thanky for all the amazing music you make, the songs are very well made and brighten up my day from time to time, in fact a few of your songs have inspired a few of my drawings and photoshop designs. So when i get the chance i will happily purchase one of your albums. Hope to hear from you soon.
-Evan AKA Nemesis Art