Reply To: A Talk with JoCo, part 3 (Thing a Week)
It strikes me that I didn’t give anything answer-wise for the trivia questions mentioned in the commentary.
Bry: All right, we’re here with Jonathan Coulton, gentleman-songster and internet superstar…. (laughter) (Trivia: What about my introduction was humorous to Jonathan?…)
Answer: The “gentleman-songster” part, a Kipling-derived appellation to be found in The Whiffenpoof Song, which concludes:
We are poor little lambs
Who have lost our way.
Baa! Baa! Baa!We are little black sheep
Who have gone astray.
Baa! Baa! Baa!Gentlemen songsters off on a spree
Damned from here to eternity
God have mercy on such as we.
Baa! Baa! Baa!
On the previous page, I said, “…let me know where I’ve been unfair, wherever that may be — oh, wait, that’s Tom Lehrer.” Lehrer, of course, mocks the Whiffenpoof Song [and its reference to “the tables down at Mory’s”, the notorious Yalie place of ill repute 😉 ] in his song “Bright College Days”, which includes the line, “To the tables down at Mory’s, wherever that may be.”
(JoCo, of course, was a Whiffenpoof while at Yale, notably soloing on “Midnight Train to Georgia.” You knew that, but I wanted the excuse to link to awryone’s recording again.)
Bry: So how do you think you became the troubadour for the internet generation, or the guru of the geeks, or whatever? (Trivia 2: Which of these descriptors is original, and who originated the other one?…)
Answer: Jinx came up with the “Guru of the Geeks” part; the “troubadour for the Internet generation” moniker comes from Jesse Thorn of The Sound of Young America, in his 2006 interview with JoCo. (In JoCo’s latest blog post, he mentions that he will be recording with Jesse Thorn again this weekend.)