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Monday, April 21, 2014

Musical Monday - Code Monkey by Jonathan Coulton


A somewhat autobiographical tale, this look into the travails of the life of a computer programmer is probably Jonathan Coulton's signature song. The lyrics tell the story of the titular character as he goes to work, deals with a demanding and obnoxious boss, pines for the beautiful receptionist, and daydreams about how much better his life will be someday. The song was originally musically very upbeat, which contrasted with the somewhat depressed and wistful lyrics, but Coulton held a remix contest for the song which was won by Kristen Shirts, who plays ukulele in this video. In her version, the song is slowed down and the sadness and ennui that had previously been hidden in the song was brought to the fore in a brilliant manner.

The somewhat ironic thing about this song (at least from my perspective) is that the life that Coulton left behind to pursue his music career is the life that my son desperately wants to get to. More specifically, he wants to write computer games, which I think is the aspiration for vast numbers of high school aged boys. Right now he has a goal, almost no skills, and a lot of work ahead of him. I'm rooting for him and hope he makes it.

Previous Musical Monday: I'm Yours by Jason Mraz

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