Here's an FYI - You're All Gonna Die Screaming

September 11, 2006 7:02 PM

Re Your Brainsis the music video to a great song (a memo between two businessmen, detailing the fact that one of them is now a zombie and intends to eat the other one's brains) by the much mefi'd Jonathan Coulton; apparently inspired by his "Flickr: the Video", fans are making DIY videos for several of his songs over at the JoCoPro (Jonathan Coulton Project). Two of my favorite non-zombie related ones are The Presidents, a mnemonic for memorizing every U.S. President in order & at least one fact about each, and Code Monkey, detailing the warm secret heart of a Frito loving coder.
posted by jonson (17 comments total)

I'm definately hearing shades of They Might Be Giants in Re Your Brains - and that's a good thing.
posted by luftmensch at 7:14 PM on September 11, 2006

YAY!
posted by tristeza at 7:17 PM on September 11, 2006

Three chords one note
posted by longsleeves at 7:20 PM on September 11, 2006

[this is good]

Coulton's songs are a little bit on the "too nerdy" side - I really wanted to like Code Monkey, but honestly found it a little too stalker-y. But "Re Your Brains" is awesome.
posted by teferi at 7:41 PM on September 11, 2006

I first heard this song used to wonderful effect in How To Succeed In Evil, and I thought I was going to die from trying not to laugh out loud.
posted by tomble at 7:50 PM on September 11, 2006

A Talk With George qualifies as the best song ever written about George Plimpton--bar none.

Oh, and W's Duty is juvenile, but hilarious.
posted by EarBucket at 7:51 PM on September 11, 2006

This is wonderful. "Shawn of the Dead" taken to its logical, perverse, musical conclusion. Thanks, jonson!

The video is a little repetitive, tho - and for some reason the zombie-tearing-out-the-neck-of-a-screaming-black-woman shot gets to me ("but not the flying eyeball?" you say? I know, I know). I'd love to see a remix.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 8:20 PM on September 11, 2006

I think on Jeopardy, the answer (in the form of a question of course) to "Mandelbrot Set" would be "What would you get if you crossed They Might Be Giants with Tom Lehrer?" Or is that redundant?
posted by hwestiii at 8:34 PM on September 11, 2006

I really like "The Presidents," especially little zingers like "Taft was big and fat and had a mustache" and "Hoover screwed the pooch in the Great Depression." I agree that Re: Your Brains would be better if it didn't repeat the video in the choruses (the song itself could stand to lose a verse too, maybe, but I still like it). Nice find!
posted by whir at 8:46 PM on September 11, 2006

There's a few more versions floating around on YouTube. I like this one.
posted by maudlin at 9:04 PM on September 11, 2006

Jonathan Coulton also co-hosts the Little Gray Book Lectures with John Hodgman, from which you can download some podcasty highlights here.
posted by joshuaconner at 9:21 PM on September 11, 2006

Romero's zombies would eat any part of you. It's funny how the Return of the Living Dead's obsession with brains got so popular.
posted by Astro Zombie at 9:56 PM on September 11, 2006

When I first heard Re Your Brains, a fully-formed video for it developed in my mind, and although I've seen a half-dozen fan-made videos in the past, not one of them comes close to capturing the song.

Time to break out the lights, cameras and latex wounds, I guess.
posted by chudmonkey at 9:05 AM on September 12, 2006

Maybe not quite as grown up as the original President link but I like them...Yacko Schmacko and Dot from the Animaniacs present:
the presidents and The Nations of the World except Wales as well as the planets
and All the words in the english language
Might be a good thing Pinky and the Brain arent around to consult for GW...or maybe thats where he got his inspiration....hmmm
posted by meeshell at 12:06 PM on September 12, 2006

I agree that Re: Your Brains would be better if it didn't repeat the video in the choruses (the song itself could stand to lose a verse too, maybe, but I still like it).

I agree that it could lose a verse, but it's the bridge that really makes it. "I'm not a monster . . . well technically I am." His songs aren't complicated, it's true, but they are so darn catchy! And thanks for the George Plimpton link -- that's actually a really great song about how to live.
posted by The Bellman at 12:25 PM on September 12, 2006

That code monkey video is terrible. Lip-synching should be banned from these things.
posted by Space Coyote at 4:01 PM on September 12, 2006

Uh mah gah - there's a Coulton coloring book!!
posted by tristeza at 9:00 PM on September 14, 2006