Re: Your Brains

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Re: Your Brains
ReleaseThing a Week Two
Length4:33
Release date03-24-2006
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"Re: Your Brains" is a song on Jonathan Coulton's fifth album, Thing a Week Two. It is one of Jonathan's most recognizable and best known songs, a concert staple and an identifier of his place in the geek rock genre.

History

"Re: Your Brains" was released as the twenty sixth Thing a Week on March 24th, 2006. It quickly became one of Jonathan's most recognizable songs, becoming the first song to receive a WoW video by Spiff.

Other versions

  • There is also a French version of "Re: Your Brains", available on The Aftermath, called "Re Vos Cerveaux".
  • 100 robots have played a rock/jungle version of "Re: Your Brains" at BarCamp Brighton 4 and The Dance of the Dead Zombie Prom in London
  • During Desert Bus for Hope 2009, Jonathan Coulton was interviewed over the phone. Later that night, someone paid for Graham to sing Re: Your Brains in a Billy Mays voice. This was later put to the karaoke version of the song, and was dubbed 'Re: Billy May's Brains.' The MP3 can be found here.

Live performance

"Re: Your Brains" is one of Jonathan's most regularly played songs; it is believed that Jonathan has performed it in nearly every concert since its release. In live performances, the song is almost always played as the closing song of the main portion of the show. It is always introduced as needing audience participation, at which point Jonathan explains to the audience that he needs them to perform the zombie portion of the chorus. First-time JoCo fans and unfamiliar audiences will usually sing the test chorus with proper tone, rhythm, and diction, after which Jonathan will correct them, instructing them to instead sound properly like singing undead: tone-deaf, arrhythmic, and unintelligible.

Trivia

  • There was a large controversy between JoCo fans over whether a colon appears in the title of the song or not. This was caused by the absence of a colon both in the JoCo store and on the Thing a Week 2 CD case. However, upon consulting with JoCo it has been established that the title is supposed to contain a colon.
  • Spiff's WoW video for "Re: Your Brains" has been viewed over 3,000,000 times and is often credited by fans as their introduction to Jonathan Coulton.
  • In Spiff's video, the woman trapped in the house does the Macarena during the guitar solo.
  • In the webcomic ErfWorld, Book 1 Page 14 features the main character, Parson, listening to "Re: Your Brains" in his car on his way to work.
  • The song is one of several available on a working jukebox in "The Parish", "Swamp Fever" and "The Passing" campaigns of Left 4 Dead 2. If the survivors stay by the jukebox, an infected horde will appear when the first chorus starts. Also available, although rare, is Still Alive.
  • The song is used as the opening theme for a short audio drama by Mur Lafferty, titled The Takover, described as The Office meets Shaun of the Dead. Jonathan makes a cameo appearance in the last episode.
  • Dragon*ConTV produced a live action video for the song which premiered at Dragon*Con 2007. The video is available on YouTube

Availability

Downloads

"Re: Your Brains" is currently only available for purchase in the Jonathan Coulton MP3 Store as an individual track or as part of Thing a Week II. Of course this song is also included as part of the "Everything" playlist.

Downloadable FLAC versions of the above are available in the Jonathan Coulton FLAC Store.

CD

"Thing a Week II" is available for purchase as a CD here.

Games

"RE: Your Brains" is one of the jukebox tracks in Left 4 Dead 2, and a horde automatically attacks at the beginning of the first chorus.

"RE: Your Brains" is also now available as downloadable content for Rock Band and Rock Band 2 as a part of "The PAX 2009 Collection" track pack (for 240 MS Points) and as an individual song (for 80 MS points).

Other versions

A karaoke version of "Re: Your Brains" is available on the Jonathan Coulton Karaoke Store.

Themes

Audio


Thing-a-Week Two
1. Flickr · 2. Resolutions · 3. You Could Be Her · 4. I Will · 5. Dance, Soterios Johnson, Dance · 6. So Far So Good · 7. Curl · 8. Chiron Beta Prime · 9. Take Care of Me · 10. A Talk with George · 11. Don't Talk to Strangers · 12. Stroller Town · 13. Re: Your Brains
JoCo Looks Back
1. Code Monkey · 2. Ikea · 3. I Feel Fantastic · 4. Mandelbrot Set · 5. Tom Cruise Crazy · 6. Shop Vac · 7. Chiron Beta Prime · 8. I'm Your Moon · 9. My Monkey · 10. Skullcrusher Mountain · 11. I Crush Everything · 12. When You Go · 13. A Talk with George · 14. You Ruined Everything · 15. Creepy Doll · 16. Mr. Fancy Pants · 17. Baby Got Back · 18. First of May · 19. Re: Your Brains · 20. The Future Soon
Best. Concert. Ever.
1. The Future Soon · 2. Ikea · 3. Shop Vac · 4. I'm Your Moon · 5. Baby Got Back · 6. Kenesaw Mountain Landis · 7. Chiron Beta Prime · 8. Tom Cruise Crazy · 9. Code Monkey · 10. Creepy Doll · 11. Still Alive · 12. Mr. Fancy Pants · 13. I Crush Everything · 14. Skullcrusher Mountain · 15. Mandelbrot Set · 16. You Ruined Everything · 17. Re: Your Brains · 18. A Talk with George · 19. I Feel Fantastic · 20. First of May