Space Doggity

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Space Doggity
ReleaseThe Aftermath
Length3:26
Release date2008-07-25
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{{#song:Space+Doggity }}


"Space Doggity" is Jonathan Coulton's entry to the Final Challenge of the song writing competition Masters of Song Fu. It is included on Coulton's collection of unreleased tracks, The Aftermath.

History[edit]

The Final Challenge read:

THE REIMAGINING (aka THE RECKONING): For this final duel between Master and Challenger, we're going to combine a little bit of all the previous challenges. For this ultimate show of skill, adaptability, and personality, you will be given a preexisting song. Your task is to completely reimagine that song with your own lyrics and music - while retaining the same basic story and at least some sonic "cue" or "quote" from the original tune (a short phrase or series of chord changes; the key word here is "brief"). THIS IS NOT A COVER - you are crafting something more akin to an homage, but with your own creative voice. Here is the song you’ll be reimagining:

DAVID BOWIE: "SPACE ODDITY"

You will be judged on how closely your reimagining hits the basic "story points" - spaceman goes up, spaceman talks with control, spaceman goes for a walk, spaceman disappears - but beyond that, anything goes.

The song must be at least 1min 45sec, and must be an original creation.

Jonathan had this to say when announcing the song on his blog:

Yes you're right, I almost went with the first monkey in space, but I didn't want to be accused of going overboard with the monkeys. So I went with the first dog in space instead.



Her name was Laika and she went up in Sputnik 2. In doing my "research" I discovered that Russian scientists recently released the truth about what happened to her during the launch, which is that she died just a few hours into it, and not after a week as they originally claimed. She died from stress and overheating (the cooling system malfunctioned and it was 104F in there) but mostly she died from being LAUNCHED INTO SPACE IN A FUCKING ROCKET.

Live Performance[edit]

"Space Doggity" made its concert premiere at the Boston, MA: 2008-11-21 show, and was played again the following evening at the Nyack, NY: 2008-11-22 show. It has since remained a semi-regular presence on the concert setlist.

Trivia[edit]

  • In his blog entry, Jonathan indicates that he uses another musical thematic reference after the guitar solo. Several people guessed that it was Paul McCartney's "Venus and Mars", but it was later confirmed by an email with Jonathan that it is Pink Floyd's "Dogs".[1]
  • Jonathan is not the only artist to record a song about Laika: Canadian folk rock group Moxy Früvous released "Laika" on their first studio album, 1993's Bargainville.

Availability[edit]

The MP3 is free to download from the Quick Stop Entertainment site and is also available for purchase at the store.

Themes[edit]

Citations[edit]

Masters of Song Fu
1. Monkey Shines - 2. Big Dick Farts a Polka - 3. Space Doggity - 4. Always the Moon
The Aftermath
1. Octopus - 2. Re: Vos Cerveaux - 3. My Beige Bear - 4. Lady Aberlin's Muumuu - 5. Washy Ad Jeffy - 6. Monkey Shines - 7. Big Dick Farts a Polka - 8. Space Doggity - 9. Always the Moon - 10. Blue Sunny Day