Octopus

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Octopus
ReleaseThe Aftermath
Length2:56
Release date06-07-2007
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"Octopus" is a song on Jonathan Coulton's collection of unreleased tracks, The Aftermath.


History

"Octopus" was released on June 7th, 2007, the first song for which Jonathan streamed his recording sessions live over the Internet to inaugurate the JoCo in a Bubble project (archive: [1] [2]. [3] [4] [5] [6]). (He has since repeated this process with other songs from The Aftermath; see My Beige Bear and Lady Aberlin's Muumuu.)

According to Jonathan, this song was inspired by a YouTube video his daughter liked to watch, showing an octopus attacking and devouring a shark:

If you are a sea creature that an octopus wants to eat, God help you, because it's definitely going to eat you, and it's going to hurt a lot. So for a while I went around singing "Octopus, some kind of octopus," in my head and thinking about an octopus just tearing things to pieces, mostly crabs. Naturally, this became a nice metaphor for a breakup song (as long as I avoided using the word "sucker").

Live performance

"Octopus" was first played live on August 31st, 2008 in Alexandria, VA. It has subsequently been played only once, on March 6th, 2009 in Ann Arbor, MI.

Trivia

  • Len drew and painted a piece of art while the song was being recorded live via Ustream. A finished music video of the song, depicting the art being drawn in time-lapse, was released an hour after the song hit the net. This is the first time that a fan video and piece of art has appeared so soon after the song was released.
  • Jonathan noted that the YouTube version of the video is a "a blatant violation of copyright," but there is an official version from the National Geographic Web site.

Availability

Downloads

"Octopus" is currently only available for purchase in the Jonathan Coulton MP3 Store as an individual track.

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

CD

The Aftermath is not yet available on CD.

Themes

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