Jonathon Coulton, the lunatic genius behind Portal’s Still Alive song has a word with DIGITAL GIGOLO. How do you end one of the most unique games of 2007? Well, in Portal’s case with a song; a pitch black ditty as sinister as it’s funny. Sung by GLaDOS, Portal’s ominous, disembodied, antagonist, the hard part for developers Valve was finding someone that shares an affinity with psychotic robo-women to write the lyrics. And that’s where singer-songwriter Jonathan Coulton comes into the equation. DIGITAL GIGOLO cornered crazy-headed JC and asked him to spill the beans about his time on Portal.
Why do you think you were you chosen to write the lyrics for Still Alive?
The connection started with Kim Swift, the lead designer of Portal who also happened to be a fan. She came to a show in Seattle and introduced herself, and later I went to Valve's offices to talk about how we could work together. Once I had played the nearly finished version of Portal they had available and talked to Eric Wolpaw (the lead writer), it became pretty clear that we wanted to give GLaDOS a song. Eric presented it as a sort of musical theatre number in the game, which sounded excellent to me. I think it was one of those happy accidents where we all discovered we were working on the same kinds of characters - I generally write about misunderstood monsters anyway, so it wasn't that much of a stretch for me to channel GLaDOS.
One videogame journalist described Still Alive as ‘balls tighteningly fantastic’. Did you have any idea that your song would have such a profound effect on people’s genitalia?
Yes, well there are some frequencies that have that effect and I put them in the song. I put them in all my songs actually. For ball tightening purposes.
The very last line of the song terrifies me – Ellen Mclain (the voice of GLaDOS) really nailed it. Was it your intention for the piece to have such a sinister feel?
Sinister AND sad. GLaDOS is written brilliantly - she wants to kill you, and certainly by the end of the game she's pretty angry at you, but throughout she remains a tragic figure. She's obviously lost and alone, and she's terrible at expressing herself, so transparently passive-aggressive that you have to pity her. And yes, Ellen is great. When we went into the studio to record her vocals I was surprised to hear how much of the character was her. There's a little processing on it obviously, but all of that range of emotion comes straight from her. And that line still gives me chills.
You’ve got an awful lot of kudos in the gaming community. Do you play a lot of videogames when you’re not writing songs about misunderstood monsters?
Not as much as I used to before I had kids and life at home got really busy, but I try to cram a few hours of gaming a week in there when I can. That was a nice side-effect of my Portal participation; it sort of reawakened my interest in gaming. It also gave me permission to spend a lot of money on a new console and a stack of games - deductible!
You once wrote a song called ‘Big Dick Fart a Polka’. Explain yourself young man.
Yeah, I didn't want to do it. That was part of a song contest I was in called Song Fu, and in the final round the two remaining "master” competitors had to write songs in the style of each other. My competitors at that point were my good friends and fellow funny song smiths Paul and Storm. I chose to draw from their tendency to do stuff that's a little lowbrow - and very funny, don't get me wrong - and it seemed natural to do a song that was really just a big fart joke. I may have gone a little far. In fact, I decided on the ending before I even knew what the song was about, so in many ways I didn't have much of a choice. Of course their version of my song writing style was spot on - they wrote about a sensitive Dr. Frankenstein kind of character who is in love and sad. Sad monsters - always with the sad monsters.
I wrote a song once too but I couldn’t think of a good way to end it. Or start it. It’s about a lonely trampoline that no one wants to bounce on. Could you give me a hand with it?
Can you make the trampoline a sad monster instead?
I bet you like Frank Zappa? Am I right?
I know that I should like Frank Zappa, and I certainly appreciate his aesthetic, but I never really got into him. I think he's too loud maybe. I've always been more of a sucker for the softer, sweeter stuff. When I was a kid a lot of my friends were into Van Halen and Led Zeppelin, but I just found them noisy and silly. I just liked listening to Billy Joel and Steeley Dan and Dan Fogelberg.
Are you involved with Portal 2 in any way?
Not sure yet, but I hope so - the Valve folks are incredibly creative and talented, and I feel very fortunate to have hooked up with them for Portal.
And finally, when I’m dead will you still be alive?
That depends how old you are, what your cholesterol levels are, and whether or not you scuba dive.
Jonathon Coulton is releasing his first live concert DVD - BEST. CONCERT. EVER. - on February 10th 2009. It features 20 of his most popular songs including a heap of extras.
LYRICS:
This was a triumph
I’m making a note here: huge success
It’s hard to overstate my satisfaction
Aperture Science
We do what we must because we can
For the good of all of us
Except the ones who are dead
But there’s no sense crying over every mistake
You just keep on trying till you run out of cake
And the science gets done and you make a neat gun
For the people who are still alive
I’m not even angry
I’m being so sincere right now
Even though you broke my heart and killed me
And tore me to pieces
And threw every piece into a fire
As they burned it hurt because
I was so happy for you
Now these points of data make a beautiful line
And we’re out of beta, we’re releasing on time
So I’m glad I got burned, think of all the things we learned
For the people who are still alive
Go ahead and leave me
I think I’d prefer to stay inside
Maybe you’ll find someone else to help you
Maybe Black Mesa
That was a joke, ha ha, fat chance
Anyway this cake is great
It’s so delicious and moist
Look at me still talking when there’s science to do
When I look out there it makes me glad I’m not you
I’ve experiments to run, there is research to be done
On the people who are still alive
And believe me I am still alive
I’m doing science and I’m still alive
I feel fantastic and I’m still alive
And while you’re dying I’ll be still alive
And when you’re dead I will be still alive
Still alive
Still alive
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