Chris Higgins
“Skullcrusher Mountain” – Sweetest Evil Genius Song Ever
by Chris Higgins - December 4, 2009 - 5:07 PM

Here’s a little Friday silliness for you. Jonathan Coulton sings “Skullcrusher Mountain,” a love song sung from the perspective of an evil genius to his muse/obsessive crush. Representative lyrics:

I made this half-pony/half-monkey monster to please you
But I get the feeling that you don’t like it
What’s with all the screaming?

You like monkeys, you like ponies…
Maybe you don’t like monsters so much.
Maybe I used too many monkeys?
Isn’t it enough to know that I ruined a pony making a gift for you?

Recorded live at the Manchester Academy on 29 October 2008:

Read more about “Skullcrusher Mountain” at JoCopedia. Yes, there’s a whole wiki about the songs of Jonathan Coulton. You can listen to the original studio demo of the song here.

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Comments (16)

  1. I adore Jonathan Coulton-a friend introduced me to his stuff probably a year and a half ago. I had no idea though somebody’d gone and created a wiki. Fantastic!

    posted by kateydidnt on 12-4-2009 at 5:38 pm

  2. It was done MUCH better in Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.

    posted by Seth on 12-4-2009 at 6:22 pm

  3. No it wasn’t, Seth. This is amazing.

    posted by Samuel on 12-4-2009 at 6:37 pm

  4. I agree with Seth, nothing beats the songs of Dr.Horrible and company.

    posted by Bailey on 12-4-2009 at 8:50 pm

  5. My a cappella group, Lager Rhythms, arranged and performed Skullcrusher Mountain earlier this year.

    http://lagerrhythms.com/

    posted by Leisa on 12-4-2009 at 11:42 pm

  6. When Joss and Co. makes Dr. Horrible 2, they should include this song.

    posted by Jeffrey on 12-4-2009 at 11:42 pm

  7. Don’t forget – it’s available for download on Rock Band. Play along at home!

    posted by Lynley on 12-5-2009 at 12:16 am

  8. Big fan of Jonathon Coulton here. “Skullcrusher Mountain” is one of my favorites, along with “The Future Soon,” “Mandelbrodt Set” and the epic “Chiron Beta Prime.” (By the way, I also love Dr. Horrible).

    posted by Harry on 12-5-2009 at 12:35 am

  9. HAHA YES! My husband introduced me to his music. Saw him Thursday in Philly….phenomenal show. Great music.

    posted by Kate on 12-5-2009 at 6:27 pm

  10. What’s the deal with giving the date of the recording as “29 October 2008″?

    Do you live in the United States?

    Also, what’s a Dr. Horrible?

    posted by graham on 12-5-2009 at 11:10 pm

  11. Graham – long story on the date thing. I’ll try to make it short. Working in software for many years, one of the challenges my team tried to solve was finding a date format that anyone around the world could easily figure out; as you likely know, different localities swap the day and month, thus using just the numbers isn’t clear in many cases.

    We settled on “29 October 2008″ as “always obvious” albeit a bit long. We also would do “29 Oct 2008″ if space was needed, but that presented more problems for non-English-language speakers. ANYWAY, because of all this I’ve been using that format personally for a long time. I’m located in the US, west coast, FWIW.

    A Dr. Horrible is something you can Google and enjoy. :)

    posted by Chris Higgins on 12-6-2009 at 2:59 pm

  12. I just don’t get why people like this guy. I had the unfortunate experience of sitting through a performance of his during a live RiffTrax broadcast a few months ago and it made me want to walk out.

    posted by Christina on 12-6-2009 at 6:19 pm

  13. This reminded me instantly of “Still Alive” by GLaDOS, which is ALSO available for download on Rockband! :)

    posted by Steven C. on 12-7-2009 at 8:12 am

  14. I’m so glad there are other people out there who appreciate music like this.

    I actually made my husband a monkey-pony for our anniversary (using a large my little pony and a stuffed monkey) No one else appreciated the idea of the gift. Didn’t matter. My husband TOTALLY got it and LOVES his monster.

    posted by Hope on 12-7-2009 at 11:00 am

  15. ‘Chiron Beta Prime’ is one of my favorite new Xmas songs. I saw Coulton in concert when he was opening for another act. We actually liked his stuff as much as the featured performer. Another great one: ‘Code Monkey’.

    posted by bajakirch on 12-7-2009 at 12:20 pm

  16. Monkey plus pony equals poo-throwing Jockey mount. No wonder the person in the song dislikes monkeypontmonsters-ponymonkeys are bad enough

    posted by Bob smith on 1-23-2012 at 1:37 am

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