#365songs (186 / 365)

I like songwriters who surprise me, and Jonathan Coulton surprised me twice with Artificial Heart. I thought of him as a respectable songwriter but one who mostly did kinda gimmicky nerd-rock and/or joke songs: I mean, "Re: Your Brains?" "Skullcrusher Mountain?" "Code Monkey?" Come on. But Artificial Heart actually didn't entirely occupy the pigeonhole I'd put Coulton in. Sure, it had its share of mostly-goofy songs like "Nemeses" and "Je Suis Rick Springfield" and the songs from the end credits of the Portal games, but then it also had songs like "Now I Am an Arsonist," featuring, excuse me, Suzanne Vega??? That Suzanne Vega??

I actually think I may have purchased Artificial Heart unheard when I saw that particular feature, so unexpected and enticing was it. The song is a bit slight but it's one that I could learn and play myself without much difficulty, and it does have the lyrical ambiguity and emotional — I don't know if depth is the right word, but interest, at least — that surprised me about the album as a whole. And Suzanne Vega's voice sounds exactly the same as it did 25 years prior. It was very weird and cool to hear her harmonizing nicely alongside this guy I'd pegged as a trick pony. Not "one-trick," to be fair. "Re: Your Brains" and "Still Alive" are definitely two tricks. But a pony nonetheless. "Now I Am an Arsonist," however, is a full-grown-horse song.