New Song – My Beige Bear

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My Beige Bear gets angry, sometimes
My Beige Bear says a lot of things he doesn't really mean

Requesting pictures of Beige Bear, please!

Or, as they say on the internets: PICS OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN!

I really like the riff at the beginning, sounds great with the bass too. I wish you had used it more clearly through the song, its there but really covered up. An instrumental bridge or something would be sweet! Still an awesome song.

I came here from reading campaign news. Maybe that's why my brain kept attaching the personae of political figures to the animals in the song. ...It just works on so many levels! :)

Great song. My son loves it too. We'll finally be able to listen to it in the car, Yay!

I wish I could articulate what I like about this song. I think it has something to do with chord progression. I really don't know. I should go back and take more music classes. My music-related vocabulary is lacking to say the least.

Beautiful. I love the background music, you did a really good job.

My girlfriend Katie says that it sounds like old Toad the Wet Sprocket. Cool.

I think this is my favorite JoCo song to date. A large part of that stems from getting to watch the song being recorded on ustream. I can listen to it and remember watching all the pieces come together. Thank you very much.

I'm glad it's finally done. :) I love this one.

Great song. When will we get to see photos of the gang?

Fantastic! I love it ^^

The song is so cool! I wish I had a beige bear.

I enjoyed listening to this song. Loved the nostalgic angle. I was the kinda girl who slept with dozens upon dozens of stuffed animals back in the day. So it really took me back to childhood.

Beautiful.
I love the background music..
Good works, thanks.

I have two daughters and

well you nailed playroom politics very well.

I love the song. Keep making new stuff and I will keep listening. :)

I concur with Bishma. Watching JC lay down the individual tracks was entertainment (and edification) worth paying for in and of itself. You just can't get that kind of thing elsewhere with someone of JC's caliber.

"... I’m generally forced to make stuffed animals talk to each other for several hours each day."

Dude, just wait for the tea parties. I want video.

I've *got* to learn this song! My brain keeps singing it and doesn't seem to care that it's getting most of the words wrong. "♪♫ My beige bear isn't covered with mold... My beige bear doesn't do as it's told...♫♪"

It's extremely catchy.

Another awesome JoCo opus in the can, yay!

Having also listened to almost all of the UStream, I really feel like I appreciate the layers on this song more than usual... maybe because I know what to look for, having seen them all laid down as you went.
I really like the main guitar riff, it makes a great hook, and that bass line just keeps going underneath, and it really works for me.

Oddly enough, even after hearing it so many times, I still really like the song, and do not find it boring at all.... though I totally understand why you maybe got there towards the end.

But taking a careful listen to this "new" track, I guess I felt it was maybe over-mixed, almost muddy at points. It seemed to come from the parts you added in that last session, especially the synth - which sounded cool as you were playing around with it, but just seems lost and rumbly underneath everything else in the final mix. I also really thrown by the added guitar on the bridge (which I must have missed when you put it in)... it's a great riff on it's own, and very JoCo, but it doesn't feel to me like it fits with the rest of the song. Maybe that will change with further listens, I don't know.

Even with those elements, though, I think this song rocks - and I haven't even said anything about the incredible lyrics. Some songwriters show great insight with social commentary, but JoCo, you do it with stories about squid and mad scientists and bears... and it is just amazing how you can dig deep with stuff that might *seem* to be so fluffy. "Some monkeys misbehave because they're sad" is now one of my favorite JoCo lines - joining a list that seems to have a lot of monkeys in it. (I promise not to start calling you "Monkey Man" - unless you like the idea, of course...)

Thank you for letting us into your creative world, Jonathan, and for sharing your gifts with us once again!

This reminded me of The Velveteen Rabbit. Also that time in your mind when your a child. When your toys live a secret life as you walk out of the room. LOVE IT.

JoCo, I think this song is great. While my favorite is You Could be Her, my son will really love this.

Keep up the good work, and come to Louisville, KY, dammit!

What NateMan said.

This is why I listened to the song with a big grin on my face and a tear or three. Thanks, Jonathan.

Reminds me of classic Odds. I don't know why. (They're a Canadian band).

A song about stuffed animals? LOVE IT. I feel all warm and fuzzy.

It's exactly the same with game development. You take a bunch of weird, made-up stuff and make it all talk. It's fun, but weird....

30 helens agree, beige bear is stuffed with only the best ingredients. i'm digging that wacky progression.

people think it's the robots, but it's the beige bear that really holds the power.

I think this turned out great for a song that you felt bogged down by! Makes me wish I still had my beige bear, but the dog won't allow it (unless I want beige bear guts everywhere...but that's a WHOLE different song). :)

I do concur, pics of the beige bear would be nifty!

We'll also need pictures of Indigo Monkey and Tan Horse

It appears that there was a color change and a redaction in the lyrics on the info page.

Was it a Teal cat or a Puce cat? Was it a mauve dog, or the color mauve itself that got the bet just right? Is it possible that somebody used too many monkeys?

I like this song. Indigo Monkey like you.

This song is great. Comfortably sentimental.

The lyrics on the info page says:
Mauve gets the bed just right
Instead of:
Mauve dog gets the bed just right

My three-year-old has a frog named "Frog" that is usually the cause of a lot of problems. But he is one hell of a high-fiver.

I don't think it's possible to have too may monkeys. Maybe I'm just insufficiently fond of ponies, though.

Rumor has it that you were on VH1 recently. Was ist das??

Another request for a pic of beige bear....as the parent of a daughter with lots of stuffed animals.....they all have names and the names are far easier to remember as beige bear, indigo monkey that bob , fran or ted

Finally it is all clear to me.

This song could have been written about my brown bear. She's 22 years old with matted fur and a nose who's cover has long since deteriorated, but she will always be my favorite cuddle buddy!

And thank you, JoCo. It's about time the well-loved stuffed animals get the recognition they deserve!

Sweet! That was some nifty production. And arrangement. And singing. And playing. And probably lyric writing, but I was too busy listening to the first four to notice on the first listen.

I recognize the opening riff from Bowie's "Andy Warhol" :D

Re photos: I know this is going to cause a lot of gnashing and wailing, but these animals are all made up. I actually had to rack my brain to come up with enough single syllable animals and slightly unusual colors to fill up all the verses. In our case, it's actually a beige bunny (who was probably once pink - they all turn beige eventually if you love them enough).

@Molly: yes, 100 greatest songs of the 90's or something like that. I have no idea what I said, but I tried to sound snarky and funny like they do on those shows. Felt kind of weird actually.

"...these animals are all made up."

I suppose as long as the *spirit* of Beige Bear lives in all of our hearts then...

Aww! Who am I kidding??? I don't know WHAT to believe! Nothing makes SENSE anymore! :)

My wife just had me jump on to consider telling you that "Stroller Town" is about to break 100 plays on her daycare iTunes playlist, and here is an all-new piece of wonder.

Was great seeing you come out to the Twin Cities!

Well, great. I guess it's going to be another six years of therapy, then.

I love this song. LOVE IT! And I really like the riff at the beginning too.

I have a beige bear right here. :) A friend needed me to go to IKEA to get duplicate bears for his daughter in case something happened to her favorite toy. And, well, it was so cute I got myself one.

I didn't watch most of the UStream, a little bit, but not enough to get a sense of the song. I think I like it better when you don't know what the new song will sound like til it's all done and unveiled. :)

Great song!

Hey, didn't I see you on VH1's music-documentary on the 90s yesterday?

In which part of the show was he? The video of the entire show is on the VH1 website at http://www.vh1.com/shows/dyn/the_greatest/127759/episode.jhtml

The beige bear is a lie... the fluff leads nowhere... ??

I've got a beige bunny sitting next to me right now, also originally pink. He's probably the only stuffed animal that's followed me (all the rest are in storage somewhere crammed into black plastic bags -- sigh).

He doesn't look so much "wise" but "cheerfully concussed," though.

I have a blue bear. His name is Peabody and he's ... um ... 37 just like me. He's not quite as blue as he was back in the day, but I know he still loves me.

Great song JoCo! As a child my bed was (and, despite being a university student now) fairly full with teddy bears and other plush toys. Like in your song, I have the closest connection to my veteran teddy bear (equal age, not so equal height anymore), who was the perfect thing to hug and cuddle up to whenever I felt sad and lonely.

I don't think I had a mischievous indigo monkey in my collection though, and my bear's a bit more brown than beige.

I didn't do it because i'd rather pay to support you - but it seems I can click on the title of the song in this post, and "save as" download the mp3.

Are you okay with fans just downloading the songs as they come out? Obviously you would probably prefer for them to buy them and support you, but it seems you are pretty relaxed about the whole thing.

Thanks Sean, but I am aware of that. People should pay if they want to, but the $$$ shouldn't stop it from being heard. All the TAW stuff is still free in the iTunes podcast area, and people still buy it...

I actually felt pretty dumb after I posted that, because I then read the "start here," and noticed how much stuff you give out for free. I think it does help your cause, as you said.

I think you do great work, and i'm really happy for you that you could quit your day job to do something you really love. I want your entire catalouge now, but i'll have to get it bit by bit because i'm on a budget.
I hope I didn't come off as a weirdo, I'm just big on supporting the artists.

This has suddenly become my favourite song from this site. From anywhere.

The subject matter is something definitely dear and significant to me. And as is often the case, J seems to have totally nailed 'something' which makes for a touching personal experience rather than just a load of words.

Musically, I agree with everyone who thinks the intro is fantastic. But I'm surprised no one has mentions the chorus; I can't remember the last time I was so compelled to sing along to *any* song on the way into work in the morning. :)

Keep up the fantastic work, JC.

I think the opening riff from Bowie’s Andy Warhol song. Good stuff. If you're in the UK, you may quality for gift aid, by the way. Government give a little each time someone donates money.

Your Beige Bear is an amazing song, loved by my granddaughter, Sehana and her mommy and I for years. I can now afford to buy it and am looking forward to more of the same, so she can learn to listen, appreciate and one day write and sing songs of her own that are positive, upbeat and WONDERFUL to listen to. Thank you Mr. Coulton!