| They Might Be Giants – The Bells Are Ringing Lyrics | 23 years ago |
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A brilliant bit of sci-fi in the tradition of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". The drones try to explain to the last few hold-outs that their way (mindless, hypnotic conformity) is best, but it matters little whether they are convinced, because the bells will take over in the end. "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" was really about the Red Scare (communism or McCarthy-ism... take your pick), but "The Bells Are Ringing" seems like it could be about pop music, and the conformity found among fans of any given genre. Britney Spears is compelling you to drink Pepsi. They Might Be Giants are turning you into a cynical, campy, indie-rock geek. The very song warning you of this phenomenon could also be part of it. Spooky. |
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| They Might Be Giants – Till My Head Falls Off Lyrics | 23 years ago |
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It's not a song about suicide. It's a song about old age and forgetfulness. Verse one, he's lost track of how many Advil he's taken since the bottle was new, and wonders who could have taken the missing pills, as he compulsively counts them again and again. Verse two, he nervously rehearses a speech in front of the bathroom mirror, but can't find it in his pockets, and briefly forgets that he's just standing in the bathroom practicing. The "lecturn" he's gripping is the sink in front of his bathroom mirror. (The "audience" is his reflection, the description of which is what is really going on. Hence: Clearing my throat and gripping the lecturn I smile and face my audience clearing its throat and smiling with his hands on the bathroom sink. Kind of reminds you of the word pallendromes from "I Palendrome I", doesn't it?) The references to not recognizing himself and seeing the "broken figure" will become all to familiar to you as you get older. We tend to hold a memory of what we look like, and that's what we see most of the time when looking in the mirror, except for occational moments of clarity when we suddenly see a new face where our young image once was. Trust me on this if you have not experienced it. The comment about his head falling off, and how it "may not be a long way off" is a play on the old saying about absent-minded people who keep misplacing their glasses and stuff: "He would lose his head if it wasn't attached." It has nothing to do with self-decapitation. |
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| They Might Be Giants – Why Does the Sun Shine? (The Sun Is a Mass of Incandescent Gas) Lyrics | 23 years ago |
| Lately, John's been taking a minimalist path with that lyric in their shows, insisting that the heat and light of the sun come from the nuclear reaction between estrogen, estrogen, estrogen, and more estrogen. | |
| They Might Be Giants – Twisting Lyrics | 23 years ago |
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Yep. Ultra-bitter break-up song. She set your goldfish free (as in dumped out your aquarium). Blew out your pilot light, and made a wish (obviously wishing you die from either gas poisoning or an explosion). What they mean by "Marshall stacks" (it should be plural): The "stacks of Marshalls" has become a common rock and roll icon. Marshall guitar amps are probably the most popular brand out there for electric guitarists who play into big PA systems. The typical Marshall rig is about 4 feet high, and designed to be stacked on top of each other, so by stacking them two high and having several stacks, you create a "wall of amplifiers" effect at the back of the stage, towering over the performers. It's become so perfuctory for hard rock and heavy metal acts to have stacks of Marshall guitar amps at the back of their stage that sometimes bands in the 80's and 90's would have them there even though they weren't plugged in! It was all part of the image, just like the smoke machines. |
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| They Might Be Giants – She's An Angel Lyrics | 23 years ago |
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A big favorite of mine. They always seem to do it in their concerts, but they change the arrangement almost every tour. On their live album, they use a tuba for the bass line. The song lyric is just reflecting on what it would be like to fall in love with a literal angel, rather than a merely metaphorical one like in most love songs. The "space program" bit is a cute pun, and the idea of zipping around in little shriner cars actually sounds like a pretty fun date. |
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| They Might Be Giants – S-e-x-x-y Lyrics | 23 years ago |
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The song is about sex. At first glance, you think of the adjective "sexy" with an extra x in the middle... but no, it's "sex" with and extra "x", and then an extra "y" at the end. (Perhaps as a reference to the XY chromosome... more likely just because "it's extra, baby!") This is another song where they are not taking themselves too seriously. There's a talking part at the beginning, because a lot of great songs about sex start with talking (Barry White would be lost without that device). By having him just say "this is the way the talking part goes", he's basically saying "it doesn't matter what I say here... I'm just supposed to talk." As for the "she want's to be your man" line, the mind boggles. That's just downright kinky. |
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| They Might Be Giants – Mink Car Lyrics | 23 years ago |
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This song is an obvious spoof of the Burt Bacharach's musical style... and they nailed it, right down to the flugel-horn solo. The very idea of a car covered in mink fur fits very nicely into the excesses of the era. Of course, it wouldn't be TMBG without the song really being a depressing song about death and abandonment hidden by a sugary-sweet melody. :) "And her smile's an open sign on an abandoned store" is one of my favorite lyrics ever. What a beautiful and yet painful metaphor. |
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| They Might Be Giants – Man, It's So Loud in Here Lyrics | 23 years ago |
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I guess you could grope for greater meanings, but it's pretty obvious that it's a song about how hard it is to intimately communicate, or even think clearly, in a noisy and crowded dance club. The riffs the song is built on appear to be very thinly-veiled rip-offs of "Funkytown" and "Bizzarre Love Triangle", and the Johns have gone so far as admitting to it (without naming the songs in question) on their web site in the past. |
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| They Might Be Giants – Hey, Mr. DJ, I Thought You Said We Had a Deal Lyrics | 23 years ago |
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It's a song about payola. The DJ was bribed for airplay, then skipped town with the money. The last verse contains references to three songs from TMBG's first two albums: "The World's Address", "The Rabid Child", and "Chess Piece Face". |
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| They Might Be Giants – Exquisite Dead Guy Lyrics | 23 years ago |
| Actually, the lyric comes from a word game called "the exquisite corpse." People take turns writing one word of a sentence, without knowing what word came before, resulting in really weird and surreal turns of phrase. I know of nobody who actually sits around in their living rooms playing parlor games like this, but a lot of writers like to imagine that there are people who do. | |
| They Might Be Giants – Dr Worm Lyrics | 23 years ago |
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doortodoor hit the nail right on the head. It's a song about a guy who plays the drums in his basement and dreams of becoming famous. The "I'm not a real doctor" line comes from a line of ads in the 70's. There was a TV actor who starred in some soap opera as a doctor who was hired to plug medicine. The commercial featured him sitting in a doctor's office with a white lab-coat on... however, there were scandals back in the early days of TV advertising because having a non-doctor in a white lab-coat pushing your product was seen by many as a form of deceptive fraud. Therefore, he opened the ad with the unintentionally hillarious line "I'm not a real doctor, but I play one on TV." |
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| They Might Be Giants – Don't Let's Start Lyrics | 23 years ago |
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The phrase "don't let's start" basically is a fatigued expression asking that you and I not once again start up the same argument. The guy is telling the girl "let's not get into this, because it will start a huge fight". The "D world destruction" bridge is a play on the old 50's and 60's bit of spelling out words in love songs (like "L is for the way you look at me" in "L-O-V-E" by Nat King Cole). One of my favorite things about TMBG is how they recycle bits of pop culture and turn them to their own twisted designs. Deputy Dog was a cartoon character (from Hannah Barbara, if memory serves me right). I'm pretty sure they are just using it as a nonesense scat because it's fun to say really fast. |
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| They Might Be Giants – Dirt Bike Lyrics | 23 years ago |
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To me, it seems like a reference to trends, fads, and the cult-like following that some music acts (including TMBG) sometimes generate. The dirt bike is clearly a band, but one that people almost worship. This was probably my favorite song of the John Henry album. The guitar solo alone makes it worth listening to, and the horn parts are awesome. By the way the "sophmore jinx" is an old rule of thumb in the record industry that most bands' second major-label release tends to suck and/or sell poorly. (This is usually because debts piled up from producing and promoting a band's break-out album often leads to being pressured into rushing a second album out to the stores, and quality suffers for it.) Most rock bands need to have a successful third album (get over their "sophomore jinx") to be considered a long-term success. |
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| They Might Be Giants – Certain People I Could Name Lyrics | 23 years ago |
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Actually, I found it to be an amusing song about somebody who is easilly distracted. It's basically the experience of watching shows with a person who never follows the plot and talks a lot. In the first verse, the singer is watching a violent Japanese war film with us (perhaps in a theater... "moving across the screen" is something which is much more noticable on a wide screen than on a TV, where "pan & scan" cropping ruins those sorts of shots"). Amid the hideous gore, we are elbowed in the ribs because one of the warriors kind of reminds the singer of somebody. Verse two, 15 minutes into a news broadcast, just as the international news stories are starting (CNN's tag-line used to be "give us 30 minutes, we'll give you the world), the singer again gets a little too enthusiastic about how the female dictator on the screen is a lot like a mutual aquaintance. Verse three, watching a nature film, this time taken aback by a lizard who looks like "the very image of someone we know". Obviously not flattering, comparing somebody to a Samurai, a brutal dictator, and a predatory lizzard... but there are lots of reasons to dislike somebody enough to see their faces in such unflattering contexts. I disagree with the notion that it absolutely must be one of their "lovers lament" songs. Now "Twisting"... that's what I call a break-up song! |
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| They Might Be Giants – Another First Kiss Lyrics | 23 years ago |
| A rare example of a TMBG love song. Another First Kiss is about a relationship that has lost the romantic edge of new love, but is still content in a sad sort of way. The couple in the song has become intimate enough for her to wear his shirts and stuff, but has mostly stopped talking. Notice in the first verse she "grabs MY coat to walk away"... She's obviously not leaving him, just going out wearing his coat. By asking for "another first kiss" he's hoping they can find a way to rekindle that fire. In spite of a little bit of their trademark dark moodiness in a happy-sounding song, it's actually kind of optimistic by their standards. It reminds me a lot of "Pet Name" from their Factory Showroom album (and was probably written about the same time. An early, more rocked-out version of it appeared on the MP3-only album "Long Tall Weekend", which came out shortly after Factory Showroom.) | |
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