Tag Archives: long tall weekend

#1116: They Might Be Giants – Reprehensible

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This’ll be the last time I talk about They Might Be Giants’ Long Tall Weekend, I swear. No, really, it will be. It’s funny. Last time I wrote about a song from there before this ‘R’ section started was in 2022, and now two tracks off it arrive in relatively quick succession. Well, it’s been a trip. I think I more or less gave the gist about the context of Long Tall in the last post I did for it, but never gave the goods on how I came to listen to it initially. I actually think it was late March 2011, so hooray to 13 years of knowing it. I’d decided to go through TMBG’s discography starting late 2010; it had been a long time coming because they’d already been one of my favourite bands for years. Don’t think Spotify existed back then. It at least wasn’t popular to the extent it is now. But there was this website called we7.com that served the same sort of purpose. Long Tall was on there. I listened to it and once again, the Giants didn’t let me down. It was another fine album, I wasn’t surprised.

‘Reprehensible’ is the ninth track on there. Like ‘Certain People I Could Name’, like ‘Rat Patrol’ and ‘They Got Lost’ (a song I don’t like as much, but hey, what can you do), it’s a song that was recorded during the making of the band’s 1996 album Factory Showroom, but was left off for reasons that only the band would be able to explain to you. When I first heard it initially, I had the feeling that it was John Flansburgh singing it, though at some point I did wonder whether it was someone else. It isn’t. It’s definitely John Flansburgh. But the way he sings here is unlike any way he does on any other TMBG track he’s carried out lead vocals on. Would it be described as baritone? I’m not sure. Whatever it is, he sings it all low. Really from the belly too, so it has this breathy aspect to it that adds a depth and booming quality to it. It’s really cool. He would never sing so low on an album after Long Tall Weekend, maybe this song took it out of him. It’s most likely down to aging though.

The song is something of a showtune from the perspective of a bad, bad person who relishes in the fact they are indeed terrible. It’s a person who in their words has undergone ‘unerasable acts’ and committed ‘unspeakable crimes’. It’s also a person who’s lived for 10,000 years, in previous lives/times, so maybe it’s not a person at all. It’s an entity to say the least. Probably the devil, thinking about it. The soundscape is dominated by an enveloping horn section. If you think there’s something off-sounding about those horns, you wouldn’t be wrong, as they’re actually not real horns, but synthesized ones created by the use of a Mellotron. They almost drown the vocals out in those pre-choruses. They do add to the jazziness of the whole affair, though, already established by the swing feel, piano and brushes on the drums from the song’s very beginning. Flansburgh owns the track so well with his vocal presence and melody. So much so that you may be surprised when I tell you that John Linnell wrote it.

#1092: They Might Be Giants – Rat Patrol

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Until 2007’s The Else, They Might Be Giants’ 1996 album Factory Showroom had the distinct characteristic of being the album by the band with the fewest tracks on there, a mere 13, compared to the 18, 19 or even 38 that fans had become so used to. I’ve built it in my head that the reasoning for the reduction in numbers was a reaction to Showroom‘s predecessor John Henry, which had 20 tracks, but was also almost an hour in length – almost a double album in TMBG respects. They Might Be Giants recorded many more songs than those that eventually appeared on Showroom, a few of appeared a few years later on 1999’s Long Tall Weekend, the group’s equivalent of Physical Graffiti in that it included new songs and oldies from previous album sessions that’d been left on the cutting room floor. ‘Rat Patrol’ was one of those Showroom outtakes.

Before ‘Rat Patrol’ ended up being the two-minute minor-key, almost heavy, hard-rocking Linnell-sung composition that it is, the original demo recorded for it revealed much more simpler beginnings. Sometimes played on their Dial-a-Song service, the recording is John Flansburgh singing the lyrics a capella in an kind of showtime-y fashion. Clearly a lot of fleshing out needed to be done. Flansburgh once stated that the track “caused quite a bit of division-even among those within the inner sanctum of TMBG”. Why it caused the division, we’ll never know. But somewhere along the way, decisions were made to let John Linnell take the lead vocal (Flansburgh sings in unison with those high-pitched backing vocals) and turn the track into a thrilling ride with dueling/harmonising guitar lines and dramatic piano/guitar vamps.

According to the band’s great Wikipedia-esque fansite, the ‘rat patrol’ phrase was taken from an American TV show of the same name that aired between 1966 and 1968. Not the first time that television has influenced a song or two by the Giants. And I’ve always sort of imagined this track being the very dramatic theme song for a TV show that’s waiting to be made. It probably wouldn’t work too well though. There’s something very menacing and almost frightening about this track. It’s also described in a TMBG document as ‘witchy rocker’, and I can understand, it is quite spooky. Like that lingering falsetto note by Linnell at the end that echoes off into the distance and eventually into silence. I wouldn’t want to hear that at night when I’m walking home alone. It’s a shame this didn’t make it onto Factory Showroom. I’d have had it as a hidden track after ‘The Bells Are Ringing’ to bring a more mysterious end to proceedings. What do I know about album sequencing, though.

#997: They Might Be Giants – Operators Are Standing By

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This one’s for the phone operators out there. Written and sung by John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants, ‘Operators Are Standing By’ is the seventh track on the band’s 1999 album Long Tall Weekend. Like ‘Minumum Wage’ nine years earlier, ‘Operators…’ is an upbeat track dedicated to those who work in crappy office jobs on a low income and loathe each day that comes. It’s much more specific than ‘Wage’ however, just because there are actual employees of a specific role involved in the lyrics, rather than the grand statement that ‘Wage’ presents in its bluntness.

The track paints a picture of these phone operators, all assumed to be women if we’re to also go by what the lyrics say, who are doing almost everything except the job they’re supposed to be doing. In order of mention, they smoke cigarettes, drink coffee, bounce their shoes off the end of their feet, wish they could go home, poke holes in the ceiling tiles, make jokes about their old boyfriends and days gone by, talk about their portrayal on the TV, and pass round a picture of a Möbius strip. This is all brought to a halt when the boss comes in with a “That’s enough talking, ladies” warning. Only for a moment though as they resume not working and wishing to be anywhere else.

The song’s a short one, only about a minute and 20 seconds in length, but there’s a lot on here to latch onto. I particularly enjoy Flansburgh’s vocal take. The tone of it and the sort of tape-echo effect on there. The low end throughout sounds massive. Whoever’s decision that was to make it so should get some props. Whenever the kick drum and bass guitar come into, there’s a very booming tone that occurs. Maybe there’s some extra percussion hidden in the mix somewhere that adds to that. And it’s all delivered with this swinging tempo. Can’t help but sway and click my fingers to the beat with this one. Won’t be the first song TMBG fans would recommend to you. But I’m here saying right now that it’s worth a shot.

My iPod #313: They Might Be Giants – The Edison Museum

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“The Edison Museum” is They Might Be Giants’ “endearing” tribute to the Thomas Edison National Historical Park, which is actually in New Jersey. I put endearing in quotation marks because the the track is quite the opposite. The lyrics and music make it out to be one of the creepiest and mysterious places to exist on the face of the Earth. The track even uses a line from the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory film, which I only just realised and makes this track a bit more comedic than I thought it was.

The use of only horns, a keyboard and a vibraband mimicking the sound of a sped up voice recording give the track a very eerie and spooky atmosphere. That’s also emphasised by radio DJ Nick Hill’s vocal. He sang  “I Hear the Wind Blow” in the “Fingertips” track on “Apollo 18”, if you didn’t know. His low voice guides the listener through the dusty corridors of the haunted building, which is apparently used as a threat to children if they don’t stop arguing and yet is still a wondrous place which amazes the many people that lay their eyes on it.

This track may be hard to talk about. It’s not one that would be regularly requested for the band to play at their shows that’s for sure. But it is still an interesting one to listen to nonetheless. It’s the last song on the band’s album “Long Tall Weekend“. It brings a very abrupt end to it; I can remember listening through the album for the first time when this song finished expecting something to follow it up. The last line is sung, and then it just stops – that is the end of the album. But that’s due to the fact that the track was originally much longer, but was cut down to the final version that was released.

It is unusual. But that’s what They Might Be Giants do occasionally.

My iPod #302: They Might Be Giants – Drinkin’

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This may be the first instrumental out of all the songs I’ve talked about so far. Huh. This is “Drinkin'”, a short track that introduces They Might Be Giants’ album “Long Tall Weekend“, the album that was released only for the Internet back in 1999. You can listen to 14 of its 15 tracks right here.

As it is only a minute and a half long, I can’t really go into depth about it. I listened to the album in 2011 when I really started to get into They Might Be Giants’ albums. “Drinkin'” has a pretty decent guitar phrase that leaps from one note to another and stuff. That got stuck in my head after listening to it, after a few days of listening to it I was able to hum the whole thing. Still can’t quite get the hang of it on the guitar, but I think a lot of people would be able to get it straight away.

It changes to 3/4 time in the middle with brief silences, switches back to regular time and the guitar and saxophone play the opening melody in unison until coming to a stop.

It’s an enjoyable little ditty to start off the album. That’s really all there is to it.

Here’s a link to a performance of it 6 years prior to official release. Apparently written just a week before that performance too.