If you were one of the OG They Might Be Giants fans back in the 80s and around when ‘They’ll Need a Crane’ was released as another single from the band’s Lincoln album, you would have been lucky to stumble upon ‘Nightgown of the Sullen Moon’. The track was one of three B-sides on the They’ll Need a Crane EP, alongside ‘It’s Not My Birthday’ and ‘I’ll Sink Manhattan’. Once the two Johns were signed to major-label Elektra Records, another compilation was then released including all of the B-sides the band had officially released in the form of Miscellaneous T which a brought something of a larger attention to it.
There are a few interpretations as to what this track is about. There’s a selection you can see on the band’s dedicated Wiki page. From my point of view, I always saw it as a description of a person’s transition into the next life after falling into a door in an awkward manner and dying on the spot. Sounds quite tragic, but you’ll see the lyrics and kind of get it. The first verse describes the accident, I would take the titular ‘nightgown’ as heaven pretty much, and the following verse captures the person’s feelings of being within this new environment. They’re not on drugs, but they feel like they’re floating on air. And they begin to feel bored eventually, which shares the same sentiment as that Talking Heads song that’s also about heaven. In typical TMBG fashion, the song’s dang catchy and the melody throughout is off the charts, contrasting with the almost brutal subject. It’s also carried by this great I want to say Calypso-influenced rhythm, that’s accentuated by the introduction of bongos in the final choruses. There’s a lot of syllables John Linnell has to sing in each line, and there are points where you can him hear him inhaling sharply between them so he has enough breath. For a song that’s only two minutes, it’s filled with little things here and there that you can pick out with each listen
Like John Lennon with ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’, John Linnell was inspired to write the track of its name after being shown a drawing that a person’s child had drawn. It’s a very poetic phrase, ‘nightgown of the sullen moon’. Reminds me of something you’d see in those classic books. Very unique. But it came as a surprise to Linnell when he found that the phrase was already the title of a children’s book that had been published in 1983. Must have taken some of the magic out of the phrase just that bit. According to the wiki, it’s one of the band’s most popular songs, but they’ve never performed it live. If they ever did, it would be a sight.