Tag Archives: miscellaneous t

My iPod #99: They Might Be Giants – Birds Fly

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“Birds Fly” is another They Might Be Giants song, penned by John Flansburgh, which is also found on the “Miscellaneous T” compilation – something I talked about only three days ago. For me, it has the same back story as “The Biggest One”. I began to listen to their discography in 2011, found “Miscellaneous T” and downloaded the tracks.

“Birds Fly” is a jazzy number with a walking bassline, background vocals akin to a barbeshop quartet and blocks as the percussion. It makes the song sound very pleasant, light and very easy to listen to. It sounds like it’s about someone who’s arrested by the police for driving recklessly though. I guess you can say it’s got that “Maxwell Silver Hammer” thing going on, with the happy music and the… more serious lyrics.

The song was originally going to be released as a B-side to the “Purple Toupee” single. That was never released though. But it does show that it recorded during the sessions for “Lincoln”. It is very similar to “Lie Still, Little Bottle”, in so many ways in fact that I think it would have been a shoe in on the album if the band thought “Lie Still” wasn’t good enough.

Enjoy it.

Until tomorrow.

Jamie.

My iPod #96: They Might Be Giants – The Biggest One

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A short and sharp one by They Might Be Giants.

This song was originally released on the “(She Was a) Hotel Detective EP” from 1988, but it was released again on the compilation “Miscellaneous T” – a collection of B-Sides recorded between 1986 and 1989 – released in 1991 after the band’s success with “Flood”. Now I assume that B-Sides are those songs that bands consider to be sub-par to material released on commercial albums, but “Miscellaneous T” is a mighty fine album and no one should underestimate the songs on it.

I first listened to the album in 2011 when I was revising for my GCSEs, and “The Biggest One” was a track that stood out, just because it’s the most ‘hard rock’ song as it gets on the album, with blaring horns and a stomping drum pattern.

“The Biggest One” is sung by John Flansburgh, and is another track where he puts real gusto behind his voice. It’s got a real throaty approach to it. It’s described as an “unlikely song of self-pity” in the liner notes of “Then: The Earlier Years“, maybe because the band weren’t into writing a song about the subject matter. It is about a person who blames everything that happens around him on his ‘fat self’. That’s all there is to it, really. There’s also a small Gloria Gaynor reference thrown in there to for a bit of humour.

Until tomorrow.

Jamie.