Tag Archives: they might be giants

#1016: They Might Be Giants – Part of You Wants to Believe Me

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Just another They Might Be Giants song. There’s still a lot more to come in this thing. Maybe I might have said that they’re one of my favourite musical groups ever. If I haven’t, which I’m sure isn’t the case, I’m saying it again. ‘Part of You…’ was initially released as the fifth and final promotional track in advance of the band’s then-upcoming album BOOK in 2021. Slightly over a year has passed since the record’s release, and I’ve come to feel that it’s probably their best since Join Us arrived in 2011. Though it’s all subjective. You can’t go wrong with all the other releases that came in between.

What ‘Part of You…’ is is a delightful three-minute power pop ditty, primarily composed by John Linnell out of the two Johns. The opening descending/ascending melody of the keyboard in the introduction drew me right away, and that it’s also the same melody that Linnell sings in the opening verse really buried it in the brain. There’s no real discernible chorus, but more three sections that each have their own distinct melody. There’s the opening verse, the “Tiny voices” section, and the “Somewhere else” section which goes over the chord progression of the introductory verse. They make up the first half of the song in that order and are then switched around to make up its second. You’ll understand what I’m blabbering on about when you actually listen to the thing. What really matters is Linnell – Flansburgh too, but he’s not the song’s writer – is a master of melody and good hooks in a song and that’s all on display yet again in this one.

I haven’t been able to wrap my head around what the track is about, though. Like a few other Linnell songs, the lyrics are framed in this circular, elliptical manner that you have to take some time to think about. Not in the “Oh, you really have to think about this, man.” way, but more in the “That’s a funny way of wording a simple thing.” manner. There are double-negatives, maybe even a triple, so it kind of adds a bit more for the brain to process. But, from my general understanding of themes that can show up in TMBG songs, I think Linnell is writing from the perspective of a narrator who has either lied or said something straight up wrong to another person, and that person – who has to take medication for unknown reasons – is having an internal struggle on whether this person is telling the truth. Then I think the rest of the track is about what is happening in this person’s body as they try to process this potential lie the narrator’s telling them. Just my two cents, though. It’s known that TMBG just want you to enjoy their songs and not analyse them so much. But it’s hard not to have the urge when the lyrics are written in such a unique manner.

#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.

#968: They Might Be Giants – Old Pine Box

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‘Old Pine Box’ arrives as the third track on They Might Be Giants’ 2011 album Join Us and is also the first time that listeners will hear the sweet, sweet voice of John Flansburgh on there, due to the preceding two numbers being primarily sung by John Linnell. In my case, I was somewhat accustomed to the track as it had been available to hear on a four-song EP, released by the band about three months in advance of the album’s official release. The track brings another of those instances where I can’t exactly remember where I was and how I felt on that first listen. I do want to say that I would have heard it on YouTube first though. I do recall being generally excited for Join Us to arrive. The previous two albums had been tailored towards children, so to hear new adult-oriented music by the band… just felt like everything was making sense again.

As stated by Flansburgh in 2011, the song is “about a burnout but it’s not sung by a burnout.” And reading the lyrics, that sounds about right. It’s from the perspective of someone looking in at another person who just doesn’t know when to call it quits. This ‘old pine box’ goes around punching policemen, unnecessarily pulling fire alarms and generally engaging in behaviour that’s just not right for someone of their time. And still, there’s still something you’ve got to admire about them. At no point in the track does Flansburgh make this character out to be an ass. Their mother thinks they’re a bit crazy, but otherwise it’s a case where people just kinda watch and admire the energy this person has. I feel like there could possibly be a bit of self-commentary hidden in there somewhere. At that point TMBG were approaching 30 years as a band. Maybe Flansburgh was writing about himself in another person’s eyes. Just speculation.

It’s a mainly acoustic number, but produced in a way that the acoustic guitars have this large presence in the mix and provide a proper warm feeling to the proceedings. A nice boom-boom-clap “We Will Rock You” type rhythm comes in to give the track some oomph. And if you listen hard enough, you’ll make out a bass guitar that’s really low in the mix, but it has just enough of a frequency to it that you can make out some of its melodies. Things slow down for the bridge where some vocoder comes in alongside a rapid drum roll, before returning to the boom-clap of the earlier verses and fading out. The track truly does all it needs to in the minute and 50 seconds it lasts for. In the context of the album, it keeps things rolling along smoothly. On its own, just a delightful treat to pass the time.

#958: They Might Be Giants – Number Three

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‘Number Three’ is a ‘number’ by They Might Be Giants from the point of view of a budding songwriter who’s feeling quite pleased with themselves now that they’ve just finishing writing their third ever song. They don’t know how they came up with the lyrics or where the inspiration came from, and they’ve spent a while trying to make it, but it’s here and they want to tell the listener all about the experience. Appropriately, it’s the third song on They Might Be Giants’ debut album from 1986.

Sandwiched between two of the most popular songs of TMBG’s whole career, ‘Number Three’ is probably nothing more than an a bit of an interlude for some people. A track that doesn’t amount to too much, but keeps the flow of the album going quite smoothly. I may have gone under that category when being first acquainted to the record. But in the years since, I’ve only come to appreciate it more. It may be one and a half minutes in length, though it contains all the elements that make a Giants song enjoyable. And maybe even more. Three- way vocal harmonies in the choruses, a very catchy melody, a bouncy bass and a bustling acoustic guitar, and also a looped sample of a baritone saxophone taken from an obscure 50s Italian song.

The song goes way back in TMBG origins, and according to both Johns Flasburgh and Linnell, it was the third song they ever learned to play. We’ll have to take their word for it. It may be that somewhat sentimental reason that they’ve performed the song live over 200 times. That stats taken from the band’s dedicated wiki site, it could be even more than that. It’s guaranteed to bring a smile to many a fan’s face though. Below’s the song’s alternative mix when it was released on the band’s 1985 demo tape. Apart from a different introduction and a quieter guitar, it’s very similar to how it ended on the album.

#956: They Might Be Giants – Now That I Have Everything

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‘Now That I Have Everything’ was the first song on They Might Be Giants’ very first demo tape released in 1983. There may be only a few people out there who own that. Unless the track then hadn’t been officially released on Then: The Earlier Years in ’97, the track would most definitely have become one of the many TMBG songs that you could only find in a lower audio quality on a bootleg somewhere. If ‘Everything Right Is Wrong Again’ hadn’t been considered as the album opener to the band’s first album, ‘Now That I Have Everything’ could have taken its spot. Coincidentally, they both have the word ‘everything’ in their titles, but they also have an upbeat inviting tone to them while also sharing a theme of situations not being as great as they seem/used to be.

The track actually goes way back before They Might Be Giants were even a band. Prior to their formation, John Linnell was the keyboard player in a band called The Mundanes and had written the track while in that position. They tried to rehearse the track, but he was too shy to sing out loud. It can only be assumed that he kept it in his locker and was more than ready to do something with it when John Flansburgh came around. To my knowledge, there’s no reason as to why Flansburgh takes the lead vocal on the track instead of Linnell, but I’m not complaining because he does such a fine job. At this point it would feel strange to hear Linnell on the vocal, even though it’s his song. Maybe Flansburgh could pull off the ‘man who has everything’ persona that the track is based on. Who knows, it’s all suggestions. Those are my ramblings on the vocals over.

Like a lot of other They Might Be Giants songs, the melody is all there instantly. I don’t know how they do it, but they possess a abundant knack for that stuff that’s difficult to find. Unlike other TMBG songs, there’s a distinct absence of guitar. Instead the keyboards provide the rhythm chords and lead riffs, noticeably during the track’s outro and a little part about 45 seconds in that borrows the melody from a 1963 song called ‘On Broadway’. While the Johns perform in standard 4/4 time, the programmed drums are playing in 5/4, which provide this chaotic feel as these fills and cymbal hits come in at seemingly random points. You’re never quite sure where the downbeat is. Funnily enough, the drum track was taken directly from a drumbeat CD, and you can listen to that exact beat here. So yes, a good mix of musically interesting and melodic accessibility. That’s really all you ever need from a song. It’s on show here. It’s on show a lot of the time with TMBG.