Tag Archives: they might be giants

#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.

#1078: They Might Be Giants – Put Your Hand Inside the Puppet Head

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Man, look at those fresh-faced Johns in that music video. I reckon I was about 12 years old when I saw the clip for TMBG’s ‘Put Your Hand Inside the Puppet Head’ for the first time and thus heard the song too. Would have been 2007, and YouTube was up and running at this point. Not the big deal it is today. Was a lot more humble and much more innocent back then. At 12, the Giants had been around in my life for probably three and a bit years at that point. And it was hard to find music videos by them online without really having to look for some websites. Now all of them were on this “new” site, and ‘Puppet Head’ was a well-liked song according to the band’s wiki. Became an instant hit in my book and another to add to that list of tunes I already knew that really made TMBG stand out compared to any other band/musician/artist I usually listened to.

I distinctly remember stopping and starting the video numerous times, just to keep replaying the image of the two Johns jumping in time to the track’s opening drum pattern. It’s quite hypnotizing in its own way. Plus, it’s quite the visual to start things off with. Once I realised that this was the duo’s first ever music video, it made sense that the first scene had to lure viewers in somehow. In fact there are many dance moves here (which were a signature in those early TMBG videos) that I kept on rewatching. Just made the two guys all the more endearing. But you want to know about the song, that’s why you’re here. Well, John Linnell originally wrote it – lyrics and music – but was unhappy with how his verses turned out. He gave it to bandmate John Flansburgh who “filled in all the blanks”, resulting in one of the best TMBG outcomes, a collaboration between the two band members in comparison to the usual where one or the other will write the entire song.

From what I can gather from the lyrics, I think it’s simply about a person who doesn’t like their job, wants more out of life. Maybe a little loving to help soothe the pain. And all of this could happen if someone would only put their hand inside the titular puppet head. The talk about zombies and this puppet head puts things into a bit of a surreal area, but I think that’s just a way of making the understanding a little harder to achieve. Well, I think they did that quite successfully. But like a lot of other TMBG songs, it’s a bunch of fun to sing along to. The track was released as the second song on the band’s first album from 1986, but with a different mix from that in the music video. The snare hits are drenched in reverb, someone suggested to make the song a little sharper in its key, and the tone overall is a little brighter. It does fit in alongside the other 18 tracks on that record. When I sing it out of the blue, my pitch usually goes to that of the video’s. But honestly, this is one of those rare occasions where I like two separate released mixes of a song at about the same level.

#1076: They Might Be Giants – Purple Toupee

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Here’s a little thing I’m not sure I’ve actually shared on here. My dissertation for my final year of university was based on ‘Modality and point of view in the lyrics of They Might Be Giants.’ That’s right. You know how I like this band so much? Well, I do so much that I wrote 10,000 words about them in an academic study. I used the lyrics of the first verse of ‘Purple Toupee’ under the ‘Methodology’ chapter, where I had to describe the tools I used in order to carry out the study, just to give an example of what kind of narrative voice John Linnell may have been conveying in the song. Actually really enjoyed working on that final paper now I think of it. If anyone wants to read it, don’t be afraid to comment – I’m willing to share.

But of course I was a big fan of the song way before it came to writing that dissertation in 2017. I got to listening to TMBG’s sophomore album Lincoln, on which ‘Toupee’ is the fourth track, about seven years prior to that. The track was a clear highlight from that point. But even from visiting This Might Be a Wiki since I was about nine, I knew that the song was highly regarded among TMBG fans because it was consistently in the higher numbers of the song ratings list that’s on that website. The song was chosen to be a single in ’89, and was meant to be released alongside three other B-sides, but that release fell through and it was instead released as a sole promotional single instead.

So with my whole spiel about narrators in the first paragraph, I might have left you asking why I chose lyrics from this track in particular. Well, it’s because the track is sung from the point of view of a character living in the ’80s who has a bit of warped/hazy recollection of momentous political events that happened in the ’60s. From one line to the next, he’s throwing references to “Selma and some Blacks”, “the book depository where they crowned the king of Cuba” and “Martin X”. But this narrator is completely confident in recalling these events, even though we know they’re completely wrong. Then the chorus comes in referring to the titular phrase, influenced by a combo of Prince’s ‘Purple Rain’ and ‘Raspberry Beret’. So all in all, the track’s meant to serve as an ’80s reaching out to the ’60s type track, but being all tongue-in-cheek about it. The song’s a whole lot of fun, and takes a bit of an unexpected turn for its ending. Always a good time when it comes on.

#1066: They Might Be Giants – Protagonist

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Every once in a while, it comes to a point where I have to write about yet another song from They Might Be Giants’ Join Us album from 2011. I think that album’s just swell and, if any of you readers have been with me on here for a long time, you’ll probably know my positive opinions on it. I think I may have just mentioned them on every post from Join Us that I’ve done The last post I did for a song on here was a number of months ago for ‘Old Pine Box’, the album’s third track and one that’s also written and sung by John Flansburgh. And coincidentally today’s song ‘Protagonist’ was also written by the man, this time arriving as the tenth number and opening the record’s second half.

Thinking to back to my initial reaction when I first heard it as a 16-year-old, I recall making fun of Flansburgh’s abrupt change in vocal delivery between his soft, gentle tone for the first two lines and the somewhat sterner, almost robotic tone for the lines that follow. He alternates between those two styles for the majority of the song. But it wasn’t too long before realizing that the changes were meant to reflect a switch in the narrative voice. You see, ‘Protagonist’ tells the story of someone who’s girlfriend has left them for another man, but that whole situation in itself appears to be the subject of a script, with locations and characters involved in the break-up being noted in… I guess what would be called the script notes. If any screenwriters could assist with the jargon. So Flansburgh captures these two voices by changing up his vocal style, taking on the roles of both the brokenhearted man and the detached script. Also a brief moment during the bridge where he takes on another voice as a sort of passive narrator who passes on some wisdom onto the listener, even poking fun at the unusual manner that the lyrics have been set out in the process.

Musically, it doesn’t sound too far off from something that you would find in one of those old-school musical films or Broadway shows. Considering the whole purpose of the song’s lyricism, I’d have to think that the choices must have been intentional. Instead of the familiar sound of drum sticks hitting the snare, finger clicks keep the rhythm swinging alongside sweeping brushes on the snare. Smooth ‘ooh’ harmonising backing vocals arrive at points to add some more melodic hooks Keyboard-manufactured strings are performed pizzicato style, arriving into the mix during the bridge, and are then followed by the inclusion of some trumpets that make their welcome for only a brief moment before never being heard from again. Elements are added bit by bit as the track goes along, subtly but very much effective. When it comes down to it, ‘Protagonist’ is a sweet, sweet song about heartbreak though with a little twist in its setup, which I can only give props to John Flansburgh for trying out. Moves like that only show why TMBG are as great as they are in my books.

#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.