Tag Archives: three

#1367: They Might Be Giants – Three Might Be Duende

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Hearing They Might Be Giants’ ‘Three Might Be Duende’ today reminds me of the summer of 2011, when it was a new song alongside the other 17 that made up Join Us. When The Else had been released in 2007, I’d completely missed it and didn’t get round to listening to it until years later – I think due to it being done in the time when TMBG were doing music for children. I was unsure of how the music would sound like. Plus, I was 12. But in 2011, I was 16 and eagerly waiting for Join Us since April of that year when ‘Can’t Keep Johnny Down’ was released as the first single. This album was their big return to adult-oriented music for me. I was on holiday in the US when it was released. I got by through listening to 30-second samples of each song, I think, on iTunes. Maybe somewhere else. I liked what I heard. This guy called Anthony Fantano reviewed Join Us and gave it a five out of 10. Wonder what he’s up to these days. I returned home and downloaded the album straight away. At least once I got over the jet lag.

‘…Duende’ was probably the first song to be previewed in a way from the then-upcoming album. A 13-second clip of the band working on the tune, then known just as ‘Duende’ was uploaded to their official YouTube channel in June 2010, more than a year before Join Us arrived. Someone must have that saved somewhere. Otherwise, TMBG made the video private and it’s lost in space and time until they make it available again, which I’m thinking is unlikely.* Fast-forward to July 2011 and there’s ‘Duende’ in the tracklist, now with the longer name, ‘Three Might Be Duende’. To this day, what this song is about completely evades me. From what I can tell, each verse depicts four characters whose names are introduced in the respective first lines. It was only in 2017 that John Flansburgh revealed that the last verse was about the grim reaper. I remember an interpretation that saw the track as a tale of three people who work together to make a creative team. I think I can get that. But there are too many words put together in strange ways that’s made it difficult for me to decipher. How they sound together is what what makes the song great to me.

This song is one of the few in the massive TMBG catalogue to feature vocalists other than the two Johns themselves, with singers David Driver and Michael Cerveris respectively taking lead vocals on the second and third verses. John Flansburgh covers the other two. Sometimes I was sure it was him singing all the way through even if the liner notes told me otherwise. It’s not like TMBG would lie, I don’t know what I was thinking. Driver has a this sort of gritty tone to his voice which makes a great contrast to Flansburgh’s straight delivery in the first verse, and Cerveris’s bassy voice in turn makes for good contrast with Driver’s. A great range of vocals on show. Also, a key change happens as every verse comes along, going from G sharp to C sharp to F sharp to straight B for the celebratory ending. I think that’s pretty cool. Altogether, it’s a wordy song – that I don’t think even TMBG expects anyone to fully take in – paired with music that’s constantly shifting, set to a marching rhythm and sung by three distinct vocalists. I just don’t know what more you’d want. Does the job for me.

*The video’s right here.

#1037: Pink Floyd – Pigs (Three Different Ones)

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Ah, Animals. I’ll tell you now, my favourite Pink Floyd album. I can remember the day I downloaded it and heard the whole thing for the first time. It was Halloween 2010, and the 1990 Roald Dahl Witches film was on the TV. Channel 5, to be exact. I was 15 years old. At the time ‘Pigs on the Wing Part One’ passed me by too quickly, and I don’t think I had devloped the bandwidth to pay attention to the almost-18 minute song of ‘Dogs’ just yet. The first track on the album that caught my ear immediately though was today’s entry. At 11-and-a-half minutes in length, ‘Pigs (Three Different Ones)’ was just about in my comfort zone, and was the track that would pop into my head as I would be on the bus ride home from school.

Man, where do I even start? Animals‘s pissed off tone has already been established in the 20 or so minutes that come before ‘Three Different Ones’ starts. This track only further emphasises it. The three verses on here represent a different ‘pig’, with the first covering a general businessman, the second is widely agreed to be about former Prime Minster Margaret Thatcher, and the third explicitly calls out conservative activist Mary Whitehouse, who would dedicate a lot of her time campaigning against anything liberal. The verse isn’t about the White House in Washington D.C., as many thought for a while. Roger Waters chastises them all with the memorable, highly quotable refrain, “Ha-ha, charade you are”. You might ask, “If there are only three verses, why’s it 11 minutes long?” Well, in between the second and third verse comes a lengthy instrumental break that builds and builds, featuring heavy use of a talk box to mimic the sound of pigs during a guitar solo.

This song is fantastic. The groove that drags it along is undeniable. The use of every instrument present here is essential to the music, even down to the damn cowbell that appears in the mix between the verses. David Gilmour’s bass guitar performance is killer. Taking over from Roger Waters, who takes the rhythm guitar role here, Gilmour pulls off some melodic licks and scales that makes the track rip even harder than it does. Animals is noted for being the album in which Roger Waters’s grip on the band’s direction really began to take hold. It’s also the Pink Floyd album where I think he really came into his own as a vocalist. He’s not known for being the greatest singer ever. He’s probably the third best singer in the ‘classic’ line-up of the band. But even I try to copy the tone he gets on those ‘really a cryyy-hyyYYYYYyyy’s and the ‘charade you are’s every time I hear this one. A vocal take driven by seething resentment, for sure. Always a welcome time when this song pops up on shuffle.

#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.