YOUTH CULTURE POLLED MY DOG: They Might Be Giants (first 21 years) POLL RESULTS

Somehow never noticed that was alphabetical!

55:They Might Be Giants
473 points, 8 votes

1984 demo, released on TMBG Unlimited
1985 demo from self-titled cassette
re-recorded for Flood LP, 1990

love it so much

boyyyyyy

Man, I really wanna break out my Then comp

This is probably one of the songs I would have voted for downballot if I hadn't been too lazy to extend to 100.

54: Metal Detector
495 points, 9 votes, 1 #1

on Factory Showroom album, 1996
with TMBG Mini-Brass for Studio 360, 2003

Our second #1 vote to appear. Another pretty odd choice to my mind, but I did vote for it.

hang on hang on tight

"Metal Detector" rules, it was such a bummer that alt radio didn't give it more of a chance. All the right lessons learned from John Henry - the big pounding "band" moves are now deployed much more strategically and they make key parts of the song land: "I'm the inspector over the mine - metal detector, watch it shine." Lyricaly it's a bit of an odd character sketch by their standards since there doesn't seem to be anything much wrong or strange about the narrator - he just thinks searching for things with his metal detector is really neat. The preoccupation with the seashore and things "underground" suggests it came from the same creative spark as "Sensurround" so maybe John L was just becoming obsessed with chthonic forces and the subconscious or something.

53: Hey, Mr. DJ, I Thought You Said We Had A Deal
510 points, 7 votes

Dial-A-Song c. 1988
b-side for unreleased Purple Toupee single, 1989

opening line on that is so classic. as is pretty much every other line

This song is lightweight but man do I love the xylophone trills in it.

51= Boss Of Me
513 points, 7 votes

various studio versions released & broadcast 1999-2001 - video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8y8Ziwswe0

live on Conan O'Brien, 2000
live on The Tonight Show, 2001
wearing spangly suits on Kilborn, 2001
live on TOTP, 2001

malcolm in the middle was one of my favorite shows as a pre-teen, so i had to throw this one a vote.

it still throws me off when the song continues after "life is unfair"

Linnell grinned at me singing along to the verse of Hey Mr DJ a couple of weeks ago which was a major life moment

"Hey Mr. DJ" is terrific, I love the anguish he throws into the chorus and the whole scenario is so pathetically golden. It's basically "Paperback Writer" in concept but also totally its own thing. So weird to think of it as a nearly-lost B-side, since it opens Miscellaneous T with such a xylophonic flourish it just feels like a "major" track to me.

they've played "Boss of Me" a few times when I've seen 'em and they always cut the rest of the song off

maybe I'm biased here but I legitimately think it's one of the best TV themes ever, even if just for how well it captures what that show was all about.

and yea I always assumed Hey Mr. DJ was a standalone single and that the lyrics were sort of meant to refer to the song itself. it does feel like a single. the version they played (with horns!) when I saw them a few months ago was incredible. I was bouncing around and singing along like an idiot.

also a good candidate for the "words that have only appeared in one song" thread : "geometrically"

51= Nothing's Gonna Change My Clothes
513 points, 10 votes

as Nothing's Going To Change My Clothes on the 1985 cassette
re-recorded for The Pink Album, 1986

all the people are so happy now their heads are caving in

yoooooooooo

50: Dinner Bell
515 points, 8 votes

on Apollo 18, 1992

Our family routinely uses "dinner bell, dinner bell, DING DING DING!" to summon everyone to the table.

Way too low! Going through my ballot, "Dinner Bell" was the song that I forgot that I freakin loved. Really clever melody and arrangement

My "Why Does the Sun Shine?" and "Older" votes are mostly based on the live versions

“Dinner Bell” is the third of the songs in my top 25 to appear

49: Mr. Me
535 points, 8 votes

demo c. 1987 released on TMBG Unlimited

live on Joy Farm c. 1987:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojk077sc5Go

on Lincoln LP, 1988
recorded with TMBG's Other Thing horn section in 2003

"Mr. Me" was my number 1 (hope my ballot was received). I don't think it's a whole lot better than my #20 vote, but it's a fantastic song that I always had a soft spot for. Fun lyrics

your ballot was received!

love mr me

he ended up sad!

xp *thumbs up*

48: Letterbox
540 points, 9 votes

on Flood LP, 1990

live on MTV's 120 Minutes, 1989:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxcTXrMHHs0

in lower audio quality on 120 Minutes in 1988
covered by OKGo c. 2006

One of my favorites on Flood. My friend and I used to play the song on repeat to try and decipher the lyrics to the bridge

i fuckin love mr. me, and it always reminds me of my mom, who got a kick out of the "yo yo yo" vocals.

Completely forgot about "Letterbox" somehow. It's 1990 again here, all of a sudden.

Lyricaly it's a bit of an odd character sketch by their standards since there doesn't seem to be anything much wrong or strange about the narrator - he just thinks searching for things with his metal detector is really neat.

I think of the lyrics to Metal Detector as being of a piece with those other Linnell songs about someone turning away from other people to focus on some solitary esoteric obsession, 'Down at the shore there's a place where there's no one vacationing' 'Then everything on the top will just suddenly stop seeming interesting' seems to come from the same place as 'And though I once preferred a human being's company they pale before the monolith that towers over me' or 'There's only one thing that I like and that is whistling in the dark'

in these songs there's usually a contradictory desire for human contact as well, but on the narrator's own terms, to join him in the obession: 'I've got something to help/make you understand', 'And now it is your turn Your turn to hear the stone and then your turn to burn The stone it calls to you You can't refuse to do the things it tells you to' 'Some day somebody else besides me will call me by my stage name, they will call me Dr Worm'

is it correct to hear an oblique suggestion of cannibalism in Dinner Bell? I guess because of the 'shoulder, bicep, elbow, arm, forearm, thumb, wrist, knuckle, palm, middle, pinky, index, ring' bit? and the connection it makes between the person waiting for the dinner bell and Pavlov's dog, noting the similarity of a human and an animal in the context of food seems to hint at the idea of eating humans

I imagined the 'shoulder, bicep, elbow...' bit as an impulse traveling down the signal path on its way to pick up and ring the bell.

had never realized they were singing actual words there - felt like backwards made up esperanto or something. shorum castle numco town...

and i buy the metal detector user as fitting in with these other pursuers of obsessions... hmm. well still i mean whatever happens in "statue" it seems more intense and maybe destructive ("the statue made me fry") but of course that lyric could also just be doubling down metaphorically on more pedestrian ways of describing a benign crystallizing moment of exposure to art or a person.

metal detector person seems kinda settled and well-adjusted altho i suppose you could read it as the portrait of an eccentric who's become extremely detached from reality (engaging only with unseen and indeed unnamed objects through technological mediation) but is rationalizing it as having a wise, detached perspective that lets him focus on more interesting things. delusions of grandeur or of superior insight come up in other linnell lyrics - "destination moon," "no one knows my plan"

46= See The Constellation
541 points, 9 votes

Dial-A-Song as My Lone Constellation c. 1991
on Apollo 18, 1992

See The Constellation kind of prefigures the shift to more rock sounding stuff on John Henry, but I think it wouldn't work as well with the full bound sound, the staccato electronic rhythm section really works here

I seem to recall that the true lyrics to the weird part of Dinner Bell ending with “and and walk walk a a way way” we’re the subject of much debate in the TMBG online community on the 90s

"I was in the sky, all dressed in black" is such an elegant way of conveying the twist/revelation here. One of Flans's best lyrics throughout: "no cigar, no lady on his arm - just a guy made of dots and lines"; " but the city lights got in my way." I mentioned the Paperback Writer quality upthread - the super locked-down electronic rhythm both makes it feel *more* like peak, super-tight mod combo Beatles, and more alien and original with the punched-in sampler backing vocals and stuff. Such a cool recording.

clearly Weird Al was a fan of this song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvM6bNwfTIg

years and years later i found out that "I Remember Larry" is a very specific parody of/tribute to the new wave obscurity "Calling All Girls" by Hilly Michaels. but there's easily a bit of TMBG in there... though not as much on his intended Giants tribute on the same album, "Everything You Know Is Wrong"

I've probably mentioned this before but I'm impressed by how well "Everything You Know is Wrong" apes Linnell's songwriting and singing style given that it completely misses the point lyrically - no TMBG song is just a string of non sequiturs like that

that's a great point. but Al likes wacky and "weird" non sequiturs and i feel like his "style" parodies tend to cleave lyrically to his home turf. usually he's parodying a more straightforward artist and so the humor is partly in the juxtaposition of their style and his wackiness. since tmbg are already sorrrrta wacky, it comes off feeling like he doesn't really get Them. i'm guessing al's actually a huge fan though so i think he just hit a double when it could have been a home run.