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

29: Destination Moon
676 points, 8 votes

on John Henry album, 1994

live on The Jon Stewart Show, 1994, briefly:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5xKzO3qEwc

yes! love that this is so high. a great and incredibly catchy narrator-in-denial song, prefiguring "till my head falls off."

that's the last John Henry pick, then? glad it's the highest, but a shame not to see "out of jail" and "aka driver" show up somewhere.

This is really bringing home to me how much more I listen to Factory Showroom than John Henry, because I really was like "wait which one is Destination Moon?" and then when I played it I was like "oh yeah the one with the backwards series of steps to get to the rocket." Good song! But didn't realize it was loved so widely.

I do wonder how John Henry would've fared had it been organized more like a 'normal' TMBG album - 17 songs, 45 minutes. I think it would probably be seen as one of their best.

"Sleeping in the Flowers" a great example of everything the album gets right & wrong - I agree with Paul that it's too weirdly heavy, it's too long, there's a guitar solo which is fine but doesn't really fit. I think all told it's TMBG's longest tune, but if you'd shortened it to like 2:30 it would be an absolute killer. The Johns were clearly a bit eager about having a full band at their disposal.

"Destination Moon" was #9 on my ballot. I've always loved the delusional, hopeful lyrics to this and it's super catchy too! The highest ranking non-placing John Henry song on my ballot is now confirmed to be "Window". N.B. I have an unhealthy affection for this album because it was the first new TMBG album to be released after I started being a fan.

I like to think of My Man as a kind of companion to Destination Moon, where the narrator is only capable of moving in his head rather (My Man seems to be about depression rather than actual physical incapability, but there's still that disconnection between the mind's instructions and the body)

I love the step by step connections thing that show up in a lot of TMBG lyrics, like the steps to get to the moon here or "and at the top of a tree there's a house, and in the house there's a room, and in the room there's a chair and in the chair is you" from The House At The Top Of The Tree, it seems to tie into that thing I mentioned before about being a kid and extending your address to include 'the earth, the solar system' etc. I think that "you're older than you've ever been, and now you're even older, and now your even older" etc comes from the same sort of place as well

I really like the shift from the heavy verses to the jaunty chorus on Sleeping in the Flowers, it reminds me of The Affiliated by XTC/Dukes Of The Stratosphere

not that verses there particularly heavy, but just the shift in style for the chorus

"My Man" is definitely about paralysis

My man won't walk again/In conflict with express instructions given by the brain

Why can't the message be sent?/I guess my man's fallen out with my head

The song seems to me like a sort of muffled protest against the (many) artificial and ridiculous facets of the feminist ideas that have attempted to deny and destroy modern gender roles. So I think the above idea of the "breakfast in bed" line fitting into this is spot on; this action was once a rare reversal of gender roles as the husband made a meal for the wife. Therefore TMBG could be mentioning it simply to evoke this image of altered gender roles.
I would go even further and say that they're mentioning breakfast in bed as a way of saying: "Hey, a man making a meal for a woman isn't so special anymore because we've stupidly destroyed the gender distinctions that made us men and women. You can't treat a woman like a Queen, even for a day, when that woman thinks that men and women should all be treated the same." It's a similar protest to saying "feminists told us to stop opening doors for women; so now even the last shred of Chivalry has been destroyed."

As for the title, I would assume that "Sally Boy" is supposed to compare and contrast with "Candy Bar" somehow, but I can't think how. I would also suggest that, although it's a stretch, "Candy Bar" could be a phallic symbol; but, again, that wouldn't seem to compare/contrast with "Sally Boy" in any meaningful way (unless there's some parallel anatomical reference there that I'm not getting).

-- My sincere appologies if this is an inapropriate forum for expressing my views on this (if anyone feels it is, please feel free to delete this) but I really don't see that we have to subjugate people so that it means something when we're nice to them. How about we just be good to people (i.e. opening doors for them, making breakfast for them, etc.) regardless of their gender. Just my own feelings on this.

I’m sorry to tell you guys I’ve listened to “Sally Boy Candy Bar” and They Might Be Giant Transphobes are C A N C E L L E D

ew where is that from and why am i reading it

The Johns were clearly a bit eager about having a full band at their disposal.

I really wonder what the vibe/dynamic was! I'm sure they were jazzed about the new sonic possibilities, and for the process of recording to be something much less meticulous and/or tedious. I also imagine that, not having really been in "bands" much, that the process of just getting used to that must have been strange. Maybe they let songs go on longer than their previous norm because (a) it was fun to just be playing live and coming around to the chorus again with other musicians and (b) they didn't want to feel like they were 'directing' the band or micromanaging the performance if someone came up with a cool horn solo or whatever. I do think the album's best songs are the ones right around three minutes or less.

but yeah, between this and Boss Of Me, label support for a horn section could have broken them into the ska-punk audience the way Phish fans adopted Ween

still pondering this alternate reality. in fact them getting dropped by elektra and eventually finding their footing with the TV work and childrens' albums may have been a more sustainable life and career path. but very easy to imagine them developing this whole following with the nerdier wing of ska-punk kids. though i guess if Doctor Worm couldn't do it in the era of Reel Big Fish then maybe it just wasn't gonna happen.

not willing enough to wear shorts onstage

In this alternate reality, who would have been TMBG's Ben Carr?

28: Mammal
682 points, 11 votes

on Apollo 18 album, 1992

And no one cares enough about "Mammal" to comment on it. I've never liked it much myself and honestly have always been a big cool on Apollo 18 in general.

another track on the imaginary 1999 wallet-chain-aimed best-of that was released to accompany their Warped Tour afternoon slot:

27: The Statue Got Me High
694 points, 11 votes

single from Apollo 18, 1992:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gO5iUDBK7TA

live on Jonathan Ross, backed by Steve Nieve & The Love Band, 1992
live on the Tonight Show without Johnny Carson, 1992

Though I am, as stated above, cool on Apollo 18 generally that doesn't apply to this song. TMBG's best self-consciously 'rocking' song and I do like the lyrics nonsense though they might be. I remember reading a semi-convincing analysis on a TMBG message board c. 2001 that the song is about Mozart's opera Don Giovanni.

"Mammal" is great fun to sing and a brilliantly-curated set of syllables ("main-taining the ver-y high me-tab-o-lis-m rate they have") but hard for me to say much about.

"Statue Got Me High" is another hook-monster with some really striking and memorable turns of phrase "the truth is where the sculptor's chisel chipped away the lie," "a monument of granite sent a beam into my eye," "my coat contained a furnace where there used to be a guy" - really giving the sense of total transformation, as in some kind of sublime mind-blowing experience or perhaps brainwashing by a cult. That a "statue" could be either a work of art or a religious icon further enriches this ambiguity I think - it's both exciting and terrifying to have your mind totally taken over by some new obsession, artistic or personal or even romantic (there aren't many cues here to read this as a Pygmalionesque tale, but you could). And it's contagious! Your turn to hear the stone, and then your turn to burn.

god what the hell was i doing with my ballot that "statue" was down at 53? that's indefensible.

26: Spiraling Shape
695 points, 10 votes

1992 demo of Rocket Ship, released on TMBG Unlimited
rewritten as Spiraling Shape on the soundtrack of the Kids In The Hall movie Brain Candy, 1996, later on Factory Showroom
live in studio on Studio 360 (audio only)

Surprised to see this so high, never knew it had so many fans. I had it at #61 on my ballot. I like the song my only problem is simply that it is too long.

when I was 13 I thought this was one of the best songs ever written. that chorus was in my head for like, an entire year

great juxtaposition of this and "statue."

don't spennnnnd the rest of your life wondering!

25: Everything Right Is Wrong Again
708 points, 10 votes

1984 demo version as Everything Right Is Wrong
Their debut single on "Wiggle Diskette" flexi-disc, as Everything Right Is Wrong
re-recorded as Everything Right Is Wrong Again for The Pink Album

perfect "first song on first album." and now the song is over now.

the early versions are fascinating, and really bring out the countrified edge that crops up elsewhere on the debut. what's missing is that WHAM WHAM! combo of drum programming and electric guitar, and i'm guessing access to the gadgets or extra recording tracks to create the phasey wobbley effect in the bridge.

and i mean the general busy-ness of the mix. the refrain after the bridge in the final version has this great busy synth harpsichord part going behind it. it's like the gauntlet soundtrack suddenly barged into the studio. pocket symphonies for the MIDI era.

24: Istanbul (Not Constantinople)
743 points, 10 votes

original by The Four Lads, 1953

single from Flood LP, 1990:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsRuurcTTSk

Brownsville Mix, 1990
live version on Severe Tire Damage, 1998
Electronic Istanbul, 2011

I am among the 50% of spoilsports who did not vote for this.

tiny toons 4 lyfe

genius cover selection, a catchy but nearly-forgotten vocal hit from a profoundly square and unloved genre, souped up with a steady and sometimes pounding-and-stuttering rhythm section and some all-new instrumental hooks. the main "oriental" instrumental figure of the original is scrapped or just forgotten - i've read that the johns supposedly did not listen to the original while working out theirs). they make this into a real manic racket. wish i could hear it without picturing the tiny toons animation, wonder what i'd think of it just encountering it as the next track on a new tmbg album.

it's suuuch a tmbg song that it's kind of remarkable that they didn't write it. maybe there was some sort of temporal lapse caused by a statue with laser eyes that sent one of the johns back in time to workshop some quirky ideas with vocal groups in the 50s

yea count me in the "couldn't believe this was a cover" crowd

I still like it but kinda wish they'd drop this and "Particle Man" from their set list

Greg also didn't vote for the song that beat Istanbul

23: Narrow Your Eyes
751 points, 11 votes

on Apollo 18, 1992

Hey that's not true I had it at #43.

I think this was my #3. IMO this is an even more heartwrenching breakup song than "Match" or "Crane". the "we'll race to the bottom of a glass" line is so good.

whoops! (#44). I must have not clicked into the sheet before searching

by far my favorite track on Apollo 18--my #9

The beginning part of the chorus is one of my all time favorite TMBG parts, I just think it falls a tiny bit flat.

surprised to see it this high - i put it on my ballot but mainly for the "race to the bottom of a glass" part. solid little song, though.

IMO this is an even more heartwrenching breakup song than "Match" or "Crane". the "we'll race to the bottom of a glass" line is so good.

Seconded.

have to say, as the threadstarter for one of the only dedicated general TMBG threads I'm a little surprised at the level of enthusiasm here both for the band in general and for their post-Flood output, which I never gave much of a second thought to

was tempted to make the next one my #1, just because 2018

22: Your Racist Friend
772 points, 10 votes

on Flood LP, 1990
Sampla-Delic Remix by Super DJ Dmitry & Jungle DJ Towa Tei, 1990

live on Letterman 1990, backed by Paul Shaffer and the World's Most Dangerous Band:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4_COOh4VXw

grade 5, Chiang Mai, Thailand, 2010:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K3Pn3oTZD4

Richard Spencer getting punched, 2017

"Your Racist Friend" is not that good. "If anything was broken it surely could be mended" possibly the hackiest rhyme-dictionary rhyme they ever wrote. Glad I got that off my chest!