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

9: Put Your Hand Inside The Puppet Head
1132 points, 15 votes, 1 #1

on the 1985 cassette as (Put Your Hand Inside The) Puppet Head - replaced on the 1993 reissue

re-recorded for The Pink Album, 1986 - not a single, but their first video, filmed by Adam Bernstein of Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, Bored To Death, Baby Got Back, Beastie Boys, Black Steel In The Hour of Chaos and B-52s fame. Also won an Emmy for 30 Rock.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nb4Lcw3rtsE

an earlier (Put Your Hand Inside The) demo is in the first 2 minutes here

What a melody line on this song

if the puh puh puppet HEAD
was only buh buh busted IN

Puppet Head was my #2, and jumped way up as I was considering songs. Is it weird that it sort of reminds me of Bad Brains? Imagine HR screaming this at you, it sort of works.

Pretty big points jump between #10 and #9 and 15/20 voters too. I wonder if the canonical favorites will have the full 20 votes, hard to imagine anyone not voting for some of the songs yet to come.

8: Purple Toupee
1204 points, 16 votes

abandoned single from Lincoln LP, 1988. Their fifth Adam Bernstein video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EuYh3KFJwA

I was the guy who voted Puppet Head #1. At the end of the day it was just about which song I've played the most, and iTunes says its this one. Also I think "the check's in the mail, and I'll see you in church, and don't you ever change" is an all-time great pop moment

purple toupee rules, surprised to see it so high but not complaining. one of the better boomer satires in capturing a dull-witted bystander who actually didn't grasp anything at all that was happening and whose attempt at a generational anthem ends up being garbled nonsense about toupees. "we're on some kind of mission" is as anthemic as he can muster. and another beautifully-assembled musical performance, so so precise and aggressive. that's all i can think of but i'm sure there's something else.

nice

"heard about some lady named Selma and some blacks"

great song

Really like Purple Toupee but didn't really imagine it getting to top 10. Had it around the middle of my ballot but I hadn't been thinking about the amazing transition into the "We're on some kind of mission" ending and I should have placed it higher.

7: Where Your Eyes Don't Go
1205 points, 17 votes

on Lincoln LP, 1988
live on MTV c. 1989

an unassailable masterpiece, 1 spot too low according to my ballot.

possibly the cleverest chord progression in a discography overstuffed with those

6: We Want A Rock
1282 points, 16 votes, 1 #1

from Flood LP, 1990

Yesssss

WYEDG is one of my "had no idea this was so widely-agreed-upon-as-classic" tracks. it's great obv.

omg I lovvvvve "we want a rock."

top 5 spec:

5. hotel detective
4. don't let's start
3. wildcard album track i never thought would place this high
2. ana ng
1. birdhouse in your soul

oh wait she's an angel will be #3

wow very surprised we want a rock is so high. i guess everybody really does want prosthetic foreheads on their real heads.

has They'll Need A Crane placed yet? I would have also expected Hearing Aid, Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love, You'll Miss Me and a few others to be somewhere in the top 77 before we started (unless some of these have placed and I missed them?)

5. hotel detective

which one?

i hope "stand on your own head" makes it

oh shit, crane totally a lock. so one of mine is DOA? or did one place and i missed it? i def don't need to see hotel detective (the beloved tmbg classic not the forgotten b-side) place anywhere but it'd be WEIRD for it to not even make top 77.

outside of the top 5 I find the rest of these results totally baffling tbh

just wait til it turns out the top five is actually "spy," "absolutely bill's mood," "space suit," "toddler hiway" and at #1, "birds fly."

I remember long ago mentioning to someone I had this CD and they said "you have to burn me a copy, I need to get that 'everyone wants a rock to wind the piece of string around' song, it's been stuck in my head for years"

Come on guys it's 100% Ana Ng, She's an Angel, They'll Need a Crane, Birdhouse in Your Soul, Don't Let's Start, in some order.

duh

#6 through #10 is entirely populated by tracks I never would have predicted in top 10 (except maybe "Puppet Head") but I'm reasonably happy with all of them. They were all on my ballot except "Dead", though none higher than #34 ("Purple Toupee"). "Where Your Eyes Don't Go" I rated way too low, in retrospect.

Each of the Hotel Detectives got the exact same number of points from the exact same number of votes.

(in a three-way tie with Hope That I Get Old Before I Die!)

And, sure, it's a predictable top 5, but that's because they all genuinely deserve it.

otm

I'm confused because Ana Ng, Angel, Hotel Detective, Crane, Birdhouse, and DLS are all "impossible to imagine not placing" candidates for me but I guess I'm most likely to be wrong about "Hotel Detective"? I assumed "We Want a Rock," my #7 and my #2 on Flood (to "Dead") was out of it for this very reason.

I guess I'm most likely to be wrong about "Hotel Detective"?

which one?

I would have also expected Hearing Aid, Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love, You'll Miss Me and a few others to be somewhere in the top 77 before we started (unless some of these have placed and I missed them?)

even if you had voted three times and put each of these at #1, none of them would have made it to the top 77 (Hearing Aid would have been #78. Only two people voted for You'll Miss Me.)

"You'll Miss Me" is absolute garbage, don't @ me.

Ana Ng, She's an Angel, They'll Need a Crane, Birdhouse in Your Soul, Don't Let's Start

Crane is a good song, but it's a distant fifth in this group. I'd put Palindrome, Statue or Spiralling Shape in there ahead of it.

For me, two of these five tower far above the other three, but I will wait until the results are out to reveal whether you guys picked the right ones.

which one?

From the pink album. Pretty shocked it didn't place. One thing that's going on, I think, is that what's great about it is really not as specifically TMBG as what's great about She's an Angel or Don't Let's Start. If you push me I can sort of imagine Was (Not Was) recording it (to re-up a comparison I think Doc Casino made somewhere upthread.)

soref, sapphires is gonna be my highest ranking song not to place. i think it's gorgeous, but i understand if it's a bit less lyrical or manic than what people want or expect from tmbg

I think if you had asked me to guess what would be top 5 I'd have been close to right and if you'd asked me to guess 6-10 I would have been utterly wrong. (e.g. I certainly would have put "Istanbul" and "Particle Man" in 6-10.)

I don't know what I'm going to do for display names after today, but I've been saving this one for two months until we hit the top 5

just wait til it turns out the top five is actually "spy," "absolutely bill's mood," "space suit," "toddler hiway" and at #1, "birds fly."

I actually really dig all of these except maybe "spy" and voted for none of them which just shows you how damn deep the catalog is

(fact check: no wait, in fact "absolutely bill's mood" and "space suit" were the very last two on my ballot!)

5: She's An Angel
1426 points, 17 votes, 2 #1s

from The Pink Album, 1986
live version on Live!! New York City 10/14/94 and Severe Tire Damage

^ TOO LOW

This was my #1. This has been my favorite TMBG song, and arguably my favorite any song, for 20+ years now.

"they don't happen at ah-ah-all, in fact" one of the sweetest saddest lines i've ever encountered anywhere