History Music / TheyMightBeGiants

!!Tropes and other entries associated with the band include:

* MinisculeRocking: Most of their songs are below the three minute mark, and only a select few exceed four minutes. Particularly brief songs include the "Fingertips" songs from ''Apollo 18'' that range from 6 seconds to one minute in length and the 9 tracks under a minute on the ''Nanobots'' album.

* MinisculeRocking: Most of their songs are below the three minute mark. Particularly brief songs include the "Fingertips" songs from ''Apollo 18'' that range from 6 seconds to one minute in length and the 9 tracks under a minute on the ''Nanobots'' album.

** Another example comes to the intro for "They Got Lost" off "Severe Tire Damage" - "Ladies and Gentlemen, put your hands together for They Must Be Giants!"

** People frequently get the band's name wrong. "There May Be Giants" and "There Must Be Giants" are some of the most common examples. This was immortalized in the untitled 13th track of ''Miscellaneous T'', where a Dial-A-Song caller named Gloria refers to the band as "There Might Be Giants," "There May Be Giants" and "They May Be Giants" all in quick succession.

* AIIsACrapshoot: The video for "Thinking Machine."

** They've been their own opening act on several occasions, posing as Sapphire Bullets, "the only They Might Be Giants tribute band [[Music/TheClash that matters]]," or an [[UnpluggedVersion Unplugged]] duo called Count Drinkalot (Flansburgh on acoustic guitar and Linnell on accordion).

** Also, the lyrics to "The World's Address" make (slightly) more sense if you interpret the title as "the world's a dress" (after all, it's "a place that's worn," which would certainly be a "[[{{Pun}} sad pun]].")
*** It still works when "Hey, Mr. DJ, I Thought You Said We Had A Deal" name-drops the song: "I told you 'bout the world, its address" works just as well—maybe ''better''—as "I told you 'bout the world (it's a dress)."
** "Dead" begins with "I returned a bag of groceries accidentally taken off the shelf before the expiration date." The next line makes it clear that the narrator doesn't mean asking a clerk for a refund:

* AntiChristmasSong: "Santa's Beard," "We Just Go Nuts At Christmastime," and Mono Puff's "Careless Santa" all fit the bill. And for those looking for an Anti-Hanukkah song, they also have "Feast Of Lights."

** For "Careful What You Pack," the stage lights are turned off and the audience is requested to turn on their cellphone lights towards the stage.

** For “No One Knows My Plan,” the audience is encouraged to start a conga line.

* BlackmailIsSuchAnUglyWord: "Erase."

** "You're On Fire" starts with a bit of light conversation, and then the narrator says, "My point is... hi, your head's on fire."

** ''Nanobots'' uses this in "Insect Hospital" (" 'Cause we are like, literally, literally, literally") and discusses it more extensively in the appropriately-titled "Stuff Is Way" ("You say, stuff is way / Way to go, go away...")
** "Wait Actually Yeah No," down to the title

* CaptainObvious: The entirety of "Older," with lines such as, "You're older than you've ever been / And now you're even older / And now you're older still."

* CloserThanTheyAppear: In "She's Actual Size": "Squares may look distant in a rearview mirror, but they're actual size, actual size to her."

** "The Shadow Government": the chorus consists primarily of "It's a bad, bad world", and the last non-chorus verse is: "Crawling out of the flophouse / I saw the mayor stealing my junk / I doth protest, citizen's arrest / Now my body's in his trunk." Yeah, and the point of the song is that the oft feared [[TheOmniscientCouncilOfVagueness Shadow Government]] is preferable to the state of affairs in their world. Yeah.
** "Pencil Rain" implies a Crapsack World too: "And none who have witnessed all / Can speak of a nobler cause / Than perishing in / The pencil rain."
** "Put Your Hand Inside the Puppet Head."
* CuteKitten: "It's your kind of kitten."

* GoshDangItToHeck: In live "family-friendly" concerts when all ages are present, the band will {{bowdlerize}} the title of "Damn Good Times" to "Dang Good Times."
* GratuitousGreek: "Greek #3," which is "Number Three" translated into Greek.

* MurderBallad: "Erase."

* NoodleIncident[=/=]NothingIsScarier: John Linnell's sense of humor tends to occupy the middle ground between the two, especially in later works ("I Made A Mess," "Synopsis for Latecomers," "Aaa")

* OneSteveLimit: The founders are commonly referred to by their last names or collectively as "the Johns." At one point their backing band consisted of guitarist Dan Miller, bassist Danny Weinkauf and drummer Dan Hickey, which was referred to as "the Band of Dans." The trope is {{lampshade|Hanging}}d in the lyrics to "When Will You Die," recorded after Marty Beller replaced Hickey:

* PrecrimeArrest: * In "Ballad of Davy Crockett (In Outer Space)", because Davy is "Messing around with the fabric of time. He knows who's guilty 'fore there's even a crime".

* RainbowMotif: The song on their science album about the color spectrum is named after the common mnemonic "Roy G. Biv."

** ''Omniverse'', from "One Everything". As a synonym of ''multiverse'', it means "all that could ever be in all dimensions", and it gets serious bonus points for appearing in one of their [[ViewersAreGeniuses children's songs]]. ("We share the same omniverse. Please clean your room. We share the same omniverse.")

** The cover artwork on ''The Else'' features the Spanish words "Se aprovechan" (They take advantage), which are taken (in their original lettering) from a print of that title in Creator/FranciscoDeGoya's series ''The Disasters of War (Los desastres de la guerra)''. The song "Bee of the Bird of the Moth," on the same album, references Goya's etching ''The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (El sueño de la razón produce monstruos)'', which features various spooky animals including owls, which also figure in the cover art.

** "Mammal" accurately describes the characteristics of [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin mammals]]. It is also very likely the only song to contain a reference to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotheria allotherians]], a group of prehistoric mammals that are now extinct. They even refer to it as a "dead uncle." On the other hand, they do refer to the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koala koala]] as the "koala bear," but almost everyone outside Australia does that.

* SillyLoveSongs: Very, very rare for them, but they do indeed have one straightforward love song: [[PlayingAgainstType "Another First Kiss."]] Though, for a straightforward love song, it's extremely melancholy and could be easily interpreted as being about the inevitable decline of happiness in relationships, and the resulting resignation.

---> ''Show-der, bicep, ew-bow, ahhhm! Foreahm, thumb, wrist, knuckle, pahhhhm!'' (etc.)

** "Put Your Hand Inside the Puppet Head", too: "The check's in the mail, and I'll see you in church."

* ThisIsASong: The song "S-E-X-X-Y" begins with the lines: "Dressed only in clothes / From her head to her toes / This is the way / The talking part goes."
** "Everything Right is Wrong Again" contains two different instances of the lines "And now this song is over now (x3) / This song is over now." For added humour value, one of them is in the middle of the song.

** "On Earth My Nina" starts with Linnell saying softly, "Here's my song."
** Midway through "Creepy" (from Flansburgh's side project Mono Puff), Flansburgh announces, "This song is called 'Creepy'."
* ThoseWackyNazis: PlayedForHorror on "If Day for Winnipeg," based on a simulated Nazi raid used to sell Canadian war bonds.

* VillainSong: "Kiss Me Son of God", "I Palindrome I", and "No One Knows My Plan" are definites. Others... perhaps.

* WhamLine: The last two lines of "You'll Miss Me": "It must be raining, 'cause a man ain't supposed to cry, / But I look up, and I don't see a cloud."

* WouldHitAGirl: "Madam, I Challenge You to a Duel". Quoth John Flansburgh: "The entire conceit of the song is that it’s about an extremely formal person, like the kind of person that would challenge someone to a duel — only that the twist is that they are challenging a lady to a duel, which breaks every code of behavior in the world of dueling." The lyrics imply the eponymous madam is a CombatPragmatist.

** "[[Music/{{Nanobots}} Tesla]]" is a somber tune about Nikola Tesla, noting all the inventions he created and discoveries he found, while almost mourning the circumstances of his death.

** "[[Music/Nanobots Tesla]]" is a somber tune about Nikola Tesla, noting all the inventions he created and discoveries he found, while almost mourning the circumstances of his death.

* DarkCabaret: They sometimes dabble in the genre, for example their songs on the {{esternAnimation/Coraline}} soundtrack.

''Music/HereComeTheABCs'' (2005)

* ''Here Come the [=ABCs=]'' (2005)

* {{Balloonacy}}: The ending of the second version of "LMNO" has kids holding balloons with letters on them. Some of them would float away.

* {{Bowdlerise}}: "Here Come the ABCs" is already made for kids, but two of the music videos were altered for the Playhouse Disney/Disney Junior airings and the DVD/CD combo released through online retailers later in 2005.
** "Alphabet Lost and Found" would flash a solid color background when the song goes "Where they gonna go without their letters?". During that part, the background would rapidly flash every two seconds a solid color background that matches the missing letter (eg, "A" is blue, so a blue background would flash). This was altered on just the background being solid black with the letters being the only ones to change color to reduce seizures.
** "LMNO" originally ended with a kid spray painting graffiti on the wall. This was changed to kids holding balloons, possibly because Disney did not want to encourage vandalism with graffiti.

* EpilepticFlashingLights: The music video "Alphabet Lost and Found" uses a similar technique during the parts where the lyrics go "Where they gonna go without their letters?". During that part, the background would rapidly flash every second a solid color background that matches the missing letter (eg, "A" is blue, so a blue background would flash). When "Here Come the ABCs" got released through a CD/DVD combo through Amazon, they removed this to reduce seizures.

* ''Music/HereComeTheABCs'' (2005)

* ''Here Come the [=ABCs=]'' (2005)

* {{Bowdlerise}}:
** "Here Come the ABCs" is already made for kids, but two of the music videos were altered for the Playhouse Disney/Disney Junior airings and the DVD/CD combo released through online retailers later in 2005.

* {{Bowdlerise}]}:

* ManOnFire: "You're On Fire", which also counts as SpontaneousHumanCombustion (see below).

* ThoseWackyNazis: PlayedForHorror on "If Day for Winnipeg," based on a simulated Nazi rade used to sell Canadian war bonds.