Grow the nanobots up
Grow them in the cracks in the sidewalk
Grow them in the cracks in the sidewalk
Hi, I forgot your name
Whatever
My point is
Hi, your head's on fire
Whatever
My point is
Hi, your head's on fire
"You're On Fire"
Nanobots is the sixteenth studio album by They Might Be Giants, released in March 2013. It was preceded by an advance digital EP released earlier that same year, featuring three songs from the album. Flansburgh described the album as "mostly combos/spare arrangements a la Join Us", and features more musical experimentation.
The elaborate cover art was designed by Paul Sahre, and features a series of collages by artist Sam Weber.
Tracklist
- You're On Fire (2:42)
- Nanobots (2:46)
- Black Ops (3:11)
- Lost My Mind (2:50)
- Circular Karate Chop (2:56)
- Call You Mom (3:07)
- Tesla (2:04)
- Sleep (0:42)
- Stone Cold Coup D'État (2:57)
- Sometimes A Lonely Way (2:40)
- Destory The Past (0:15)
- 9 Secret Steps (1:56)
- Hive Mind (0:06)
- Decision Makers (0:15)
- Nouns (0:17)
- There (0:09)
- Insect Hospital (1:30)
- Tick (0:11)
- Replicant (2:55)
- The Darlings of Lumberland (3:21)
- Great (0:52)
- Stuff Is Way (1:37)
- Icky (2:32)
- Too Tall Girl (2:34)
- Didn't Kill Me (0:24)
Black Ops, Black Ops, Dropping Tropes From the Helicopter:
- Adults Dressed as Children: The narrator of "Call You Mom" wants to hit the town dressed in his "sailor suit", which rather understandably unnerves his girlfriend.
- Buffy Speak: "Stuff Is Way" is composed entirely of deadpan Word Salad Lyrics featuring lines like "Did you just what? / Is what you yes? / Did you whatever, whatever you / I guess?"
- Celebrity Song: "Tesla" is a song about inventor Nikola Tesla, some of the inventions he brought into the world, and his death.
- Faux-To Guide: "9 Secret Steps" is a parody of "steps to success" self-help books, except here the steps are about dealing with and letting go of your failed dreams and ambitions.Nine secret steps
To the key to the door that you'll
Throw in the well and let go
Of all your thwarted dreams
And visions of success - Grey Goo: The music video for "Nanobots" features the eponymous nanobots going rogue and turning everything on Earth into more of themselves.
- Kill and Replace: Implied in "Replicant", which seems to be about the narrator helping an ambiguously robotic replicant cover up the murder of the replicant's doppelganger.
- Literal Metaphor:
- "Lost My Mind" implies that the narrator has literally lost his mind, which is wandering the world and "Terrorizing villages / With intelligent remarks".
- "'Cause we are, like, literally, literally walking down to the insect hospital to set the insects free."
- Location Song: "The Darlings of Lumberland". Lumberland is an actual small town in the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York, and Flansburgh says that Darling was the actual surname of one of the founding families of the area.
- Miniscule Rocking: This album features some particularly extreme examples, as there are a number of tracks under a minute in length, with "Hive Mind" and "There" being less than ten seconds long. This naturally led to comparisons to "Fingertips" from Apollo 18 (especially the section from "Hive Mind" to "Tick", which the band itself seemed to regard as a mini-suite, releasing a video for it).
- Missing Mom: "Call You Mom" suggests his mother mysteriously disappearing from his life is the source of the narrator's Oedipus Complex.I turn around and find that you are gone
Which was exactly like my mom
And I will go hang up my sailor suit
And lie face down on the lawn - Nanomachines: The title track "Nanobots" is about scientists creating and training tiny, highly intelligent robots.
- Shout-Out: "Nanobots" features the line "All I see is pictures of matchstick men", a nod to "Pictures of Matchstick Men" by Status Quo.
- Spontaneous Combustion: "You're On Fire"Oh damn, you must've got one of them
Combustible heads, I read an article all about them - Uptown Girl: "Too Tall Girl" is about a guy falling for a fashionable, eccentric woman who is clearly out of his league.
