Music / They Might Be Giants (Album)

"If there's a knock at the door, boy, forget about it!"

"No others need apply
To the rhythm section want ad
And here's the reason why"

—Rhythm Section Want Ad

They Might Be Giants is the official debut album of They Might Be Giants and was released in 1986 on the Brooklyn label Bar/None A number of the songs have remained among the band's most popular. These include "Don't Let's Start" and "Put Your Hand Inside the Puppet Head". The album spawned two singles: the aforementioned "Don't Let's Start" and "(She Was A) Hotel Detective".

Tracklist

Side One

1. "Everything Right Is Wrong Again" - (2:20)
2. "Put Your Hand Inside the Puppet Head" - (2:12)
3. "Number Three" - (1:27)
4. "Don't Let's Start" - (2:36)
5. "Hide Away Folk Family" - (3:21)
6. "32 Footsteps" - (1:36)
7. "Toddler Hiway" - (0:25)
8. "Rabid Child" - (1:31)
9. "Nothing's Gonna Change My Clothes" - (1:58)

Side Two

1. "(She Was A) Hotel Detective" - (2:10)
2. "She's An Angel" - (2:37)
3. "Youth Culture Killed My Dog" - (2:51)
4. "Boat of Car" - (1:15)
5. "Absolutely Bill's Mood" - (2:38)
6. "Chess Piece Face" - (1:21)
7. "I Hope That I Get Old Before I Die" - (1:58)
8. "Alienation's for the Rich" - (2:25)
9. "The Day" - (1:27)
10. "Rhythm Section Want Ad" - (2:21)

Do the dumb tropes I gotta do:

• Badass Boast/Take That, Critics!: "Rhythm Section Want Ad" mocks some of the pettier criticisms the band received—not least of which that they were incomplete without a drummer or a bassist.
• Bad Boss: Played with on "Put Your Hand Inside the Puppet Head":
  Ads up in the subway are the work of someone
  Trying to please their boss
  And though the guy's a pig we all know what he wants
  Is just to please somebody else.
• Biting-the-Hand Humor: "Rhythm Section Want Ad" takes some pretty broad shots at the music industry. According to notes from Then: The Earlier Years, one specific example is the Johns hearing one well-meaning but clueless would-be manager say "You guys must be into The Eurythmics."
• Careful with That Axe: Flansburgh lets out a loud scream at the end of "No One's Gonna Change My Clothes".
• Conlang: "Alienation's for the Rich" complains that "The TV is in Esperanto, you know that that's a bitch."
• Design Student's Orgasm: The marvelous cover, illustrated by Rodney Greenblat of Parappa The Rapper fame In the Style of Little Golden Books. It depicts a parade of animals and (usually) inanimate objects (with the Johns featured riding the giant blue dog).
• Divine Date: "She's an Angel" looks at the joys and perils of dating an actual angel.
  I found out she's an angel
  I don't think she knows I know
  I'm worried that something might happen to me
  If anyone ever finds out.
• Grief Song: Significantly, both of the musicians at the center of "The Day" suffered violent deaths. Phil Ochs hanged himself after a long alcoholic slide; Marvin Gaye was fatally shot by his father the day before his 45th birthday.
• Kick the Dog: "Youth Culture Killed My Dog".
• Last Note Nightmare:
  • "Hide Away Folk Family" ends with ominous-sounding "fake backwards singing".
  • "Nothing's Gonna Change My Clothes" ends with a deranged scream.
• Lyrical Dissonance:
  • "Hide Away Folk Family", a (mostly) serene country-esque ballad with a gorgeous synth-line about a family trying to escape from someone plotting against them ("Hide away, folk family / Or else someone's gonna get ya").
  • "I Hope That I Get Old Before I Die" is a bouncy polka song with wacky, discordant instrumentals that's about struggling with the fear of one's mortality.
    Oh, it's a long, long rope
    They use to hang you soon, I hope
    And I wonder why this hasn't happened
    Why, why, why
    And I think about the dirt
    That I'll be wearing for a shirt
    And I hope that I get old before I die
  • The chipper "Don't Let's Start" includes these lines:
    No one in the world ever gets what they want and that is beautiful
    Everybody dies frustrated and sad and that is beautiful
• Miniscule Rocking: Several songs are between one and two minutes. "Toddler Hiway" is under half a minute (though later live performances of it have added an extra introductory verse).
• Motor Mouth: On the first pre-chorus of "Rhythm Section Want Ad," the following takes up only two lines:
  So if you like a band with a chick singer, say your cup of tea is a wall full of trombones
  If you dig Menudo or MDC, we salute you the way you know
• Nightmare Face: "Chess Piece Face" is about severely disfigured man that Flansburgh used to work with at a publishing company.
• New Media Are Evil: "Youth Culture Killed My Dog" can be interpreted as being about this.
• Non-Appearing Title: "Absolutely Bill's Mood", which parodies Bob Dylan's use of this trope, including his habit of placing adverbs at the beginnings of titles.
• One-Man Song: "Chess Piece Face". Well, a "he" anyway.
• One-Woman Song: "(She Was A) Hotel Detective".
• Plunger Detonator: In the "Don't Let's Start" video, Linnell uses one to blow up his accordion.
• Power Ballad: "She's an Angel" might qualify. Linnell has even called it a Power Ballad in concerts.
• Rapid-Fire "No!": In "Rhythm Section Want Ad", as Linnell sings the pre-chorus segment, Flansburgh repeatedly chants "No, no, no no!" in the background.
• Rule of Three: "Number Three" is all about this:
  • The song itself is about itself being the third song the speaker wrote.
  • It contains all three three-line rhyme schemes.
  • The vocals are a three-part harmony.
  • It's the third song.
  • The band claims it's the third song they learned to play.
  • At the end of the song, the saxophone hook (taken from a 45 rpm record played at 33 1/3 rpm) repeats three times.
• Sampling: "Number Three" samples a sped up loop of "Skinny Lena" by Lou Monte in between verses. "Boat of Car" samples Johnny Cash's "Daddy Sang Bass" during the intro.
• Sanity Slippage Song: "Absolutely Bill's Mood" is about a man who's been committed to an insane asylum because he's Hearing Voices.
• Scenery Gorn: "Put Your Hand Inside The Puppet Head" was shot in a vacant next to a power plant, off the East River in Brooklyn.
• Self-Deprecation: "Rhythm Section Want Ad" is a bit of self ribbing, as it described the "two guys and a drum machine" setup that John and John had back then. That said, much more of the song is about how much the behind-the-scenes people in the music industry suck.
• Self-Referential Track Placement: The third track is titled "Number Three", which lampshades the number by claiming to be the third song written by the narrator.
• Self-Titled Album: Named after the band.
• Shout-Out:
  • "The Day" is basically Marvin Gaye/Phil Ochs slash.
  • "Everything Right Is Wrong Again" mentions The Long Long Trailer, a comedy starring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.
  • "Rhythm Section Want Ad" name-drops Menudo and MDC, and includes the lyrics "Do you sing like Olive Oyl on purpose? / You guys must be into the Eurythmics". Also, the bridge is based on Raymond Scott's "Powerhouse".
  • "I Hope That I Get Old Before I Die" is an inversion of the line "hope I die before I grow old" from The Who's "My Generation".
  • "Nothing's Gonna Change My Clothes" is likely a reference to "Nothin's gonna change my world" from The Beatles song "Across The Universe".
  • "Youth Culture Killed My Dog" reference Burt Bacharach and his frequent songwriting collaborator Hal David.
  • "Rabid Child" is sort of a surreal satire of Red Sovine's 1976 Country Music tune "Teddy Bear" (about a wheelchair-bound boy who talks to truckers on his CB radio).
• Spelling Song: From "Don't Let's Start":
  D, world destruction
  O-ver and overture
  N do I need
  Apostrophe T, need this torture.
• Stop and Go: "The Day" briefly pauses before the verse is repeated.
• This Is a Song: "Number Three", which purports to be the third of "only two songs in me".
• This Song Goes Out to TV Tropes: "Alienation's For the Rich" opens with "This song is dedicated to all you modern day troubadours out there, and I think I know who you are."
• Title by Number: The third track is titled "Number Three."
• Undercrank: Most of the video of "Don't Let's Start" is shot at half-speed.
• Wild Child: "Rabid Child" is an eerie song about an isolated little girl who communicates with the outside world only through CB radio exchanges with truckers.
• Word Salad Lyrics: "32 Footsteps"
  32 lies my ears never saw when the floorboards gave way
  32 walls come tumbling down and the night turns to day
  32 infantrymen running in place
  32 boxcars, all of them have your face

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