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

https://i.imgur.com/e5N49Ze.jpg

Twenty balloteers (eventually) voted for 228 songs, out of 431 eligible.

The lowest scoring song was Mas Fun (a one-minute instrumental used in a Malcom In The Middle episode), on 5 points. The lowest-scoring song with more than one vote was Mono Puff's It's Fun To Steal, with 17 points.
There were more State Song partisans than Puff patriots. The Otis Ball song that They both sang BVs on received a single vote, and was the only voted-on outside project never to be co-opted under the TMBG banner. (I think.)

Seven voters also included albums, but I'm guessing five of them didn't read the eligibility list. The album results:

9 Mink Car
8 No!
7 John Henry
6 Factory Showroom
5 Miscellaneous T / Then: The Earlier Years / etc
4 the 1985 self-titled cassette
3 Apollo 18
2 Lincoln
1 Flood

and now for the songs:

77: Snail Shell
337 points, 5 votes

single, 1994:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDnWiLw5QtQ

Snail Dust remix by the Dust Brothers

woohoo!

"Snail Shell" is a tough one for me. sorta everything that doesn't work about the John Henry sound and what i imagine was someone's idea about them competing in an alt-rock market as the funny/quirky sideshow, the way Presidents of the United States of America ended up doing the following year. John L's delivery (SIR HAND!) still sells something to me, and the stop-start quality of the chorus, slap bass or no, makes it feel more of a piece with their earlier material. it could fit in on apollo 18 more than a lot of these tracks, and i did vote for it low on my ballot. the biggest problem i have with it is that it sorta wears out its welcome at 3:30 since there's only two verses and neither has too much going on.

that remix is pretty excellent though

76: For Science
347 points, 5 votes

b-side on Hotel Detective EP, 1988

wrong link

haven't listened to "snail dust" in ages and ages. i definitely owned back to skull at one point. but it's interesting to listen to it now, feels like even more of a period piece than the main mix, but i like it for ejecting the song from the arrangement. i really don't want to come off like a knee-jerk hater of the full-band john henry incarnation but some of the recordings on that are just so so boringly straightforward. and what makes the earlier albums so exciting is how unpredictable the sounds are both between tracks and within single tracks - you'd get to the chorus or the bridge and a whole new sound explodes out of the mix, suddenly it's a marimba-led band with a barrage of staccato guitar notes cascading through, then it all disappears on cue when the verse comes around again. rhythmic change-ups too, all the stop-start moves. the joys of the MIDI method. maybe more present in linnell's songs than in flans's given the latter's stronger interest in pop and rock genre work.

idk, some scattered thoughts but i've been thinking about this a ton as i've been listening to my ballot-as-playlist, imagining it all being released in instrumental versions. boy that'd be great. though i was surprised to realize how much of apollo 18 was already more "live" feeling. i mean i'm sure they just felt they'd done as much as they could with their existing tools and all the tech meltdowns and frustrations would drive anybody mad.... but they were just never quite the same band again, even if they got more comfortable playing with the larger group and found ways to do more interesting things with it.

For Science correct link!

i used to love "For Science" as one of several little oddities filling out Miscellaneous T. not a track i'd actively seek out or put on but a revealing curio. the 50s b-movie vibe and the pompous speaker remind me tremendously of MST3K (and especially Tom Servo), which debuted on local TV the same year this single dropped. not to say there's any direct connection, but joel hodgson and the johns were all born within one year's time and i think there's some shared gen-x sensibility in how they approach these inherited boomer materials as well as the DIY low-tech hi-tech approach and some other preoccupations (the number of robot doubles and B-horror scenarios suggested in the johns' lyrics having already been noted).

75: How Can I Sing Like A Girl?
350 points, 6 votes

from Factory Showroom album, 1996

live on The Spud Goodman show c. 1996

Right after voting I realized that I had accidentally put "For Science" probably way too high on my ballot (#30 or so I think) but I decided not to email a correction because it's a pretty nice bit of silliness.

As for the albums, Apollo 18 never really clicked for me and I like Lincoln best but "Flood" is for sure Flans's best album.

both of those Spud live versions are better that the album versions imo

How Can I Sing Like a Girl? is about trying to hit the high note on "Hotel Detective", right? thought I'd hear that at some point.

"Snail Shell" was the lead single from John Henry, right? To me this is a misfire from an album I basically like. Such a self-conscious "we rock now" move. Per Setlist they haven't played this live since 2011.

Can't hear "How Can I Sing Like A Girl?" without mentally interposing backing vocals from Cars "My Best Friend's Girlfriend"

I don't personally care for "Snail Shell" or "How Do I Sing Like a Girl?" but I'm sure I voted for plenty of BS that others in this thread will be amazed anyone voted for.

yeah idk what they were thinking making that the leadoff single. so many better songs on that album.

I take it as a kind of new-sound mission statement, the "How The West Was Won And Where It Got Us" of live-band-TMBG

Seventy-four: 32 Footsteps
353 points, 5 votes

on They Might Be Giants cassette 1985, The Pink Album 1986

"Subliminal" does that really well though

I petered out my ballot at 65-70 (the ones I identified as true favorites on a first pass) or so rather than fill out the remaining 30-35 songs with a random assortment of TMBG songs I like. "32 Footsteps" is one of those that probably could have filled out the rest of my ballot.

73: Hide Away Folk Family
359 points, 6 votes

on The Pink Album, 1986

live on Joy Farm c. 1987:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-3sIJ_N3mw

D'oh:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uo_AmcFcJCY

i voted for "32 footsteps" much higher than i would have thought, now that i look at my ballot it could have easily ended up in the lower mush of songs i basically like but don't have much to say about. typically for the pink album, i like how much it packs into a minute and a half. the ping-pang-pingalong vocals are fun. i remember a fun interpretation on usenet or tmbg.org where someone argued this was about a guy who was supposed to meet back up with his girl in one month (31 days) but screws it up by counting to 32 (29? NO! 30? NO! etc...) and is left lonely and wondering what went wrong. sort of a "havana moon" thing. "thirty-two lies my ears never saw when the floorboards gave way" is one of those archetypal early TMBG lyrics in that it's riiiiight on the edge of being too cutesily-clever for its own good but gets by on the momentum of the piece.

"how can i sing like a girl" otoh is terrible imo, my least favorite kind of midtempo flans song that earnestly hopes to join the new indie-pop canon without enough hooks or energy to make that happen. and it's four and a half minutes long! with no new musical ideas after the first like thirty seconds (barring an attempt at a psych-era Beatles ending, which he'd already done better on "See The Constellation").

^ stop stigmatising him!

I feel like the tune of 'For Science' is similar to 'Birthday Girl' by Microdisney, the "flowers die and so will I"/"people die, so will I" are too similar for it just to be a coincidence?

72: Road Movie To Berlin
370 points, 7 votes

on Flood LP, 1990
covered by Frank Black c. 2006

everything's had 5-7 votes so far, I wonder if we'll start to see more variation as people's idiosyncratic faves start to kick in

oh yay the first one i voted for. i still get surprised by the synth freakout when it comes in. it's such a nice traditional country song before then haha

also, this is one of my favorites of their stanzas:

We were once so close to heaven
Peter came out and gave us medals
Declaring us the nicest of the damned

yeah i love the lyrics on "road movie," especially that stanza. but oddly it's "time won't find the lost / it'll sweep up our skeleton bones" that pops into my mind the most. see, i don't just hate flans!

i was watching the berlin-obsessed wings of desire (1987) the other day and noticed ROAD MOVIES FILMPRODUKTION in the credits. could easily imagine that sparking something with these guys.

also now i really wanna see the nick cave concert scenes dubbed over with this song, could be great

71: Weep Day
374 points, 6 votes

a Dial-A-Song c. 1984, released on Then, 1997
1983 demo version

yesssssss

"samba time for Tambo and weep day for Urine Man" is such a great dumb inside-joke starting point for a lyric. and then it ends up with these weird little philosophy-101 reflections on the nonexistence of simultaneity. great.

also, shout out to sic for picking a great thread title. there were a billion options, but this feels like the right one.

yeah I'd like to think TMBW.net for explaining that one

I cant imagine anyone getting that when they actually hear the song

now that I'm reading the lyrics...a lot of the lines from Lincoln sorta originated here right? "Every man is made of two opinions/Every woman has a second half"

I know WFMU was regularly playing stuff by these guys no later than 1985; I first saw them in '87 at the Loop Lounge, Passaic NJ.

Was a huge fan at least up through Apollo 18, but i didn't vote.

I guess I've heard this song before, since I own "Then" but I have no memory or knowledge of it whatsoever.

first one I don't know, I'll bet there'll be more

ooh i like that reading of lincoln. i think i got "tambo-urine man" from the then liner notes back in the day.

one bummer of the ballot-playlist system for me: the then bonus stuff is not on spotify (though miscellaneous t is and covers most of the essentials). other big missing links: "sensurround," "mrs. train," and the unhelpfully-titled sequel song "she was a hotel detective."

"And it wasn't me you punched a hole in
At the west German protest march"

yeah this is very purple toupee somehow

also, shout out to sic for picking a great thread title. there were a billion options, but this feels like the right one.

thanks! the voting thread title was better, but the future tense needed to be used there. obvs there were loads of great options like Birdhouse In My Poll and I Polindrome I, but this had a definitive tone to it.

Morbs: some WFMU-exclusive versions coming up as links (and back in the voting thread)

DC: do you know there is now a trilogy song called She Was A Hotel Detective In The Future?

missed opportunity to call it (She Will Have Been A) Hotel Detective

70: Turn Around
378 points, 6 votes

on Apollo 18 album, 1992

Forgot to say -- thanks so much for running this, sic, it has been great to spend a few weeks immersed in this great music with all you guys!

Cheers, all!

indeed...its been really fun to read the discussion here (especially from you Doc Casino) and I'm glad so many people here appreciate this group

i am still trying to process Doc Casino's objections to the Longines Symphonette mention in "Birdhouse" but will have to take it up with him when next we meet.

Yes, the many 3+am nights I put in doing pointless prep for this piddly poll were justified in giving Doc Casino an excuse to post this week.

than Weird Al and those porky Canadians

...Corky & the Juice Pigs?

Barenaked Ladies I Think

objections to the Longines Symphonette mention

things you were completely reasonably old when you learned

sic's poll, and the ballots massive, far outstrip any of my dumb rambling posts! assuming y'all aren't being facetious. great thread imo.

"longines" line just seems idk out of character for the night light and the song, like it's this super obscure reference to provide a rhyme to "my story's infinite" and a setup to "it doesn't rest," neither of which realllly tells us much more about the character or the situation. like it just feels closer to try-hard clever kid territory, for me anyway.

What's kind of amazing about TMBG is how seldom they fall into try-hard clever kid territory, given what they're trying to do.

otm

definitely.

Hey (sic), give us the full list when you get a chance!

nah, it's all 1-vote and 2-vote songs from there, except Birds Fly with three votes and 92 points

No, I mean the top 77--we need a summary list.

oh yeah!

1 Ana Ng 1786 points, 20 votes , 3 #1s
2 Don't Let's Start 1677 points, 19 votes
3 Birdhouse In Your Soul 1537 points, 17 votes , 1 #1
4 They'll Need A Crane 1524 points, 18 votes
5 She's An Angel 1426 points, 17 votes , 2 #1s
6 We Want A Rock 1282 points, 16 votes , 1 #1
7 Where Your Eyes Don't Go 1205 points, 17 votes
8 Purple Toupee 1204 points, 16 votes
9 Put Your Hand Inside The Puppet Head 1132 points, 15 votes , 1 #1
10 Dead 1026 points, 12 votes
11 Twisting 1014 points, 14 votes
12 Kiss Me, Son Of God 994 points, 13 votes , 2 #1s
13 Doctor Worm 971 points, 12 votes , 1 #1
14 Nightgown Of The Sullen Moon 934 points, 12 votes , 1 #1
15 Particle Man 930 points, 12 votes , 1 #1
16 Whistling In The Dark 902 points, 13 votes
17 Till My Head Falls Off 898 points, 11 votes , 2 #1s
18 Fingertips 865 points, 11 votes
19 I Palindrome I 806 points, 12 votes
20 Snowball In Hell 797 points, 11 votes
21 Rhythm Section Want Ad 784 points, 10 votes
22 Your Racist Friend 772 points, 10 votes
22a It's Not My Birthday 759 points, 10 votes
23 Narrow Your Eyes 751 points, 11 votes
24 Istanbul (Not Constantinople) 743 points, 10 votes
25 Everything Right Is Wrong Again 708 points, 10 votes
26 Spiraling Shape 695 points, 10 votes
27 The Statue Got Me High 694 points, 11 votes
27a I've Got A Match 688 points, 9 votes
28 Mammal 682 points, 11 votes
29 Destination Moon 676 points, 8 votes
30 The World's Address 654 points, 10 votes
31 Someone Keeps Moving My Chair 645 points, 10 votes
32 Minimum Wage 639 points, 11 votes
34 Number Three 616 points, 8 votes
35 Cowtown 592 points, 9 votes
36 The Bells Are Ringing 571 points, 8 votes
37 James K. Polk 571 points, 9 votes
38 Man It's So Loud In Here 565 points, 9 votes
39 Boat Of Car 565 points, 8 votes , 1 #1
40 Meet James Ensor 558 points, 10 votes
41 Youth Culture Killed My Dog 557 points, 9 votes
42 No One Knows My Plan 551 points, 8 votes
43 New York City 547 points, 8 votes
44 Which Describes How You're Feeling 544 points, 8 votes
46 Sensurround 541 points, 7 votes
47 See The Constellation 541 points, 9 votes
48 Letterbox 540 points, 9 votes
49 Mr. Me 535 points, 8 votes , 1 #1
50 Dinner Bell 515 points, 8 votes
51 Nothing's Gonna Change My Clothes 513 points, 10 votes
52 Boss Of Me 513 points, 7 votes
53 Hey, Mr. DJ, I Thought You Said We Had A Deal 510 points, 7 votes
54 Metal Detector 495 points, 9 votes , 1 #1
55 They Might Be Giants 473 points, 8 votes
56 Older 469 points, 8 votes
57 Women & Men 468 points, 8 votes
58 Lucky Ball & Chain 463 points, 8 votes
59 The End Of The Tour 456 points, 6 votes
60 Subliminal 456 points, 10 votes
61 The Famous Polka 453 points, 8 votes
62 Shoehorn With Teeth 447 points, 9 votes
63 My Evil Twin 447 points, 8 votes
64 Why Does The Sun Shine? 446 points, 7 votes
65 Sleeping in the Flowers 443 points, 8 votes
65a Hope That I Get Old Before I Die 441 points, 9 votes
66 South Carolina 431 points, 6 votes
67 I Should Be Allowed To Think 429 points, 7 votes
68 A Self Called Nowhere 416 points, 6 votes , 1 #1
69 Piece Of Dirt 406 points, 9 votes
70 Turn Around 378 points, 6 votes
71 Weep Day 374 points, 6 votes
72 Road Movie To Berlin 370 points, 7 votes
73 Hide Away Folk Family 359 points, 6 votes
74 32 Footsteps 353 points, 5 votes
75 How Can I Sing Like A Girl? 350 points, 6 votes
76 For Science 347 points, 5 votes
77 Snail Shell 337 points, 5 votes

South Carolina beating out Montana and Maine as the top-ranked State Song is a travesty.

Are you gonna say they’re great?

is that a lyrical reference i'm not getting?

I'm not gonna say you ain't

Don't blame me I had "Montana" in my top 10 (but then again maybe you should blame me for having "South Carolina" in my top 25)

The highest placing post-"Flood" song being at #17 is harsh but fair.

― justfanoe (Greg Fanoe), Monday, October 29, 2018 4:08 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"Doctor Worm" is post-Flood isn't it?

Whoops, forgot about that one.

Don't blame me I had "Montana" in my top 10 (but then again maybe you should blame me for having "South Carolina" in my top 25)

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Wednesday, October 31, 2018 5:30 AM (three hours ago)

you can definitely blame me since i didn't submit a ballot. kept meaning to...

You can blame me 'cause South Carolina was my #4

My ballot (songs that didn't place bolded)

1 - Ana Ng
2 - Particle Man
3 - Birdhouse in Your Soul
4 - South Carolina
5 - 32 Footsteps
6 - Don't Let's Start
7 - Destination Moon
8 - It's Not My Birthday
9 - Number Three
10 - Hope That I Get Old Before I Die
11 - I Palindrome I
12 - Istanbul (Not Constantinople)
13 - Cowtown
14 - Letterbox
15 - Sensurround
16 - Nothing's Gonna Change My Clothes
17 - No One Knows My Plan
18 - Hot Cha
19 - Turn Around
20 - Purple Toupee
21 - Dinner Bell
22 - Cage & Aquarium
23 - They Might Be Giants
24 - See the Constellation
25 - For Science
26 - Spy ('Why Does the Sun Shine?' EP version)
27 - Boss of Me
28 - The Famous Polka
29 - Nightgown of the Sullen Moon
29 - Minimum Wage
30 - Shoehorn with Teeth
31 - Someone Keeps Moving My Chair
32 - Dig My Grave
33 - Put Your Hand Inside the Puppet Head
34 - A Self Called Nowhere
35 - Boat of Car
36 - When It Rains It Snows
37 - Mammal
38 - She Was a Hotel Detective ('Back to Skull' EP)
40 - Spider
41 - Twisting
42 - Mr. Me
43 - Kiss Me, Son of God ('Miscellaneous T' version)
44 - Mink Car
45 - Rhythm Section Want Ad
46 - She Thinks She's Edith Head ('Mink Car' version)
47 - She's an Angel
48 - We Want a Rock
49 - Maine
50 - Meet James Ensor
51 - Hypnotist of Ladies
52 - Subliminal
53 - Snowball in Hell
54 - O, Do Not Forsake Me
55 - Stand on Your Own Head
56 - Why Does the Sun Shine? ('Severe Tire Damage' version)
57 - Cyclops Rock
58 - Unsupervised, I Hit My Head
59 - They'll Need a Crane
60 - Sleeping In the Flowers
61 - Hall of Heads
62 - We're the Replacements
63 - Yeh Yeh
64 - The Biggest One
65 - Ondine
66 - Become a Robot
67 - Thermostat
68 - Your Racist Friend
69 - Theme from Flood
70 - West Virginia
71 - Doctor Worm
72 - The Statue Got Me High
73 - Older ('Malcolm in the Middle' soundtrack version)
74 - Youth Culture Killed My Dog
75 - Where Your Eyes Don't Go

Out of curiosity, how many songs per album made my list?

(# of songs from album / # of contemporaneous non-LP cuts & side projects)
They Might Be Giants – 10/5
Lincoln – 10/4
Flood – 12/0
Apollo 18 – 10/0
John Henry – 8/6
Factory Showroom – 0/2
Severe Tire Damage – 2/0
Mink Car – 4/2
No! - 0/0 (I forgot to relisten to this before voting)

I've had "Mink Car" stuck in my head ever since we did this poll.

You've been hit by a mink car
It's all in your head

I just really like the weird way the words fall in the rhythm of the line

i genuinely prefer the last 21 years to the first 21 years. i would be extremely interested in a relevant poll

this idea sponsored by me listening to My Murdered Remains repeatedly this morning and just shaking my head at how great it is

also sponsored by my firm belief, created by listening to all their albums in chronological order, that The Else was the point where they became a great band. rogue opinion sure but I will defend it in court sir

now if you'll excuse me I need to listen to Tractor for the literally 12th time today

I tried to get back on the TMBG train with Book, and it did nothing for me. Sure is pretty though.

this might be a 'guy who has only seen Boss Baby getting a lot of Boss Baby vibes from his second movie' thing, but I listened to some Lana Del Rey for the first time recently and it reminded me of TMBG in a weird way - preoccupation with death and dissociation and mid 20th century Americana, some other stuff that I struggle to identify. I need someone to write a comparative study of Lana and TMBG.

“Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd“ could be a TMBG lyric

also sponsored by my firm belief, created by listening to all their albums in chronological order, that The Else was the point where they became a great band. rogue opinion sure but I will defend it in court sir

― imago, Wednesday, January 24, 2024 5:52 AM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

as someone who saw the band live three times on this tour - they definitely sounded a lot tighter and more like a classic power-pop around that era, in fact I do remember thinking that they sounded better than they did on any of the full band live recordings I had, which often felt just a little off-time or out of tune somehow. the early shows they did with the DAT machine were totally classic though.

I will always have a soft spot for those first 6 albums but yeah I way more often reach for the "newer" ones (anything from The Else on). could be that I'm just burned out on the old ones which I listened to constantly as a teenager but I do think as songwriters they've remained incredibly clever. also these albums feel a lot more solid, TMBG's whole thing back in the day was each album had 19 songs but like 5-7 of them were kind of throwaways

What album was the cut-off point for this poll?

Reading this reminded me of something neat. A couple years ago I went to see a band that had a friend of a friend in it. They played on a pirate ship here in London and as soon as they started I was like ok someone really likes tmbg. After the set I asked who the big fan was. Turned out to be the lead singer who was from Norwalk CT anyway yadda yadda yadda she and I had been at the same TMBG show in said CT town something nuts like 27 years ago.

xp It went up through "No" (2002)

My first real Rock n' roll gig was seeing TMBG in 1990 at Toad's Place. It was a 21 and over show, but the doorman let me in anyway. Probably helped that my dad was with me. Flood had been out for a couple months, but there was not a big turnout.

a poll from The Spine on would be pretty interesting if enough people vote. according to TMBW the 10 best post-2002 songs are:

Lets Get This Over With
Erase
Brontosaurus
Unpronounceable
Mrs. Bluebeard
When Will You Die?
Can't Keep Johnny Down
Museum of Idiots
ECNALUBMA
I Love You For Psychological Reasons

Could go for a comp covering "Join Us" onwards. Looking at their discography, it looks like "Up To Date" and "Modern" are collections covering that stuff?

Up to Date seems okay, dunno wtf is going on with Modern

can and will come up with ten songs that absolutely smoke those ones xxp

here I put together an hours worth of TMBG from 2010 on, imo this is a lot of the best stuff

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7abcwqaZlDgULGKj6PsRBu

okay good, stone cold coup d'etat and i'll be haunting you are on there...

and some other good choices fine

tractor and like 5 other insane bangers off mmr safe from the spotify claw alas

I had to make a lot of cuts to get it to an hour, mostly taking out some similar-sounding stuff

I can't tell you how often "No one in the world ever gets what they want, and that is beautiful. Everybody dies frustrated and sad, and that is beautiful" pops into my head. One of the all-time great lyrics.

Xposts - Toad's place! I am not from CT but my best friend growing up was so I've been to a bunch of shows there. This was at The Globe in Norwalk.