60 Songs That Explain the '90s - “Birdhouse in Your Soul”—They Might Be Giants

Episode Date: July 19, 2023

In a very special 100th episode, Rob looks back at the records his parents played downstairs when he was supposed to be sleeping. Oh, and of course he dedicates a significant amount of time praising the band that unlocked 90 percent of his then-12-year-old identity, They Might Be Giants. Later, rapper and host of ‘What Had Happened Was,’ Open Mike Eagle, joins Rob to discuss his shared love for They Might Be Giants and how “Birdhouse in Your Soul” forever changed his perception of music at a young age. Host: Rob Harvilla Guest: Open Mike Eagle Producers: Jonathan Kermah and Justin Sayles Additional Production Support: Chloe Clark Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I had to come home when all the streetlights came on. That was my curfew. Robbie, when all the streetlights come on, ride your bike home. Okay, that was the deal. So in the evening, I'd hang out under the one streetlight in our neighborhood that never came on because the bulb had burned out, right? Just a brilliant curfew flouting loophole. I constructed for myself when I was like seven. We lived in Eureka, Missouri.

It's a half hour outside St. Louis. It's the Burbs. Early to mid-80s. My first conscious memory, I'm three years old. I'm toddling around in our backyard. I remember the grass brushing against my ankles. I remember the shakiness, the shakiness of the camera in this memory. The wobbliness of my toddling as I stumbled down the little hill in our backyard.

No sound in this memory. Pretty much my first and last memory, not dominated by sound. I can still hear our air conditioner whooshing on in the unreasonable summer heat. I can still hear the crickets at night. I can still hear my mom yelping and surprise the day a bunch of horses escaped from a ranch nearby. My mom opened up her bedroom window shade and there was a horse standing there in our backyard, chewing on our grass and staring at her like Mr. Ed. I can still hear all the ambient sounds of Little League baseball.

I can still hear myself chewing. Big League chew. Eureka was two miles from an even smaller town called Times Beach, Missouri, where someone mistakenly sprayed all the roads with a super toxic dioxin. And then when the town partially flooded in 82, the dioxin spread everywhere. And Times Beach had to be evacuated and abandoned forever and declared a super fun site. And I can still hear nobody talking about it. I can still hear the choruses to ten different jobs. John Cougar Mellencamp songs about living in a small town playing simultaneously.

Is this America? Ain't this America? I can still hear the rad eight-bit superhero intro music when you first materialize on the hostile alien planet in the original Metroid for the NES. I can still hear the theme songs to a solid half-dozen Saturday morning cartoons, ranging from Looney Tunes to the Snorks. And I can especially still hear when Pee Wee Herman first materializes in his playhouse in the theme song to the hit Saturday morning kids show, Pee Wee's Playhouse. Loved that guy. I can still hear the forlorn train horns at night on the tracks way back in the forest behind our house.

I can hear the TV and radio ads for Bush beer that went Bush. I can still hear the grandfatherly dulcet tones of Jack Buck. calling St. Louis Cardinals games on the radio every night. Jack Buck on the radio, soothingly sonorously droning over the crickets and forlorn train horns for hours. Every night, I can still hear Jack Buck calling Hall of Fame shortstop Ozzie Smith's ninth inning walkoff home run to beat the Dodgers in game five of the 1985 NLCS. Smith, Corks went into right down the line. It may be. Ozzy hit that left-handed.

Even the Cardinals lost the 85 World Series to the Royals. It sucked. And I can still hear the buzzing drones of all the streetlights that had just turned on as I stood with my bike underneath the one street light with a busted bulb that never turned on. So I didn't have to go home yet. This is a brilliant curfew flouting plan by me. I am not far from my house. My neighborhood is basically two long streets with a cute little bridge over a creek connecting them. And as the crow flies, I'm physically standing like 150 yards for my front lawn.

If you had decent aim and warmed up properly, you could stand on my front lawn and throw a Nerf football and hit me in the head. Please don't do that, but you could do that. And frankly, I'd deserve that. And I'd stand there amid the buzzing streetlights and a little pool of darkness under the one busted non-b buzzing streetlight. And as I got darker and darker, I'd look through the bright white rectangles of people's windows. at the bright white squares of their TV sets, and I'd wonder what they were watching, probably Wheel of Fortune,

or perhaps they too were playing Metroid. Then it'd get too dark, and I'd get super scared and super lonely, and I'd race home on my bike. I got super lonely and super scared a lot as a kid. I'd worry about getting somehow left behind at the mall or at school or at church, and night would fall,

and everyone would leave, and they'd lock all the doors and shut all the lights out, and I'd be stuck there alone in the dark, overwhelmed by loneliness and the immensity of my surroundings. Normal kid stuff. I can't make you feel that feeling, and I wouldn't want to make you feel that feeling, even if I could. Before the record, here's what it sounds like to be a seven-year-old, overwhelmed by loneliness and darkness and the immensity of your surroundings.

That lonely, dark, overwhelmed feeling sounds like the 1985 minor pop hit, silent running parentheses on dangerous ground. by Mike and the mechanics. I don't know why this song in particular sounds like that particular feeling, but it does. Pretty much every other song on the radio overwhelm me like this. You want one more? Sure you do.

Oh, no, not this lady again. That lonely, dark, overwhelmed feeling sounds like the 1982 minor pop hit. I know there's something going on by Frida, one of the singers in Abba. Yeah, I was a rockin good time as a seven-year-old. So all the streetlights around me get brighter and the busted streetlight I'm standing under gets darker and I get lonely and overwhelmed. Then I freak out and race home on my bike. And I get in trouble because I didn't come home right when all the streetlights came on and my mother is unconvinced by my brilliant argument that not all the street lights are on yet. And I got to watch it because if I get in trouble, I won't get to go with her to Walmart.

And if I don't get to go with her to Walmart, then I won't be able to play the 1942 arcade game in the Walmart cart area. nor will I get to browse the VHS tapes in the movie rental area, and specifically I won't get to browse the horror movie section, which is an extremely stupid thing for me specifically to do, but of course I do it anyway. That's the even minorer 1988 pop metal hit Love Kills by the Vinnie Vincent Invasion off the soundtrack to the 1988 film, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4 colon the Dream Master,

which I've never seen because forget it, dude. No way am I even watching the video for Love Kills, which consists mostly of scenes from a nightmare on Elm Street for Cole and the Dreammaster. I am way too skittish to watch horror movies even now as an adult. And yet there I am as a 7, 8, 9, 10 year old, freaking myself out looking at the creepy VHS boxes to various creepy 80s horror movies, various nightmares on Elm Street, various Fridays, the 13th. Prince of Darkness, from beyond, chopping mall. That one movie, Creepers with the lady holding all the bugs or locust or whatever in her upturned palm and they've eaten away half her face. That one extra freaked me out.

That was on display at Walmart in 1985. Think of the children. Think of me specifically. So yeah, I'd browse the horror movie VHS boxes for half an hour and get thoroughly freaked out. and then mom would come and get me and we'd drive home and it'd be bedtime. And that's when my problems would really start. So here's the deal. Here's how this works.

Here's how bedtime works for Robbie as a seven-year-old. We got a one-story house. My bedroom's all the way in the back. We got a carpeted basement. The ping pong table and the TV, our own personal glowing square, and the stereo are in the basement. directly below my bedroom. The staircase, by the way, to go downstairs.

I think this came up somewhere before, but I would always run down that staircase to the exact rhythm of the drum fill halfway through John Cougar-Mellon camps, Jack and Diane. That's how I'd run down the stairs. My parents didn't go down the stairs like that. So my parents put me to bed. They say, good night, Robbie.

They shut off my bedroom light. They crack the door. They go downstairs. They walk down the stairs. there's normally. They play ping pong. They play Scrabble. They play, I don't know, Yachtzy, but mostly they play Cubert. The video game, Cuber. Early 80s, video game wise, pre-NES era. We got a Colico Vision with a pad and the numbers. We got Centipede. We got Burger Time. We got Mousetrap. We got Venture. Venture was dope. We got Cubert. The cute little armless orange

puffball with the big nose bouncing around the pyramid, changing all the colors whilst pursued by snakes and whatnot. And when he or she, I guess, got killed, he or she swore like the old-timey comic strip bleeped out swear word with the pound sign and the asterisk and the exclamation point the question mark, Cuberd. I don't honestly remember what Cuberts sounds like per se. Real quick, let's look into this. Okay. Turns out Cuberd on ColicoVision, at least, is quite shrill as an audio experience, which is why my parents listened to records instead. My parents in this era, so far as I knew, spent their

evenings playing Cubert on Colico Vision, on mute, and listening to records. Meanwhile, I can't fall asleep. I'm terrified. Scared of monsters. Scared of Freddy. Scared of Jason. Scared of the locusts or whatever that ate half that lady's face. Scared even of the green dude and the toilet on the cover of that movie Goolies, you know it. I can hear the crickets outside. I can hear the forlorn train horns. And I can hear the muffled sounds of whatever record my parents are listening to while they play Cubert. And the deal here is, I don't want them to go to bed. Their bedroom is upstairs right next to mine. So when they go to bed, they'll physically be much closer to me, but they'll be asleep then and thus unable to protect me from the monsters and Freddie and Jason and the toilet

guy. So I need them to stay up. I need them to keep playing Kubert and listening to records. So I get more terrified toward the end of every record they play. Because when the record ends, I figure that they're either going to put on another record or decide to go to bed and I will be eaten by locusts. As a consequence, I develop a severe debilitating adversarial relationship with the last song on Side B of every vinyl record my parents own,

because I fear at seven years old that after that song, my parents are going to stop playing Cuber and go to bed and leave me to be killed. And therefore, every time I hear the last song on any record my parents own, I fear in that moment that it might be the last song I ever hear. The last song on Bruce Springsteen's 1984 album, born in the USA, is my hometown. I remember our stereo vividly. The stack with the record player on top, then the stereo receiver, then the tape deck,

then the imitation wood shelf for the records themselves at the bottom with a little glass door protecting it all with a little magnetic handle you pressed in. I can still hear the creaking hinges of the little glass door of our stereo. I do not care for my hometown by Bruce Springsteen because when I listened to my home. As a seven-year-old, most often I was in bed, late at night, quaking in mortal terror, an adversarial relationship with the last song on Side B of every record my parents own. Thriller. Forgive me. How did I not start with Michael Jackson's slightly majorer hit 1982 album Thriller? That's my fault. The last song on Side B of Thriller is The Lady in My Life. I don't care for the lady in my life by Michael Jackson. Always my parents would end on side B. They'd never go to bed after finishing side A. That's only halfway through the album.

My parents would always flip the record over. My parents would listen to the whole album. My parents respected the album format. Cindy Lopper. She's So Unusual. 1983. The last song on Side B of She's So Unusual is Yeah, Yeah. I don't care for yeah, yeah by Cindy Lopper.

Those are like the least good songs on Thriller and she's so unusual, respectively, though. Give me a hard one. Give me a hard last song on Side B to dislike the police. Synchronicity. 1983, the last song on Side B of Synchronicity is T in the Sahara. Regrettably, I don't care for T in the Sajara. Sahara by the police. I love this song, man. Tien That Sahara is not a big hit or anything, but has an eerie, pretentious stillness that I quite appreciate. I do not like not caring for

this song I love. You know the meme of Wesley Snipes crying while holding the gun in New Jack City because he doesn't want to kill G money? That's me not wanting to disparage Tia in the Sahara, you want the worst one? You want the all-time scariest one? Some of these songs I'm going to listen to now and not hear them as I heard them at seven years old. Some of these songs I no longer hear as a song playing while my parents decided whether or not to go to bed, which is to say they were deciding whether I'd live or die, but this one I will always hear like that. Steely Dan, Countdown to Ecstasy. 1973, the last song on Side B of Countdown to Existency. is King of the World.

Not that part. That's not the scariest part. The last 70-odd seconds of King of the World by Steely Dan are a groovy little super 70s G-Wiz keyboard riff that was the most terrifying sound in the world to me when I was seven because my parents would usually stop playing Cuberd and go to bed after this. Because where do you even go from here? you go to bed that's where you go terrifying

absolutely terrifying then my parents would shut off the stereo and the TV and the Kaliko Vision they'd come upstairs and go to bed and I'd be ultra terrified for maybe 20 minutes then I'd pass out and it'd be fine repeat every night for three to five years that's my childhood it was fine

it's fine I turned out fine I do however have a great deal of sympathy for that young doofy quivering, oversensitive, face-eating, locust-fearing future rock critic, who didn't realize what he was doing with this whole last song on Side B business. What I was doing already at seven years old was projecting ridiculous, outsized, unsustainable, non-sequitur emotions onto innocuous pop saws, which I did for so long that eventually I figured out how to make a career out of it. But at the time,

that seven-year-old kid in bed racked with dread as he listened to literally steely Dan B-sides all that kid needed was a hug a hug and also a nightlight a brief list of bands

and artists with whom I became obsessed somewhere between the ages of zero and 12 years old so between 1978 and 1990 includes but is of course not limited to the cars the talking heads prince Michael Jackson

Janet Jackson, Madonna, Cindy Lopper, the stray cats, anybody on the Ghostbusters soundtrack, the police, the bangles, the fat boys, cheap trick, tears for fears, Terrence Trent Darby, tone loke, aerosmith, death leopard, guns and roses, poison, and Bon Jovi. Also Weird Al. And Cinderella. This music and this era is 90% of my identity. And most of the other 10% is like Mega Man 2. But I wouldn't have articulated it that way at the time. I couldn't articulate anything at the time. Other than in Mega Man 2, you should fight Metal Man first. I didn't realize until I was 12 or so how absurdly dominant music already was and always would be in my life.

I didn't realize that I was looking for just one band that would permanently become 90% of my identity. I didn't realize I was looking for that band until I found it. Or really, it found me. My name is Rob Harvilla. This is the 100th episode of 60 songs that explain the 90s and my reward to myself for making it this far is that this week we are talking about Birdhouse in Your Soul by They Might Be Giants from their 1990 album Flood. Yes, this one's for me. The previous 99 episodes weren't for me at all. Of course. Just this one. Okay. Hey, I just figured out how to do an advanced search in Google Drive. It's pretty cool. It's pretty hard to do. It's too technical to explain here.

But that's why I can tell you that they might be giants keep coming up on this show at random, including in the episodes for Beck, Cake, Pavement, Counting Crows, and Cheryl Crow. They are the Spector haunting this humble podcast. They are the Spector haunting me. They might be giants are straight up. favorite band of all time. It feels good to say that out loud. They are the band I have spent the most time listening to. The band I have most successfully inflicted upon my children. The band I have seen live most often. I'm guessing 15 to 20 times I've seen they might be Giants Live, which is not a

bonkers all-time superfan number of shows 15 to 20. But anybody who gets me to leave the house on 20 separate occasions for any reason. That's super impressive. This is it. Dudes, this is the band. This is the band that made me. This is the first song I ever heard by the band that made me. Particle Man, Particle Man, doing the things of Particle GAN.

What's he like? It's not important. Particle Man. And when I first told you the story about the first song I ever heard by the band that made me, I first told you the story. this story like two years ago in the cake episode. I looked it up using the advanced search. I wasn't joking, but I thought I was maybe exaggerating for comic and also dramatic effect. But no, I've decided I wasn't exaggerating at all. There is my life before particle man

and after. There is me before particle man and after. My cool uncle Nick looked at me one day. I'm 12 or 13 years old. I'm still trembling from all that terrible bedtime. last song on side B action. And he said, Robbie, I think you need to hear this song. And then he played me the song on his own stereo, which was arranged more horizontally than vertically, the components, the record player, and the tape deck and such weren't stacked on top of one another. And then I heard Particle Man for the first time and became myself.

It's not an exaggeration. So what's the deal here, Robbie? Why does Particle Man also off the 1990, they might be John? nine's album Flood, though perhaps you first heard this song on the hit after-school cartoon Tiny Tune Adventures. Why does this song change my life instantly? The silliness helps. The silliness speaks to me and I speak back to it. The little bass farts. The handclaps. The whimsical buoyancy of it all. The jovial and defiantly nasal vocal delivery. of John Linnell, who is one half of they might be giants, along with John Flansberg.

John and John. It is somehow essential that both dudes in this band are named John. And also the fact that John Linnell is singing distinctly childlike and nonsensical lyrics that also immediately strike you as tremendously profound. Possibly? This is a song about triangle man being a particle man and also person man while universe man looks on, usually with kindness. The tiny tunes and animated version, a particle man perhaps over-emphasizes the physical combat aspect. Plucky Duck plays Particle Man and gets beat up for pretty much the whole video. Or maybe Particle Man is a sophisticated rumination on the existential conflict between science and religion, between geometry and God, as portrayed by Triangle Man and Universe Man, respectively, with Particle Man and Person Man,

that's us. Caught Betwixt them. Think it over. I also immediately really dug the accordion. Dizzy Devil plays the accordion in the Tiny Tunes version. The accordion. I had not conceived of the accordion as an acceptable musical instrument in pop music, rock music, college rock, alternative music, whatever, until this moment. But suddenly I did. My grandpa, my mom's father, he was a big poker guy, accordion guy. My favorite picture of my grandpa, is that a wedding?

he's in a full natty suit. This is the 70s or 80s maybe. And he's playing an accordion in the wedding band or whatever. And he's looking down so lovingly at the accordion he's playing. He's got this cute little smirk on his face. He just looks so tremendously pleased with himself. It's my favorite photo of him. Listen, I know polka.

Do you know poker? You know Joe Beano? You know Frankie Yankovic? You know the beer barrel poker? You know the hide-and-seek? poker, you know, who pash chupage by the poker brothers? You know, who stole the kishka? Oh, that's a good one. Who stole the kishka? Hit it, Midwestern poker king Frankie Yankovic. Who stole the kishka? Who stole the kishka? Someone called a cop.

I know who stole the kishka. I know this song, who stole the kishka. I don't actually know who stole the kishka. Nor do I know. what Akishka is exactly. I know poca's. I know all those poca's and many additional poca's as well. And that's thanks to my grandpa. Grandpa taught me about poca's. He also taught me about various grandpa-friendly semi-problematic comic strips like Beetle Bailey and Andy Cap and peanuts. And he also taught me about the Three Stooges and Laurel and Hardy. And he also taught me to play chess now that I'm thinking about it. And now here in Particle Man,

we have this staggering, bubbly, irreverent, but also weirdly philosophical and erudite collision of Grandpa, of Grandpa's various passions and idiosyncrasies, distilled into a pop song that lasts one minute and 55 seconds and is somehow simultaneously, both the coolest and uncoolest thing I have ever heard in my whole life. The flagrant uncoolness,

is what makes it so cool. The coolness via flagrant uncoolness is what speaks to me and speaks through me and consumes me and becomes me. Universe man is God. I'm pretty sure about that. who has objected to how often I mention cool Uncle Nick without also mentioning her. And so let me tell you that my cool aunt Julie won some sort of call-in MTV contest in the mid to late 80s. She won a CD player and a whole bunch of CDs. I'm fairly certain as the first CD player I'd ever seen in my life. That was super cool. And then one time as a pre-teen, I was rifling through Cool Aunt Julie's record collection. And I was like, ooh, the exploited.

That sounds cool. and cool Aunt Julie was like, no, no, Robbie, put that down. You cannot listen to the exploited, no. And that struck me as uncool at the time, but really that was extra cool of cool Aunt Julie. However, after seeing how strongly, how viscerally I responded to Particle Man, it was cool Uncle Nick who made me a homemade, painstakingly dubbed together VHS tape of various they might be Giants videos and MTV interviews and live performance. And I'd sit there with my younger brother and we'd watch that VHS tape on a loop for hours. And that's how I got a sense of who and what I was dealing with here. Is he depressed or is he a mess?

Does he feel totally worthless? Who came up with person man, degraded man, person man. John Lennel and John Flansberg met as smarty-pants teenagers in Lincoln, Massachusetts. It's they fart around together musically a little bit. They graduate from high school. They go to different colleges and then they reconnect in Brooklyn, New York. They live in the same building in Fort Green in the early to mid-80s, long before Fort Green was a hip or desirable place to live. They form a duo.

They call this duo, They Might Be Giants. After a 1971 movie that I am truly embarrassed to tell you, I still haven't seen. What kind of fan of this band? am I anyways. I remember how I lived before you came. I love you. George C. Scott, Joanne Woodward, in they might be giants,

but they are, aren't they? I got no idea what's the deal with that movie. I'm sorry, I'm too busy listening to Pocas to ever watch that movie. Young John and John hit the subway and hit the Manhattan art rock scene in the East Village and on the Lower East Side. tiny, hip, little clubs in the cartoonishly gritty, urban wasteland, nihilistic, post-punk, mid-no-wave, scabrous beyond imagining. You ever seen The Warriors?

Manhattan of the mid-80s, the long-running 33-and-a-third book series, those rad little books, each about a classic album. There's a great 33-in-a-third book about Flood, written by S. Alexander Reed and Philip Sandifer. And they talked to Flansberg about the early years. And he says, quote, we were younger than the audiences we were playing for at the pyramid club and 8 BC in New York. The whole nightclub scene was very late night, very druggie, and very committedly bohemian, living alternate lifestyles. They'd had sexual experiences that we had not even thought about. They had drug experiences that we'd never dare have.

they were much cooler people than we were. Trying to figure out how to win over and entertain an audience who actively intimidates you might have been the biggest professional challenge of our lives. End quote. John Flansbergs usually got glasses and plays guitar. He's got a very 1950s sitcom dad profile and bearing, quite professorial. He carries himself like he's smoking a pipe at all times, although he is only very occasionally actually smoking a pipe.

He often holds his guitar up around his head as he plays in somehow a very fatherly or grandfatherly professorial type. I am formally presenting you with my guitar type gesture. John Lonell's got floppy your hair hanging over one eye. He looks very amused with either himself or you or both or very much neither. And he's usually playing an accordion. John and John are accompanied for much of their early years. by a drum machine.

They are writing and performing songs that are not gritty and scabrous and nihilistic and cool in these sexual experiences you've never even thought about since. Or are they? As your party goes down thirsty with a burns smell factory closing up. I guess it's sad to say you'll romanticize all the things you've known before. They might be giant set up a dial-a-song service, which is to say they record a new song and they're answering me. machine every day and you can call them on the phone and hear a new they might be giant song every day dial a song as one of the best slogans of any product ever that slogan being it's free if you call from work they put out their first album self-titled in nineteen eighty six the cover is partially pink and distinctly cartoonish it looks like the cover to a delightful dr susian children's book which perhaps led some early listeners to assume that this was a delightful children's music album and

one strong argument against that children's album theory is that John Flansberg just saying the words, yes, it's sad to say you will romanticize all the things you've known before. But one strong argument for the children's album theory is that this song is called Put Your Hand Inside the Puppet Head. Put your hand inside the puppet head. Put your hand inside the puppet head. Put your hand inside the puppet head. Somebody on Tumblr, I guess, so this is Tumblr era. Somebody asked, they might be giants, quote, Put your hand inside the puppet head lyrics are about puppet head or actually about sex. I'm really confused, end quote.

And Flansberg wrote back, quote, The lyric revolves around the idea that looking back on anything colors it in sentimentality. So the ultimate message is to wake up from that. Nothing to do with sex or a literal puppet. head. End quote. He didn't mean my sentimentality. My sentimentality is fine. He means you should wake up from everyone else's. Anyway, that's roughly what Flansberg sings like. This is roughly what Linnell sings like. Don't Let's Start is the most enduring song on the first they might be Giants record from 86. The catchiest, the boppiest, the tastefully hardest rocking, the fizziest and most upbeat.

Maybe the silliest, too. In the Don't Let's Start video, John and John are wearing what appears to be two-foot-high, rolled-up carpets on their heads, and they're dancing around and flailing their limbs, and sardonically mugging for the camera, delightful and catchy and adorable. Also, L. delivers the unofficial they might be giant's mission statement. No one in the world ever gets with... No one in the world ever gets what they want, and that is beautiful. Everybody dies, frustrated and sad, and that is beautiful. They're not trying to sneak that sentiment past you. They might be giants do not make upbeat music that is often secretly bleak and dark and even depressing.

It's not secret. They're not hiding it. The bleakness is not conveyed in code. It is bleakness exposed to blinding, warming, life-affirming sunlight. That's what makes it beautiful. That's what makes it true. I do believe in the Cheryl Crowe episode

that I mentioned singing and playing. Don't let start on acoustic guitar during my accursed college open mic night phase. And you just cannot comprehend how cool I sounded, singing those words while wrestling with that rad guitar riff. And then I sang, I sang these words. And that too is sad and beautiful, though not quite as beautiful when I do it.

I have such a vivid memory of being on my JV High School basketball team. I'm a sophomore. I am tall. I am unskilled. I am in athletic parlance and oaf. I'm riding the bench. I'm in my last year playing organized basketball, and I don't know it yet,

but I totally know this is it. It's a Saturday, and we're in some tournament in some weird, musty gym somewhere, and I'm sitting on the bench disinterested and disconsolate, and I just gotten heavy into the first day might be Giants record,

and I've got all the songs running in a loop in my head simultaneously, drowning out all the bouncing basketball and squeaking sneakers and whatnot. And my coach would have gotten big mad if he'd known how flagrantly checked out I was sitting there on that bench. But man, he just didn't understand

how rad these songs were. And all through Little League and basketball and one bizarre contact diverse year of football, I never once in my life felt like a jock for one second. But I feel like this moment, this gymnasium this ophish benchwarming afternoon is my last moment as even a theoretical wannabe jock i finally realized that i didn't belong in any sort of sports heavy environment and i finally truly embraced my identity for the rest of my life as the guy whose personality is 90% they might be giants it was an uneasy feeling at the time sitting there in the gym in my two short basketball shorts feeling disastrously out of my element,

but all the new to me, TMBG songs rattling around in my head turned out to be exactly my element. Oh, that song is called I Hope That I Got Old Before I Die. They might be Giants put out their second album called Lincoln in 1988. And if you had a copy of that VHS tape,

my cool uncle Nick made, or if you just watched an enormous amount of late 80s MTV, then you can still do the extent, extremely stiff and awkward and ridiculous dance that accompanies this. You stomp on the ground with one foot eight times. Like, and then you throw out your left arm and bow twice.

And then you jump for one beat and then bow two more times. Don't try that dance at a party. unless it's a very specific sort of party. That song's called Anna-Ang. It's a name they found in the phone book. What is this music? Musically. The prominent accordion and the drum machine now is standing,

this music is recognizable as late 80s college rock, literate but irreverent, occasionally loud but unfailingly polite, blatantly experimental but instantly graspable. It scans as alluringly adults to children and soothingly childlike to adults. That's too many adverbs, but you get me. I'm resorting to adverbs in part because there are words very often associated with they might be giants that I'm trying very hard not to say geeky, nerdy, quirky.

There's three of them. But the Johns see themselves in a very different universe with a very different universe with a very different lineage. In that 33 and a third book, Flansberg says, for me, when people say, you guys are such nerds, I am a million miles away from that. If it were not for the sex pistols and the Ramones and Patty Smith and Elvis Costello and the tough darts and Mink DeVille and Per Ubu and the residents, I would not be in a rock band because those things are my cultural lighthouses. Those people punched people in the face, end quote. I ought to pick somebody from that list to briefly illustrate one of Flansberg's cultural lighthouses, right?

I don't know if this has ever come up before, but I'm from Cleveland. And of course, I'm just kidding because my new best friend, the Google Drive advanced search informs me that I have mentioned that I was born in Cleveland in 26 different episodes of this show, from Santana to the ghetto boys. So yeah, here's some Per Ubu. The Modern Dance from Perahubu's debut album, The Modern Dance, from 1978. They're from Cleveland. As am I. Now, if you've ever seen any iteration of Peru Bu perform Final Solution Live, you know that Perubu do indeed punch people in the face. I saw them just once, but it was one of the best shows I've ever seen. And that was in like 2001.

one. But Peribu, don't punch you in the face the way, say, the sex pistols do. And by one way of thinking, they might be giants, even at their loudest and rowdyest, don't punch people in the face at all. The occasional thrilling, subversive gut punch, though, oh hell yes. We're not dealing in blockbuster Spotify play accounts and the hundreds of millions here, but I am weirdly elated by the fact that after Anna Ang, the second most popular song on Lincoln is a jaunty. little tune called Kiss Me, Son of God. I've built a little

empire out of some crazy garbage called the blood of the exploded working class. This one goes out to the Writers Guild and the Actors Guild. There is genuine ferocious bite

to every they might be giant song if you're paying close enough attention to fully register that you've been bitten. But they've overcome their shyness now. They're calling me your highness and a world screams. Kiss me, son of God. The camaraderie there.

The winsome intertwining of John and John's voices. It's hard to overstate how comforting that vocal and existential harmony might sound to all the 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 year olds out there who, just hypothetically, might not have yet found their people yet. It's aspirational. I'm not talking about finding a girlfriend or boyfriend. I just mean finding a friend, a kindred spirit. Kindred spirits are very hard to find if you are a teenager vibrating at the Kiss Me Son of God frequency and not the I'm actually good at basketball frequency. But if John found John and vice versa, then one day I too can find someone, and perhaps someone who loves John and John as much as I do.

And until then, I can live vicariously through the existential harmony of the Johns themselves. He wants a shoehorn, the kind with teeth. People should get beat up for stating their beliefs. That song is called shoehorn with teeth. I feel like I'm over-dramatizing my teenage loneliness. So I should tell you that in high school, my buddy Jason and I started a They Might Be Giants fan club. And we went door to door in our neighborhood signing people up. And we did sign some people up.

We got a girl to sign up. She became either the secretary or the treasurer, I believe. So I was doing all right. It's major label time. They might be giants in the late 80s and early 90s. They appear on MTV with some frequency. the late night, 120 minutes realm of MTV, but still, they play live on MTV a lot. The MTV version of Where Your Eyes Don't Go is better than the Lincoln version.

They get interviewed a lot, and they guest host stuff a lot. At least they show up on MTV to a degree out of all proportion to their commercial success. MTV likes them. MTV plays them a lot and not because they have to, whatever your sense is of what MTV has to do. MTV is sincerely enthusiastic about They Might Be Giants. If you like these guys, you loved these guys. And Elektra Records loved these guys. They Might Be Giants' third album, Flood, comes out on January 5th, 1990.

Just makes the cutoff. One of the big hits, relatively speaking, on Flood is a cover of a 1953 novelty song about a city in Turkey. Istanbul, not Constantinople, been a long time gone, Constantinople. Now it's Thursday light on a moonlit night. Istanbul, Istanbul, the other they might be giant song, along with particle man, that perhaps you caught on Tiny Tune Adventures. This is the band's most streamed song on Spotify, and I ain't mad at it. They have performed this song at all 15 to 20. They might be Giants concerts I've attended, usually with a robust horn section. And invariably with the sort of madcap bombastic playing this song for the first time glee that you don't often hear in four decade old rock bands playing one of their biggest songs. Istanbul somehow makes you want to listen to it again even while you're still currently listening to it.

York was once new Amsterdam. That 33 and a third book on Flood argues that Flood, arriving in 1990, but before the early 90s, alternative rock paradigm shift triggered by Nirvana and Pearl Jam and blah, blah, blah, blah, flood is perfectly timed to entrance a whole generation. Generation X, fine, when we're tweens. I was 11 when Flood came out. That is the perfect age. The book talks about how Flood speaks specifically to 11 and 12 year olds who can remember our

childhoods without nostalgia because our childhoods just ended. And we don't know the details yet, but we recognize adulthood as a scary thing, but we're amused by and skeptical about it without yet being jaded about it. We're going to have to get jobs soon, man. And that's going to suck. But at least we can laugh about how bad that's going to suck. You know one of my favorite songs on Flood as a teenager? The piano ballad called Dead about being reincarnated as a bag of groceries, possibly as punishment for one's childhood transgressions.

I didn't apologize for when I was in I made my younger brother have to be my personal slave. Did a large procession When the torches As my head fell in the basket You know the song on Flood that baffled me Both musically and lyrically as a teenager But I love it now as an adult And once as an adult

I had an elaborate dream About being mayor of a small town In this song's universe And John Ritterer Was involved somehow The Three's company actor I can't provide any detail on the dream But the song is a semi-country

ho down called We Want a Rock. Everybody wants a rock to land a piece of stringer. Throw the crib door wide. Let the people crawl inside. They might be giant songs usually aren't jokes. They're not laugh out loud funny the way, say, Weird Al Yankovic is. Weird Al has come up in 12 different episodes of this show so far, according to my beloved

advantage search. I would have guessed higher. But they might be giant songs are funny, peculiar in such a consistent and consistently surprising way that they trigger this endless, unbroken chain of baffled delight. I've interviewed both Johns a couple times over the years. And in those interviews, I've radiated a visible, unfortunate Chris Farley interviewing Paul McCartney in effectively awestruck quality that makes them not my favorite interviews I've ever done. but one time Flansberg did talk to me about how he really didn't care anymore if people called the band quirky or nerdy or whatever, in part because he understood that mixing music and humor is cultural nitroglycerin. He said, if you're trying to write a song that's going to hold up to repeated listening and not just be super bleeping annoying, you've got a much more complicated thing that you've got to do. And that's, I think, where we're at. We want to do stuff that's surprising, but we also want to make songs that are persuasive and catchy and interesting and pull people in.

I mean, you can surprise people just by pulling out a gun, end quote. Yes, I said bleeping. I'm not swearing in this episode. I wonder if you noticed that. I was informed recently by one of my cool cousins that another of my cool ants, I have many cool ants, another of my cool ants who will remain nameless out of respect for her privacy. Cannot listen to this show because of my, quote, potty mouth, end quote. That's fair.

That's a fair criticism. Also, my kids want to listen to this one. So bleeping it is. I am not swearing in this episode, other than the one time I swear in the interview later, but I'll just tell my cool aunt to stop listening before the interview. Anyway, here's Wonderwall. Here's my Wonderwall. all anyway. Birdhouse in your soul is a song about a child's blue canary nightlight. But this

distinction is important. It's not sung by or even per se for a child. It's sung by the nightlight to the child. And I don't think the nightlight is singing to me as a child. The terrified kid listening to his parents listening to records while playing Hubert. The nightlight is singing to adult me, reminiscing about childhood me. The night light is maybe gently attempting. to undercut my sentimentality. The night late is definitely using vocabulary words. Childhood me wasn't up on. Filibuster, for example.

My story's infinite. Like the longies symphony, it doesn't rest. Birdhouse in Your Soul is also a major label rock song that sounds like a two-man band with a drum machine and the finest synthesizers the late 80s had to offer. The floodbook talks about this song, inorganic scaffolding. This song sounds like it came out of a can.

You know those child's toy prank cans where you open them and a snake pops out? Birdhouse in your soul sounds like they opened 200 of those cans simultaneously. Trumpet solo or scare quotes trumpet solo. There's a picture opposite me of a primitive ancestry who stood on rocky shores. I've been talking a while. for the past few years I've done a staggering amount of talking

but I've been talking here a while stop me on the street sometime and we'll talk for a couple more hours about they might be giants we'll talk about

how their next album 1992's Apollo 18 is as good as flood we'll talk about how the best part of fingertips is what's that blue

thing doing here we'll talk about the time I saw them in college and Flansberg signed my Japanese homework. We'll talk about the time I saw them in Columbus, Ohio, right after 9-11, and the power went out in the venue,

and they did a totally unamplified version of their cover of New York City, and they dedicated it to a city that's dealt with way bigger problems than this recently. We'll talk about when they started making actual kids albums. We'll talk about how the third best they might be Giants album overall is no. We'll talk about how the second best they might be giant's song overall is Dr. Worm. We'll talk about the time I was driving my kids to school, my boys. They're seven and five at the time, maybe. And the statue got me high from Apollo 18 came on the radio.

And that's how my boys became themselves, huge they might be giants fans. The statue got me high is about a dude who looks at a statue and his head blows up. And now it is your turn, your time to hear the stone, and then you turn to bird. But mostly we'll talk about the 15 to 20 times I've experienced Birdhouse in Your Soul live. Inevitably the last or second or last song of the night. Or in any event, it's inevitably the climactic song. The collective euphoria when Birdhouse in Your Soul starts. the feeling of several hundred pairs of feet lifting off the ground in unison.

Not to put you fine upon on it. Say, I'm the only being your bonnet. I've used the word euphoria in 13 other episodes so far. And I meant it all 13 times, but I mean it here especially. The euphoria of Burt House in your soul. But the collective part is just as important. the feeling of togetherness, of belonging, of existential harmony, we have found each other. We are each other's people.

In that moment, every show, every time, suspended in midair, we are all each other's nightlights. We are thrilled to talk once again with Open Mike Eagle, rapper and podcaster extraordinaire. His latest album from 2022 is called Component System. with the auto reverse. His essential podcast is called What Had Happened Was. Mike, it's so great to see you again. Thank you for coming. It's great to be here. Whenever I get an email from you, it usually means I get to talk about something I'm excited about. So I always look forward to those. Excellent. I believe we've done breeders, De LaSoul, and they might be giants. The Holy Trinity, as far as I'm concerned. It's like three out of my four food groups, you know. There we go.

What is, don't tell me what the fourth food group is. I'll just. guess and email you about it. I love it. We'll do it that way. Because everyone that you get wrong will still be fun for me. All right. Okay, good. Mike, I believe you are on record as saying that they might be giants are the best band of all time. Better than the Stones. Yep. Better than the Beatles. By far. Better than Oasis. Oh, yeah. Easy. Okay. I thought it's better than Crosby, Stills, and Nash. I was improvising at the time. So, you know, that list wasn't like super specific. It was just like, one other bands I can think of. I loved that list, though.

That's a great improvised list of bands that they might be giants or better than. When did you realize that they might be giants were the greatest band on Earth? Oh, probably like by the time I got my third album from them and realized, oh, this is just what they do is make the stuff that I like the best. Like, that's what they will always do. Like, that's what their aim is. Our aims are aligned that way and that I like what they do, and they like doing it. As long as they continue making stuff, I'll always be their biggest fan. All right.

So what were the first three records? Walk me through how you get introduced to these dudes. The original exposure was a song called Birdhouse in Your Soul on 120 minutes on MTV. So a song that struck me in my whole body and a music video that I could not wrap my head around in the best way possible. Also, I was nine years old. That helps. It really helps to be nine years old at that point. And then the next couple songs I heard from them were on Tiny Tunes Adventures.

Sure, sure, sure. Where they did animated versions of Particle Man and Istanbul's concert. Stanton That's right. And then my buddy Brian in the school I was in

because I guess we were in the, I forget what grade, fourth, fifth, something like that. He gives me a dubbed copy

of the Flood album and I realize that all three of those songs are on the same album and that is the beginning of my devotion. Now on the other side

of that tape was the Lincoln album, which I also loved. And I believe the next one I heard after that was Apollo 18. It was either Apollo 18 or it was factory showroom. But either way, I was in. Okay. So what is it, what do they do that they like to do that you like them to do?

What is this quality that they have that entices you? It is just like music theory, magic, madness, and adventurousness. musically they are unafraid to do anything musically they find those strangest chord progressions they feel like

beautiful and intense and then they sing these lyrics over them like a lot of times they end up making songs that to your ears sound really melodic and the lyrics to them are some of the most depressing

existential crisis, who am I and what are you type contemplations that I've ever heard in my life? And those are the types of conversations I have in my mind. So putting those sorts of thoughts together with music that I find entrancing. It's the recipe for me. Okay. Because Birdhouse changes keys, right? I'm going to defer to you on the theory here, but doesn't it like change keys halfway through? the chorus? I think it does. As much as I'm a fan of them and I'm a fan of music and I know some theory, I'm not very good at telling you. Like I can I can I can call out a cue change now, but growing up at nine, I was not able to do that. Sure, sure. Initially for me, they might be

giants and I came to them about what you did. I was probably 11 or 12, a little older, but not much. They were synonymous for me with like Weird Al Yankovic and Pee Weirman and Mad Magazine and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Like this whole universe of goofy and like wondrous but also existential feeling type shit. How did you see them at first? Did you feel them as being part of this extended universe? What I felt them being a part of was like it really does come from like MTV 120 minutes. Like the music videos associated with like college radio before grunge happens. Like I associated with that.

So like it was around at the same time I was exposed to like Frank Black and the breeders. You know, so that that was like that initial way of like our early R.M. stuff like really left of the dial college radio. like that's what they represented to me. I didn't have too many other sorts of media that I was connected to. To me, it was more about just like this music that I was ingesting. Was there any other music at that time that hit the same chord for you? Like, are you a wean guy, a cake guy, like soul coughing, anything in that vein?

Or do they sort of stand alone? Specifically, it was, they might be giants. King Missile was huge. for me. King Missile was huge for me. And in Wien as well. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to be honest with you and say, I cannot name you another King Missile song beyond Detachable Penus. What is the second King Missile song that I should hear? Jesus Way Cool is an amazing song. But yeah, their whole thing was John S. Hall, the lead singer, was like a New York. poet, basically. And so a lot of their songs are his takes on life observations and existential

dread and over these very lush musical arrangements, but in more of a more of a hard rock sort of presentation most of the time. But they also had their fair share of whimsy, and I'm a sucker for the whimsy. Absolutely. When I would read about they might be giants in Rolling Stone, or even like the Columbia House catalog, and they would like over-emphasize the whimsy. You know, they'd be called geeky or nerdy or quirky or whatever. Like, as a fan, did that upset you to see them sort of damned with that kind of faint praise? Like, did you feel like they were underestimated by other people?

I heard and fell in love with their music far before I was really engaging with music criticism in any way. So it wasn't often or really ever that I saw them written about. By the time I'm reading music magazines, you know, it's almost like post-grunch then. Sure. So there's not there. They're already sort of flying under the radar again at that point after having, I think they went gold or platinum one or two would flood. That was the only one, but yeah. I think at least gold, probably platinum by this point accumulated.

But yeah, that's their biggest record by far. So, you know, this is already post their peak cultural penetration. So by the time I'm reading, you know, Spin magazine, they're not really wasting too much ink on the Johns. Right. It's interesting because the music that imprints itself on you when you're nine, you don't necessarily stick with it when you're a late teenager, you know, or beyond. It's like some of it you leave behind, but what was it about they might be giants that, like, stuck with you, you know, passed, you know, into your adulthood? The first way I want to address that is that I can safely say at this point of my life, looking back, I love those songs I had no idea what any of them were about at all. Nothing.

No clue. Like, I saw the feelings and experiences that these songs were pointing at, and I was able to sort of understand, like, top line what they were trying to say. But the nuances of existence that these songs live in, I wasn't able to even fully understand at the time. So, like, as my mind and my life has grown and developed, I've always been able to go back and find new stuff in this music that I love. And they keep making stuff. Like, they keep making stuff. Like, they keep making albums and I keep loving them. And they keep changing the sound.

And even when I don't like it at first, when they change the same. I go back and I'm like, oh, I actually love this too. It's really shocking. Like, since the 90s, like, they've put out 11, 12 records. If you count like the kids' records, they tour constantly. Like, they're as active as successful as they've ever been. Like, is that surprising to you, even as a fan, like, their longevity, like, how active they are in 20, 23? So it's not necessarily surprising, but I can definitely see how it's unique because, you know, very few of the other.

other bands that I listened to at that time and got really into at that time kind of had that same trajectory. I think for a lot of bands, and now I can even say as a musician, I think once you get that ride on the major label roller coaster, it's like either you want to stay on that ride or you want to just like pack it in and go home. You know, and I think them being able to navigate that part of it where it's not Warner, Elektra records anymore, it's these different record labels. And honestly, the path reminds me more of like an MF Doom, you know, than it does a lot of, like, rock bands. Yeah, yeah. Because, again, I like them, you know, at the same time I was really into R.m.

And REM kind of stayed on a major label and they had a big hit. And they, you know, they kept on that track where they might be giants. I mean, and I've never talked to them about this, but I would assume that being on a major label was kind of tough for them, especially once the people who signed them inevitably get cycled out. Yeah, of course. I'm sure that that was not the most comfortable experience for them because how does a major label tell? they might be giants how to make a record. Right. You know?

Yeah. And that's all that those execs are there for us to tell the artist how to make a record. Yeah. I can speak. They talk about Flood, which was their first major label record. And like, we actually had a great experience because they didn't tell us to do anything. They were just like, do what you do. And they made Flood.

And it was wonderful. But obviously it didn't last. Like, I'm sure what you're describing happened. New people come in, you know, and their sound does get like fuller and rock. or, you know. They got rid of the, yeah, the MIDI instruments and they got a real band and everybody hated it at first, but now everybody loves it. But now everybody loves it.

Those shows are great, you know, they, that band has now been together for way longer than like the MIDI era lasted, you know, and so we're nostalgic for that now. Yep. You know, they've been touring Flood, you know, playing Flood in full live forever. And part of that is COVID. Like, it's been delayed several times, but like they've been playing this record. now for two, three years. Like, is Flood their definitive best record?

Is Birdhouse their definitive best song? That's a great question. Gosh, there is something about Flood and that I think it was a great intersection of, like, their fearlessness meeting a producer who really knew how to like get the most out of their songs and with a big record label that was fully invested in getting them out there. Because I can't look at Flood and then look at an album like Apollo 13 and say, oh, there's more songs I like on Flood. I like the ones on Apollo.

Like, there's an equal amount of songs on Apollo 13. There's an equal amount of songs on the else or the spine or like any of the later albums. I think it's something about, you know, the convergence of those factors in that moment of time that really makes those songs like super stick to people. And MTV, too, you know, they were really anomalous, you know, the Birdhouse video, the don't let start video, you know, they did all these, they would guest star on MTV and like play live. You know, they were really popular on MTV, like disproportionate to their actual popularity, but they were great. is like an antidote to everything else happening on MTV around them. I think that's a big part of why Flood is mythic still. And let it also be said, two dudes are cute, man.

Two dudes are cute. Like, you look at the 90s, you got Flansberg with his glasses playing his little weird polygon guitar. He's holding it up. Exactly. And, you know, the other John with his little floppy cute bangs over one eye. He's playing a truiting. Look, man, those guys are. attractive. I'm glad somebody said it. I can say absolutely. I can and I will. Okay, absolutely.

How many rappers do you know who also love they might be giants? Do they secretly have a huge influence in hip-hop to your mind? Zero. There are two other rappers I know who like they might be Giants as bus driver and two mechs and that is it. That is a complete list of rappers I know that like they might be giants. Because I there's maybe it's superficial, but like there's some de la soul parallel, you know, like the colorfulness versus the existential dread. Like I like that parallel. I see somebody like Tierra whack now, like the cost, the pageantry, you know, the costuming. Like I see possible influence there. but maybe not. Maybe I'm just wanting to see it and it's not really there. Yeah, no, I wish it was there.

Yeah. I wish it was there because then I think I would make a lot more sense, but, you know, it's not there. So here I am. I, that critical urge to underestimate music that's, that's quirky or funny in any sense, like once you started getting written about yourself, like, I don't think I've ever read a negative review of anything you've done. Oh, I'll show you some. I'll show you some. I'll send you that email. Send me that. Send me that. email, but have you ever felt like you weren't taken as seriously because you were willing to be funny or offbeat, and they might be giant sort of way? So I've never

felt that due to reviews or criticism, but I think I have felt that in I think the fandom in hip hop somewhat I would say underestimates my

because like, okay, all rappers are maniacs. That's what you I kind of got a know first. We're all absolutely insane. And I think that because I don't necessarily live in this seriousness of my insanity and all of my music, like, I don't take it, since I don't present the music to take itself that seriously, I think that people don't, there are some people who do not take me a serious of an artist. And I think, you know, there's a lot of like, quote unquote, authenticity, street cred, sort of like, and all that stuff makes me really angry on a lot of levels. But I do think that there is something to that. I think that, like, my willingness to be myself, which is something that, like, you know, they might be giants.

It's like, they've always been inspirational to me in that way that, like, they don't. have like pop singer voices, you know, they don't, they don't have like pop singer personas. Like, they're two guys who clearly like what they like and think about what they think about and sound like how they sound. And that's always been inspirational to me. And like being able to potentially find success in the freedom of like being the one's self as an artist. But I think in hip hop, there's a lot of like weird unspoken contracts between the, the artist, the music, and the listener. And a lot of that I didn't find out to like I was very deep into a career that like, yeah, in some ways to answer your question, I have put myself on an island where I'm not taking

it seriously sometimes. As an artist as a rapper, as a songwriter, like, is there a tangible way in which they've influenced you? Like, what did they teach you? You're not playing accordions on your records necessarily, but like, do you hear them in your own stuff? I think that my willingness to to do a lot of adventurous hook writing and singing on my records before I really even knew how to do any of that. I can somewhat, I'll blame that. Blame that.

That's blame. That's not inspiration. It's their fault. That I sometimes have made choices that my larynx wasn't ready for. And I think, you know, what I was saying, too, about just truly wanting to live in, who I think of myself as, as an artist.

I mean, they really do inspire me when it comes to that. Like, not, you know, if they might be giants, you've been doing this for 30 years. I'm sure there's some points where you consider making the dumb pops on it you know they're capable of. Right. You know, and doing that whole thing and getting back on the roller coaster and doing, you know, all of the, all of the, just jumping through all the hoops you can jump through to be like a pop thing again, you know? Sure. And yeah, I'm inspired by the fact that they've always chosen not to.

I remember the boss of me moment, the Malcolm in the middle theme song was, you know, like sort of a minor hit for them. And like one of the more heard songs of theirs probably in that era, at least. And I sort of wondered if there was. And the daily show, I think, was around then, too. They seemed a little more prominent and inching toward the mainstream. And I was wondering what was going to happen. And then it didn't happen. And then I think it was for the best.

Like you said, they just kept doing what they do. And I think they're, yeah, one of the things that they do is they get placed a lot. You know, they get, they get theme songs. They get incidental music on shows because they're capable of a lot. And then, you know, they've been doing it for so long that there's a lot of people in places that make decisions who grew up listening to them and know what they could do, you know. Mickey Mouse, the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, of course. When you became a father, did you do the kids' albums? Like, did you actively?

No? I like the kids' albums for me, actually. I listen to them for myself. I think they're great. Okay. I think they're fantastic. You just don't. I agree.

I was playing full-on-grown adult Andy rap for my baby son. That's phenomenal. That's great. It's just for dad. Did you ever personally call Diala song? No, I think by the time. time I was an adult with a phone that was over. That was the same for me. Yeah, I think I think we missed that heyday unfortunately. I've heard all those songs though. I'm pretty sure I've heard all of them.

Right, because they keep putting out compilations and stuff. So returning to Birdhouse, like you hear Birdhouse at nine years old and you say you have some idea of what they're conveying, but like you didn't really know what they were saying. Like how, how is that sound different for you now than when you were nine? How have you grown with it? What do you get? get out of it now. So just this last weekend, I was part of a show called Varietopia that Paul F. Tompkins does, the comic and amazing improviser, Paul F. Tompkins. Yeah.

And when you do Varietopia, typically at some point, because he always has a band and he either does matchups or covers and he has the musical guest, in which I was a musical guest on this show, we do songs. And this is completely coincidental us having this conversation. This is last Saturday. Okay. The band covered Dr. Worm. They covered Paul in the band covered the song called Museum of Idiots, which I think is on the spine album.

Right, right. And him, myself, and comedian Lisa Gilroy covered Birdhouse in Your Soul. Oh, wow. with some of the members of They Might Be Giants Brass Band performing with us. And this is the second time I've been able to sing that song in front of people, like, on a stage. The show called Wits that was taped in Minneapolis in like the 2010s, I was able to do it with them once. And I mean, it's just a song that like lives in me. Like I can, you know, just rattle off the lyrics.

I could sing it anyway, whatever. And when we were backstage, we're about to go on, somebody said, it's about a nightlight, right? And somebody else said, yeah, it's about a nightlight. And I don't know if I said this out loud, but I was thinking it. I was like, yeah, I learned that maybe, let's say, five, six years ago. Maybe I learned if the song's about a nightlight. Maybe longer, because I used to haunt the tea, they might be wiki. where they have all these notes about the song.

So I think I might have learned it then. So it might have been more years ago than that. But I never cared what it was about. Right, right. Never cared what it was about. To me, like, just those words were, like, a lot to chew on. Like, it had me looking up the Lawn Jean Symphony. Like, what is that?

You know, like, Jason and the Argonauts. Who the hell is that? Like, just the imagery, the melody, all of it. Like, I never needed to. to know what it meant, you know? And even now when I sing it, I don't think about what it means. I just, like, think about those words and those images, you know? Yeah.

That does it for me. That must be a great song to perform. That must be a really good. Oh, it's so much fun. It's so much. Especially if you're me and you've loved it for 30 years. Like, yeah, it's peak life living. Yeah.

Have you met them? Oh, yeah. Are they nice? They're amazing. Yeah. They are amazing. Like, I don't know, man. Whenever I get to hang out with him, all I can do for the next, like, three days is thinking about, like, what I might have said that probably got on their nerves.

I know that feeling. Yeah. Yes. But they've always been super nice to me. Like, so nice to me, I don't understand it. It must be very weird to have been doing this for 30 years and all the people you've influenced, you know, whether it's audible or nice to me. not. They taught so many people out to be themselves, you know, even if that version doesn't sound anything like them. They're still a huge influence on so many people. I mean, yeah, I saw one of

those flood shows here in L.A. at the wheel turn a few months ago, and it was packed. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, that's why I say they're bigger than they've ever been, it feels like to me. You know, the crowds are more enthusiastic than they've ever been. Absolutely. But I think, you know, part of it is, yeah, that we get to go back and celebrate what brought us. us to them in many cases. I mean, a flood show from them is a really, really special thing to see. This has been wonderful, Mike. It's always great, man.

You know me. I can do this for hours, man. I'm trying to think of the fourth. Don't tell me. Don't tell me who the fourth one is. I'm going to get it. I'm going to get it. It's not blind melon.

Okay. I didn't think so. I didn't think so. That was my one guy. I'll figure it out. I'll figure it out. Mike, thanks so much, man. Of course.

Thanks for having me. Thanks very much to our special guest this week. open mic eagle thanks as always to our producers jonathan kerma and justin sales thanks to chloe clark for additional production help and thank you very much for listening and now without further ado i need you to go listen to they might be giants all of it all the whole thing but start with burthouse in your soul we'll see you next week