List | T | They Might Be Giants | 'They Might Be Giants' CD 1986

Track:	Name:	Time:
1.	Everything Right Is Wrong Again	2:20
2.	Put Your Hand Inside The Puppet Head	2:12
3.	Number Three	1:27
4.	Don't Let's Start	2:36
5.	Hide Away Folk Family	3:21
6.	32 Footsteps	1:35
7.	Toddler Highway	0:25
8.	Rabid Child	1:31
9.	Nothing's Gonna Change My Clothes	1:58
10.	(She Was A) Hotel Detective	2:10
11.	She's An Angel	2:37
12.	Youth Culture Killed My Dog	2:51
13.	Boat Of Car	1:15
14.	Absolutely Bill's Mood	2:38
15.	Chess Piece Face	1:21
16.	I Hope That I Get Old Before I Die	1:58
17.	Alienation's For The Rich	2:25
18.	The Day	1:27
19.	Rhythm Section Want Ad	2:21
	Total	38:28

Comments:

Two Johns (Linnell & Flansburg), an accordion, an electric guitar, a drum macine and some keyboards. And some pretty darn catchy tunes with quite weird/odd/funny/strange/tragic/humorous lyrics. Highly addictive stuff; once I've gotten one of these tunes inside my head it's impossible to forget for weeks unless I play it a couple of times. And every time I play one of their tunes I come to think of another one, and have to play that one too. Which, in turn, makes me think of another one, etcetera ad infinitum. Pretty soon I've played all their albums. It's just unavoidable.

This, being their debut album, has its brilliant moments, but some tunes aren't quite as excellent; I tend to skip somewhat less than half of them, whereas the others are very, very good to my ears. For instance, the track 'Don't Let's Start', which was my first contact with this band: a damn catchy and poppy tune about the tragic end of a relationship. I remember seeing the video back in the late '80:s (1987?) on MTV Europe, back when MTV could actually play interesting music every once in a while (well, occasionally they still do; at 3:00 am Thursday morning or so). At the time I just thought it was a catchy and funny tune and shortly forgot all about it. Some time later I remember seeing the videos for 'Birdhouse In Your Soul' and 'Istanbul' from the Flood album, both being very amusing and catchy as well. I did a lame effort of trying to find their album, but after no luck whatsoever ("They Might Be who...?") I gave up and pretty much forgot about the band altogether.

Until 1995 or so, that is, when a guy (hello Matt!) on a mailing list for a completely unrelated band (S.P.O.C.K) had a TMBG quote in his .sig, and I contacted him for a tape trade. He sent me some of their stuff and I was hooked. Now, how to track down the CD:s? Eventually, after much agonizing and fruitless searching, I realised they were simply nowhere to be found in this country. Apparently, I had to trade for them. And so I did (hello Sergio!), and in 1998 I finally got hold of my first 4 TMBG CD:s. And this was one of them :-)

To read the lyrics, check out the official homepage, and for interpretations and more info, check out the unofficial fan site. To hear music samples (MP3:s), visit EMusic.

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