MIXTAPE MONDAYS: 20 Years of They Might Be Giants' "Lincoln"

(Every Monday at Tragically Hipster we'll feature a look at a band, performance, or vague musical concept, with an accompanying virtual mixtape for your listening pleasure. There's no need to thank us; it's just one more service we like to provide for you, our dedicated readers. Most of whom also write for this site.)

For my maiden voyage here at Tragically Hipster, "Greg" has given me the opportunity to host this week's Mixtape Monday. I thought I'd begin by honoring an album that had a marked impact on me as a musician, artist and person in general and that recently turned 20: They Might Be Giants' masterpiece, Lincoln.

It must have been shortly after the release of this album when They Might Be Giants first came to my attention. I was 11 at the time and have clear memories of watching a Dr. Demento video special on cable when the bizarre video for "Ana Ng" popped up on the screen. I know I had never seen anything like it before. What I was witnessing was post-modern MTV (before it was called that), a sort of Dadaist concept for music video. (TMBG would further explore this concept two years later with their video for "Birdhouse in Your Soul," in which dozens of people in identical plaid shirts and masks marched in a circle, wearing signs that said "STOP ROCK VIDEO.")

But more than anything, it was the song that grabbed me...especially that unforgettable chorus, with its jangly instrumentation and frenetic recitation of long sentences, like some nonsensical version of "Schoolhouse Rock":

Ana Ng and I are getting old
And we still haven't walked in the glow of each others' majestic presence
Listen Ana, hear my words
They're the ones you would think I would say
If there was a me for you

I don't remember getting ahold of the tape of Lincoln until the next summer, which I was spending at my grandparents' house in Palm Desert (as I often did). On that same day, I also picked up "Weird Al" Yankovic's In 3-D album, which would jump start another, albeit minor, obsession. (Unlike TMBG, that obsession ran out of gas around 1991.)

Those two albums became my soundtrack for the summer of 1989. I would sit and play both albums over and over on my grandma's old portable cassette player: a little box with a handle, a crude speaker and big white keys on it.

I had absolutely no comparison points to draw from for Lincoln, which often makes me wonder if it was the first true "alternative" album I ever owned. (I had picked up 10,000 Maniacs' In My Tribe two years earlier, but that's not even on the same planet as Lincoln.) It didn't sound like anything I'd ever heard before (or since, really). These were skewered pop songs in a myriad of different styles using synthesizers, guitars, drum machines (it would be another four years before TMBG would begin recruiting live musicians for their recordings and stage shows), brass, zithers, banjos, glockenspiels and even a string quartet.

I would often tell people the band reminded me of "Weird Al," but in a few years' time it became clear to me that I was making this comparison based largely on perfunctory aesthetic qualities. For instance, like Al, TMBG's John Linnell often sings with a nasal whine. (Oddly enough, Al's overly earnest balladeer voice also smacks of John Flansburgh.) And of course there's TMBG's predominant use of accordion, certainly a rarity in the pop world of the late 1980s.

And then there are those lyrics, many of which often come off as "silly" (and surely, some of them are) but some of which prove to be deeper and occasionally even profound upon closer inspection. I remember poring over the lyric sheet of Lincoln continuously as I listened. Songs like "Cowtown" were obvious fun, but what of "Purple Toupee"?

I remember the year I went to camp
Heard about some lady named Selma and some blacks
Somebody put their fingers in the president's ears
And it wasn't too much later they came out with Johnson's wax
I remember the book depository
Where they crowned the king of Cuba
That's all I can think of, but I'm sure there's something else
Way down inside me I can feel it coming back

Nowadays, it seems obvious that the song is a brilliant play on words about American history...about someone who misremembers significant events (or, at the very least, a speaker who is trying to mask them...an unreliable narrator of sorts).

At the time, though, the "Johnson's wax" line made me laugh and that was all I cared about.

The full potency of some of these songs (especially the sad ones) didn't hit me until years later. For instance, Linnell's perfectly crafted "They'll Need a Crane" encapsulates the disintegration of a relationship in a way that few songs do, particularly in the frenetic bridge section, in which Linnell almost free associates:

Don't call me at work again, oh no
The boss still hates me, I'm just tired
And I don't love you anymore
And there's a restaurant we should check out where the other nightmare people like to go
I mean nice people
Baby wait, I didn't mean to say nightmare...

The band saves its most daring statement for the last track...the devastating indictment of power, greed, narcissism and mind control, "Kiss Me, Son of God," a song whose lyrics are so powerful and clever that they beg to be printed in full:

I built a little empire out of some crazy garbage
Called "the blood of the exploited working class"
But they've overcome their shyness
Now they're calling me Your Highness
And a world screams "kiss me, son of God!"

I destroyed a bond of friendship and respect
Between the only people left who'd even look me in the eye
Now I laugh and make a fortune
Off the same ones that I tortured
And a world screams "kiss me, son of God!"

I look like Jesus
So they say
But Mr. Jesus is very far away
Now you're the only one here who can tell me if it's true
That you love me and I love me

And to think that my 12 year old mind wondered if this song meant they were a Christian band...

Lincoln presents an interesting dichotomy in that it contains many of the band's most profound songs (some of which are incredibly somber, not something the band is typically known for) seated next to just as many that are unabashedly silly. Linnell's dour analysis of a relationship, "I've Got a Match," is followed by Flansburgh's ridiculous "Santa's Beard," in which the narrator alleges that his girlfriend is cheating on him with a Santa Claus impersonator. Flansburgh's mournful "Piece of Dirt" sits alongside the ridiculously glorious, faux military march of "Pencil Rain." ("They're searching the yonder blue/they look out for number two.") For every "They'll Need a Crane" you have a "Cowtown." You get the picture.

And yet, somehow, this collection of songs works well together as a cohesive whole. Lincoln, like a good chunk of TMBG's work, is like a funhouse: the listener is invited to enter this strange, surreal world of bizarre sounds and cryptic concepts, but somehow one is reassured that everything is going to be alright and the exit will be found. I would cite the band's unfailing ability to craft incredibly strong melodies as one of the main reasons for this. (In a BBC interview years later, Flansburgh would claim that "melody is our secret weapon.")

I kind of put TMBG to the side until the following year, when some girls in my class did a dance routine to the band's cover of "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" for the school talent show. When a friend told me the band was They Might Be Giants, I recognized them as "those Lincoln guys." At the time, I had no idea they had continued to release material. (Back in the pre-internet days, it was much more difficult to keep up with current releases, especially when (a) you were attempting to follow an "alternative" band and (b) you were an only child.) Eventually, I would get ahold of that album, Flood, as well as Apollo 18, which both kicked my fanaticism until full gear. I even joined the fan club, a phenomenon that now seems to be nothing more than a sad relic of a bygone era in today's world of MySpace, Facebook and "e-mailing lists." Back then, it was a special thing to get a postcard or newsletter in the mail every few months (sometimes even hand addressed!) announcing tour dates or forthcoming material.

30 discs, 14 concerts, hundreds of mp3s and scads of autographs, set lists, t-shirts and assorted memorabilia later, TMBG is still one of my favorite bands, and while I don't listen to them nearly as much as I did in, say, 1995, they've become, to paraphrase a friend of mine, "like old friends." Even though many would argue that some of their initial charm was lost after their initial duo phase was over, I know they will put out a good to great album every 2-3 years. I always have to see them whenever they're in town, as I know they can always be trusted to put on a great show. Their never-ending output of material would make even Prince blush, and while new tracks often slip past me all the time, I know I can enjoy them when I finally get ahold of them.

But it all started with Lincoln, that bizarre little album that made no sense to me at age 12 yet made all the sense in the world. It is still one of my top five albums of all time.

I've often said that They Might Be Giants is a band you either instinctively get or you don't. Their aesthetic either clicks and resonates with the listener (and often comforts them in some strange, inexplicable way) or comes off as annoying, quirky "novelty music." But to dismiss the band as mere "novelty" or "comedy" is to do them a great disservice. Mssrs. Linnell and Flansburgh are supreme pop craftsmen and Post-Modernists of the highest order.

As such, TMBG fans and fanatics often come off as relentlessly cultish and obsessive (traits which yours truly certainly shares from time to time). One of TMBG's b-sides contained a snippet of a conversation between two people on a conference call who had unknowingly left a message on TMBG's famous Dial-A-Song service. The woman had called the number after seeing it in a cryptic advertisement in the Village Voice. She may have unwittingly summed up the entire oeuvre and strange pull of the band when she said to her call partner "well, I can't explain it...'cause I don't know what it is!"

Lincoln was my first indoctrination into this strange little cult that I've been a member of for almost 20 years now. For this Mixtape Monday, I've plundered my vaults and assembled an alternate version of the album, culling tracks from demo tapes, rare EPs, bootlegs, concerts, web-circulated mp3s and even TMBG's own short-lived e-Music rarities service TMBG Unlimited. (Unfortunately, I could not find any alternate versions of four tracks, so I've retained the album versions in those instances.) Some of the versions even feature slight lyrical variations.

For those who know and love this album as I do, this Mixtape will hopefully prove to be a treat. And for those who've never heard it, maybe this will inspire you to give the band another look.

Join the cult. It's free! (When you call from Brooklyn.)

On the Mixtape:


1) "Ana Ng" (Live at the Sony Music Studios, NYC, 10-19-94)
2) "Cowtown" (Demo)
3) "Lie Still, Little Bottle" (Live on Record Guide, 1988)
4) "Purple Toupee" (Live at the Sony Music Studios, NYC, 10-19-94)
5) "Cage and Aquarium" (Live at the Bowery Ballroom, 10-21-99)
6) "Where Your Eyes Don't Go" (Live on the Frank O'Toole Show)
7) "Piece of Dirt" (Live in Chicago, 1992)
8) "Mr. Me" (TMBG's Other Thing, featuring the Velcro Horns)
9) "Pencil Rain" (Live at the Bowery Ballroom, 10-21-99)
10) "The World's Address" (Joshua Fried Remix)
11) "I've Got a Match" (Live in Atlanta, 6-26-87)
12) "Santa's Beard" (Album Version)
13) "You'll Miss Me" (Live at Irving Plaza, 2-12-97)
14) "They'll Need a Crane" (Album Version)
15) "Shoehorn with Teeth" (Live at the Bowery Ballroom, 10-21-99)
16) "Stand On Your Own Head" (Album Version)
17) "Snowball in Hell" (Album Version)
18) "Kiss Me, Son of God" (Alternate Version)

Quick Notes on Select Songs:
*Tracks 1 & 4 are both from the very rare college promo "Live!! New York City," a full concert that was put out in a cardboard sleeve in 1994. This was sent to me by a kind soul in Hawaii years and years ago when I was a regular poster at the tmbg.org forums. This version of "Ana Ng" was substantially remixed and even overdubbed when it was finally issued commercially on the live compilation Severe Tire Damage in 1998.

*This demo of "Cowtown" comes from the band's original demo tape from 1985. Many of the songs from this tape were later remixed and/or overdubbed for proper release on their 1986 debut album They Might Be Giants.

*Tracks 6-8 were issued as part of the TMBG Unlimited mp3 service in 2001.

*Tracks 10 & 18 are single b-sides and were issued on the 1991 compilation Miscellaneous T.

*All other tracks (bar "album versions") are rare and previously unreleased.


LINKS:
Lincoln (Alternate Version) Mixtape
Lincoln by They Might Be Giants
Miscellaneous T by They Might Be Giants
Then: The Earlier Years by They Might Be Giants
Severe Tire Damage by They Might Be Giants