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Pittsburgh

From This Might Be A Wiki
Screenshot from the studio version's video
song namePittsburgh
artistThey Might Be Giants
releasesVenue Songs (Album), Venue Songs (DVD/CD)
year2004
first playedJul. 25, 2004 (21 known performances)
run time1:20
sung byJohn Linnell

Trivia/Info

  • The venue song for Mr. Small's Theatre, it was originally known as "Mr. Small's Theatre" in the concert setlist.
  • This song recalls a tough show at the late bar, the Electric Banana: "It's a gig we played -- probably '86, after the release of our first album," Linnell says. "It (the venue) stood on sort of stilts on an edge of a hill, which we became aware of after we played the set, it was hanging maybe 40 feet over the edge of a precipice. It added to the sense of exciting danger."
  • The Electric Banana is a reference to a now-defunct Pittsburgh club where they played in 1987. Jamie Lincoln Kitman recalled that the club was nearly empty and that he was ready to throw up his hands. The Johns shook hands with everyone there and played "the best concert he had heard," Kitman told the New Yorker in 2001. An executive from a local Pittsburgh station was in the crowd, and the following day, "Don't Let's Start" was first broadcast on commercial radio.
  • The reference to the owner of The Electric Banana (in the live/DVD intro to the song), Johnny Banana, is not a joke. That is the name of the man who owned the club.

Song Themes

Cities, Dreams, Forgetting, Remembering, Intelligence, Espionage, Paranoia, Titles And Honorifics, Venue Songs

Videos

 
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Pittsburgh is currently ranked #167 out of 846. (75 wikians have given it an average rating of 8.84)
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