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Snowball In Hell

From This Might Be A Wiki
song nameSnowball in Hell
artistThey Might Be Giants
releasesLincoln, Ana Ng (Single) [Australian Release], Then: The Earlier Years, Dial-A-Song: 20 Years Of They Might Be Giants
year1988
first playedJun. 23, 1987 (5 known performances)
run time2:31
sung byJohn Flansburgh, John Linnell sings back-up

Trivia/Info

  • The dialogue during the bridge comes from a tape called "How to Manage Your Time Effectively," which Bill Krauss bought at a flea market for 25 cents and gave to John Flansburgh for his birthday. Flansburgh: "It's a How-to-Organize-Yourself, self-help cassette, and it's pretty odd. That whole thing is part of a "How to Get Your Shit Together" skit. It's a really silly tape. It really has no useful tips as to how to be more organized. [...] We probably [needed] to get permission [for sampling it], but we didn't. We've been very bad about getting permission on sampled things. I hope we don't get sued." (Sources: Early Years Handbook/Throttle Magazine, August 1990)
  • A performance at an early live show features the dialogue from the tape without (as much of) the editing found on the recorded version, revealing Joe's full line to be "I get it Paul, you've got the needle out, and back on that old 'Time is money' kick, right?" This is presumably an allusion to the common saying "A stitch in time saves nine."
  • This song was played during the end credits of the film "Haiku Tunnel." It was also used in the trailer. Josh Kornbluth, lead actor/director/writer of the film, appeared in Gigantic.
  • The line "If it wasn't for disappointment, I wouldn't have any appointments" is a play on the Blues line "If it wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have any luck".

Song Themes

Aversion To Work, Coffee, Drugs, Food, Jail And Imprisonment, Money, Nonsense Words, Oblique Cliches Or Idiom, Occupations, Oxymorons, Paradoxes, And Contradictory Statements, Problems with Liner Notes, Questions, Religion, Songs With Samples, Trade Names

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Snowball In Hell is currently ranked #56 out of 846. (193 wikians have given it an average rating of 9.02)
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