Talk:Feign Amnesia

Thoughts

I'm gonna pretend I forgot about this song. Seriously though, it's okay. Certainly overshadowed by the awesomeness of the following song. Bacon warrior 23:34, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Prevenge

This song reminds me A LOT!!!! of Prevenge!!!! - GT2 15:41, May 24, 2007‎

Dammit, I like this song! I really don't understand all the anti-Feign Amnesia sentiment I've heard around. I love the sound, the harmonies, it's one of the songs from The Else that's most likely to get stuck in my head. It doesn't sound any more like Prevenge than, say, how much Experimental Film sounds like Bangs. --TVsKyle 20:44, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I totally agree. While every album since Apollo 18 seemed Linnell-dominated to me, The Else marks, with songs like this one, Careful What You Pack, and With The Dark, Flans' triumphant return to keeping all contributions to an album on the same high level. It's definitely his. And the train guitar noise is the ass-kickingest sound of all of The Else. - Whirrrlwind (Woosh!) 18:38, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Alternate Lyrics?

As often happens with TMBG songs, when I heard the album version of this song, it sounded vaguely familiar, probably because I had already heard it as a demo at some point. The only thing is, I seem to remember the lyrics being different. Though I can't remember what the original chorus was, I don't think it was "feign amnesia." It's driving me crazy because it's on the tip of my tongue, but I can't figure it out. Anyone else having this problem or am I just suffering from unfeigned amnesia? —Preceding unsigned comment added by KoopLaFez (talk • contribs) 00:08, September 6, 2008

I don't believe a similar song exists in demo format. If you can figure out which one you're thinking of, definitely let us know! -CapitalQ ♫ talk ♪ 15:31, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

It could just be that Finished With Lies and Prevenge were rolling in my head and formed some sort of amalgam that sounded similar to this. Or maybe I heard it previously on one of the podcasts. Or maybe all of these clever songs are just starting to bleed together.--KoopLaFez 05:25, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

???

Why in the hell is this song so mysterious? Never performed, never acknowledged... this semi-forgettable uptempo pop tune has somehow become one of TMBG's most obscure album tracks, along with "The World Before Later On", "Broke in Two"... actually, I guess that's a growing trend? "Sleep", "Stone Cold Coup D'État" (UNFORGIVABLE), "Replicant", "Lumberland", "Too Tall Girl", "Stuff is Way", "In Fact", "Let Your Hair Hang Down", "Protagonist", "Dog Walker", "2082", "You Don't Like Me"... wow. Lots of new songs that they haven't and probably won't play live. Though "Feign Amnesia" remains one of the few that I believe has not even been acknowledged or mentioned by the band... ~ april 03:07, 2 June 2015 (EDT)

I don't think it's really that unusual--there are at least a couple of songs from every album that have never been played live save for the ones they've done full-album shows, aren't there? Not sure what you mean about "never acknowledged" either--I don't think they necessarily discuss every single song from every album in depth. I haven't heard them specifically say stuff about a lot of songs on The Else (or any other given album). --Self Called Nowhere (talk) 06:12, 2 June 2015 (EDT)

It will be interesting to see if they ever do Join Us or Nanobots shows and how they will treat that neglected material. Track count wise The Else is one of their easier albums to do live so I guess it's not surprising they picked it as a theme. Also I hate this song and I'm delighted they will probably never play it. (Usually not the case with other forgotten tracks though.) -- Sonderling (talk) 21:41, 2 June 2015 (EDT)

Wow, expressing "hate" for this song is truly remarkable. It's not stellar, but it's decent enough to be undeserving of such excessive wrath. [If your sentiment was stated tongue-in-cheek then you can disregard my remarks.] Anyway, aside from album-specific shows, I think there will always be a number of tracks from each album that will rarely--if ever--be played live. With a catalog as vast as TMBG's, that's just a natural consequence. This song here is upbeat and energetic, and while it may be perfectly suited for live performance, there are also other songs from The Else which fit that description but are much more popular (i.e., "The Mesopotamians"). Here's hoping their inevitable 2027 tour will include a full performance of The Else! :-) --MisterMe (talk) 08:50, 12 July 2021 (EDT)

I also want to know what the deal is. Re: lack of acknowledgement, I would cite the show I saw at Music Hall of Williamsburg a few years back where they were doing an album show every month. It was a "The Else" show and they straight up did not play or acknowledge the song's existence. I'd love to know if there's a reason for that or if it's just a silly bit (the band is feigning amnesia with regard to the song) (setlist: https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/they-might-be-giants/2015/music-hall-of-williamsburg-brooklyn-ny-13c98541.html) -- Accountless Chris

'60s garage bands

An anonymous user recently updated the References page with lyrics from this song's second verse section: "Barbarians and Seeds, The Lost and The Remains" - those are all garage bands from the 1960s, many from Massachusetts, of which presumably Flans was aware in his youth. However, can we be certain this is the case in this song? I always thought it was just a bunch of random words that he liked and threw together in that line, but this might be plausible. Any definitive source for it? --MisterMe (talk) 10:48, 16 March 2017 (EDT)

I agree, if we don't have a verified source for this it shouldn't be included. --Self Called Nowhere (talk) 13:24, 17 March 2017 (EDT)

Ok after further thought I've changed my mind, I think they probably are actually references. So it should stay. --Self Called Nowhere (talk) 14:44, 17 March 2017 (EDT)

disagree. seems wholly unlikely that these four "random" terms would coincidentally be bands from his youth (and many of them local). plus flans is a namechecking machine. -- 14:52, 17 March 2017 (EDT)

A quick Google search, I see these are all bands from the late 60s. They all are from Massachusetts, except the Seeds, from Los Angeles. They each have a Wikipedia page and everything. Sounds like what the line is referring to, to me. -Ryan