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Talk:With The Dark

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This very much reminds me of Spin The Dial. Anybody else think so? --Valerie 22:38, 9 May 2007 (UTC)


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[edit] Snail Shell

Does anyone think that the trumpet sorta sounds like its playing Snail Shell? -Goodtimes2 (wasn't logged in when i posted)

Oh, wow, I see what you mean... yeah, it does kind of sound like it, but it's not. The melody's a little different. I doubt that it was intentional. Akagi 17:05, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
heh, my mom noticed the similarity while i was playing this in the car. surprised me, since she isn't too big a tmbg fan, but she apparently remembered hearing snail shell on the radio a little bit back in '94. i was but a three year old when john henry came out...--Ehsteve14 04:53, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh dear. The only real clunker of the album. Not as bad as the Guitar or Spy, but bad enough. Lyrically lazy and oblique it's more a musical workout than a song, with a weak acoustic strum morphing in a horn break ect ect and then continues to lurch from one style. Similiar, but inferior to the funky stuff of Mono Puff. Linnell apparently loves it, but it demonstates the Giants at their muso worst. (Mr Tuck)

Ouch. ~ magbatz
I completely disagree with you about this song, probably more than most disagreements I've had with your opinions. Ouch, indeed. -CapitalQ / @ / 20:14, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I'll say this, I love the intro. If the rest of the song had been like that, it'd probably be among my top favorite TMBG songs. Franky

[edit] Video

THAT is the official video? Pardon my French, but...what the hell? Spiraling Shape 00:43, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't know what you're talkin' aboot, I LOVED the video. Akagi 01:11, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I loved it too! I practically worhip the album cover of Apollo 18 (I draw whales fighting squids everywhere), and the video made me think of it and smile. And I love puppet Johns :D Jade

I actually set a cropped version of the puppet Johns as my picture for IMing and stuff. Stalefries 04:13, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Separate Live Version?

Should we make a separate page for the live version that TDK recorded? It has different lyrics and it sticks to the same theme from the intro. --WhatIsThatThing 03:14, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

It's completely different from the album version, so my vote is yes. Akagi 03:18, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
I went ahead and made it. If anyone has any objections, feel free to raise them.

[edit] Am I the Only One?

I agree with Magbatz that this is probably the worst song TMBG has done in many years. It sounds like they were trying to recreate the success of fingertips but it ends up being a complete mess. The real problem with this song is that is has absolutely no substance. It's just weird for weirdness' sake and that's not TMBG's style. They've certainly been weirder in the past but at least they had some sort of message to justify it.

This song definitely supports my theory that TMBG are not TMBG anymore so much as they are Linnell doing state songs-esque music and Flans doing Mono Puff. They don't sound cohesive anymore to me.

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if TMBG had never tried to do rock music and instead had stuck with doing strange semi-electronic pop music. I'm totally fine with bands changing over the years but they should have just moved on after discovering they don't do rock instead of pathetically clinging to it after so many years.

I don't really care if a lot of you die-hard fans vehemently disagree with me. I'd rather not be an apologist, pretending that every single thing TMBG has ever done has been gold. I'm willing to admit that quite a bit of their music sucks.

/vent over.

Well, first off, Magbatz never hated the song. It looks like it was "Mr. Tuck" that disliked it. But I love it. It has the same random style I'm familiar with. But that's my opinion. AND IT SHOULD BE YOURS TOO. You can have your own. Personally this is one of my favorite songs from The Else. Especially the opening/ending. --WhatIsThatThing 06:05, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
You think this sounds like Mono Puff? I don't get it. This is probably one of the most eclectic and diverse pieces that the band has ever recorded without sounding overly wacky (a la Fingertips). It's not just some random little snippets glued together; each of the FOUR (not twenty-one) pieces builds off the previous piece, which is how they're interweaved so nicely, unlike a jumbled mess. The three-minute long song has plenty of substance, especially when you can try to grasp the whole thing (with an open mind?). -CapitalQ / @ / 11:31, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
Yeah to me this is a really cool TMBG track, and the disparate sections go together as seamlessly as the parts to "Band On the Run" or "Live and Let Die". This album is TMBG getting their "full band" legs back that they haven't really had together since John Henry. FS was too slick, Mink Car was all over the place, and The Spine just felt a little flat in terms of energy (even "Thunderbird" which should have been off the hook).
To me TMBG's worst tendencies are when they make some half-assed thrown together piece of music and treat it like it's their best work. For example, "Dollar for Dollar" might have been fine for the McSweeny's disc, but was it really necessary for the "They Got Lost" compilation? There was nothing else they could put in that place? And does anyone else feel like the Else bonus disc starts off amazing then drops off considerably? I mean, I'd rather have some other Podcast tunes, like maybe "Little Airplane" or "Diving Board" over "Kendra McCormick". They're just getting a little too into those 30-second pieces of music.
That being said, "The Else" is fantastic. --Oddjob 15:37, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
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