The Big Big Whoredom (Live)

From This Might Be A Wiki

song name The Big Big Whoredom
artist They Might Be Giants
releases TMBG Unlimited - July, DialASong.com (2000-2006), TMBG Clock Radio, Podcast 26A
year 2001
run time 1:37
sung by John Flansburgh, John Linnell


Trivia/Info

  • Recorded live in the mid-1980s.
  • This recording of the song features a much more complicated and energetic arrangement compared to the version released on Then: The Earlier Years. John Flansburgh described it as having a "very impressive and strange rhythm accompaniment."[1]
  • John Flansburgh recounted the live performances of this song in a 1997 interview. He related it to the song Exquisite Dead Guy, which was performed with ventriloquist dummy props, and spoke about the highly rehearsed, theatrical style shared by both songs' performances:

There's actually a demo of the song The Big Big Whoredom [on Then: The Earlier Years], which was a song we did for many years in our early repertoire. Talking about improvisation versus rehearsal, it was one of these songs that — the main thing about this song, I think, that the audience got out of it, was that we were people that were working really hard to do a good job. Because it was a really tricky, really non-repetitive song; it was hard to sing, and we were singing it in unison, so it was really like [whisper] 'these guys rehearse a lot!' It's kind of weird, because I don't know if it's really important for people to know if you work hard. But for a cold audience, I think they kind of appreciated it. In some abstract way, they go, 'oh, these people aren't just stumbling onto the stage, and getting in the way of my drinking...'

  • There are moments in the recording when two different vocal parts by John Linnell are playing at the same time. These extra vocals might be additional overdubs that were recorded later, or they may have been part of the song's backing track. Though rare, there were some songs (such as Nothing's Gonna Change My Clothes) that included vocal parts in their backing tracks.
  • At the end of the recording, a bass note can be heard that is identical to the intro of the 1983 demos of Hell Hotel.

Song Themes

Denial, Heads, Questions, Self-Reference, Size, Upside Down

Videos

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The Big Big Whoredom (Live) is currently ranked #232 out of 1005. (27 wikians have given it an average rating of 8.69)