Albany
From This Might Be A Wiki
Screenshot from the studio version's video
| song name | Albany |
| artist | They Might Be Giants |
| releases | Venue Songs, Albany, NY September 17, 2004, Free Tunes |
| year | 2004 |
| first played | September 17, 2004 (23 known performances) |
| run time | 1:21 |
| sung by | John Flansburgh |
Trivia/Info
- Also known as "The Egg" in the original concert setlist, this is the venue song for The Egg.
- The Egg, named for its shape, is a performing arts center in the Empire State Plaza. Known for its impressive acoustics, it holds two theatres along with a conference center and other goodies. From tmbg.com:
The Egg was built as part of Nelson Rockefeller's dream to reinvent Albany as New York's state capital. It was designed by Wallace Harrison and contains virtually no straight lines or corners. Construction began in 1966 and finished in 1978. The Egg's performance center continues to flourish and is They Might Be Giants' home away from home, in Albany. The friendly Egg is nestled among Albany's state buildings, which are perhaps the harshest example of modernist brutalism on permanent display. Former residents of Albany have described the song as capturing the essential Albany-residential (or Albanian) experience.
- According to Flans during the show, the song took "minutes to organize". Dan Miller confirms this in the download notes, "He debuts his demo during soundcheck, which, he claims, was written and recorded during his car ride to the gig. How the acoustic part got recorded while cruising at 70mph during the Atlantis creating rain is yet another of Flans' remarkable skills." Years later, in an interview, Flansburgh had this to say of the song's origins:
The song "The Egg" is one of the few songs I've ever written while driving. I recorded it on a tape recorder singing out loud. When I got to the parking lot of The Egg I sat in the back of my car and put some chords to it and then I gave it to the band and we played it that night.
- The line "The Egg, exciting and old" is a reference to the theme from The Love Boat, which begins with the line "Love, exciting and new".
- The line "From the outside, I am thinking / I'm a number, not a man" is a reference to a line from the opening sequence of the 1967 BBC TV series The Prisoner: "I am not a number — I am a free man!"
Song Themes
Food, Furniture, Numbers, Personification, Questions, Shapes, Venue Songs
Videos
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