Boss Of Me
From This Might Be A Wiki
| song name | Boss of Me |
| artist | They Might Be Giants |
| releases | Boss Of Me (Single), Music From Malcolm In The Middle, 2001 Radio Sampler No. 1, Mink Car [international CDs and 2022 rerelease], Dial-A-Song: 20 Years Of They Might Be Giants, TMBG Clock Radio, A User's Guide to They Might Be Giants: Melody, Fidelity, Quantity, 50,000,000 They Might Be Giants Songs Can't Be Wrong, The Spine Surfs Alone: Rarities 1998-2005 |
| year | 2000 |
| first played | February 4, 2000 (228 known performances) |
| run time | 2:56 |
| sung by | John Flansburgh |
Trivia/Info
- "Boss Of Me," which won TMBG their first Grammy, was the theme to the FOX TV series Malcolm In The Middle. It became the first TV theme ever to win a Grammy for Best Song Written for a Movie or TV Show.
- In a 2016 article, Flansburgh spoke about being approached to write the theme:[1]
The creator of the show is Linwood Boomer, who, if you are the age of my wife exactly, is a name you would recognize instantly because he played the blind boyfriend on Little House on the Prairie as a child actor. The office called, and my wife took a message, and she said, 'This guy Linwood Boomer wants to talk to you.' And she was like, 'I don't know how many people were named Linwood Boomer, but I get the feeling he was on Little House on the Prairie. He created the show and had a very clear idea of what he wanted. He wanted something very high energy that really captured the tussle of a family of brothers. We just sort of grabbed that track out of a stack of half-finished songs and contoured the lyric to the show.
- Flansburgh expanded on the story of the song's creation to the TMBG Instant Fan Club in 2025:
The story of "Boss of Me" is one of the more circuitous, especially considering where the song landed in culture. The theme that appeared on the show was identical to the song fragment demo that had lingered in our inbox for over a year. We got the call from the show's creator Linwood Boomer, who very enthusiastically explained that he had a sitcom pilot in the works that had yet to be picked up by Fox and they wanted to include an original theme song in the package (I believe to sweeten the pitch). [...] Like all opportunities like this, the deadline was NOW, so I reviewed the unfinished material that was kicking around. The show was about a family of three boys, so it needed a lot of manic male energy, and this unfinished demo fit the bill. Erasing the existing vocal which I had previously purposed for a contest jingle as a favor to a Philly morning show that had provided a bunch of support, I quickly graphed the "you're not the boss of me now" refrain (straight out of my own childhood) and added Linwood's "life is unfair" as a tagline. (That was his thumbnail summary of the spirit of the show that I had written down in my notes in our discussion of the project.)
To my delight, it was "demo-itis" for the client from there out. If memory serves, a watered down alternate lyric was insisted on by the network and, while it was demoed, the revised demo was gallantly rejected by Linwood. Then, in one of the most awkward 5-way conference calls of my life, I listened to a Fox executive in a limo on speaker phone doing a spot-on Darth Vader impression exec-splain that he "knew music" and the amateurish vocal needed to be replaced by a "real singer" immediately. I am guessing he didn't know I was on the phone. Or maybe he did! But again, mercifully, this idea was pushed back on by the show's creators. In fact, only the mix changed from the original submitted demo to the version that went on air (applying the then-state-of-the-art five-band compression set to kill, making it momentarily one of the loudest bits of audio on broadcast TV). The song is even 34 seconds long –– the "life is unfair" bit had inadvertently extended it past the required 30, but no one wanted to cut any of the elements. So it just ran the way it was. [...]
The moment the show went on the air, it was an instant smash –– which was both a thrill and a new pressure as we were now writing the incidental cues for the show as well, and it seemed like all eyes were on the show. Ultimately, the song earned us our first Grammy which helped us considerably on the professional front and gave us some good stories to tell for later on.
- Though this song was included on the European release of the 2001 album Mink Car, and later the 2022 vinyl/digital re-release, it was not on the original album. When asked in a 2002 interview in Altercation why it wasn't included, Flansburgh replied:[2]
It was our choice. You know, we like the song, and it was actually on the European version of the record as a bonus track, but I think when we were making Mink Car, we kinda wanted to get out of the shadow of the song. We worked really hard on the album, and "Boss of Me" had just been dominating our lives for like a year and a half. It came out on the show, and then the show was a hit, then it was a chart hit in the UK and Australia, so we were just kind of like 'Next.' I don't know, maybe it was a mistake not putting it on the record. A lot of people are still looking for it. It was on the Malcolm in the Middle soundtrack, but I think a lot of people are picking up our record expecting it to be on there.
- The song is an extended re-recording of the original 35-second version on the What We Did This Summer EP. Although this version of the song eventually came to be considered the "normal" version, when it was originally released as a single, it was called the "edit" version of the song, labeled "Boss Of Me (Edit)," while a full-length version with an extra 9-second intro was simply listed as "Boss Of Me."
- When TMBG performs this song live, Flansburgh has sometimes said that it is about his older brother, Paxus. He has also introduced it by saying, "I wrote a thirty-second song that I couldn't finish for a year."
- This song was sometimes performed live in a mellow country format with acoustic guitar, accordion and snare drum.
- The theme was parodied on MADtv, as part of a Malcolm in the Middle parody sketch. Watch it here.
- In 2010, this song was covered by Florida ska punk band Less Than Jake on their EP, TV/EP.
Song Themes
Aversion To Work, Eyes, No, Occupations, Questions, Size, TV And Movie Themes, Yes
Videos
- Watch it on
- Live "country" version on The Early Show
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