Dinner Bell
From This Might Be A Wiki
| song name | Dinner Bell |
| artist | They Might Be Giants |
| releases | Apollo 18, Flood + Apollo 18 |
| year | 1992 |
| first played | July 31, 1992 (76 known performances) |
| run time | 2:11 |
| sung by | John Linnell; John Flansburgh sings backup at the end |
Trivia/Info
- John Linnell in the tmbg.com FAQ archive: "The song does indirectly refer to Pavlov's famous experiment involving a dog's reaction to the ringing of a bell after associating the sound with food."
- Linnell's background vocals under the song's first verse, in which each syllable is doubled, are not printed in the album's liner notes. As early as Apollo 18's release year of 1992, fans online tried to decipher the lyrics and came up with "I reheat my soup / take a good look / and walk away."[1] A variation of that lyric remained on TMBW until October 2026, when Linnell revealed the actual lyric during an Apollo 18 show in St. Paul, MN:
There's a lyric that no one can understand, which is the background vocal, which I don't think we even do in the show. Here are the lyrics—no one knows this: the dog is saying, "I really mustn't." And then the master is saying, "It didn't just get up and walk away," meaning, 'where did the food go?' It's not even that important of a lyric, but on the wiki, somebody just tried to transcribe it and they couldn't. They didn't know what the hell it was.
- John Flansburgh on recording the song: "Through the miracle of multi-tracking the big big vocal sound of 'Dinner Bell' was achieved. Linnell did the fancy barbershop stuff, and I came in for the counterpoint voice near the end."
- Linnell's unusual vocal sound during the list of body parts ("shoulder, bicep, elbow, arm", etc.) was achieved by taping himself speaking the words, reversing the tape, listening back, then attempting to imitate the backwards sounds, and finally reversing that recording. A similar process was also later used by Linnell for "On Earth My Nina" and "stelluB."
- This song has been covered by a cappella group The Bobs on their album Rhapsody in Bob (2005), and Satellite High on their album Sing Along With Satellite High (2011).
Song Themes
Addiction, Compulsion, Animals, Backwards, Bells, Body Parts, Clothes, Drinks, Educational, Food, Hands, Lists, Not In Major Or Minor, Onomatopoeia, Science, Swing Feel, Temperature
Videos
- Watch it on
– Recorded live on July 1, 2006, with vocals by Robin Goldwasser and Julia Greenberg.
Current Rating You must be logged in to rate this. You can either login (if you have a userid) or create an account with us today. Dinner Bell is currently ranked #30 out of 1123. (321 wikians have given it an average rating of 9.18) |
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