Don't Let's Start
From This Might Be A Wiki
| song name | Don't Let's Start |
| artist | They Might Be Giants |
| releases | They Might Be Giants, 4 From They Might Be Giants, A User's Guide To They Might Be Giants: Melody, Fidelity, Quantity |
| year | 1986 |
| first played | July 3, 1986 (628 known performances) |
| run time | 2:36 |
| sung by | John Linnell |
Trivia/Info
- John Linnell spoke about writing the song in a 2003 interview on NPR's Fresh Air: "I write songs starting with the music and the melody, then I have this job of trying to fill in the words to a melody that's already written. I end up having to cram words in because the syllables fit. That, I think, accounts for a lot of the lyrics in this one. They're not exactly on-point all the time. It's a song that has a strangely meandering lyric." He later mentioned that they almost put this as the first song on their debut album, but they changed their minds at the last minute because he felt the lyrics were "just too confusing."
- The song's lyrics mention Deputy Dawg, a cartoon character created by Terrytoons who was featured on the 1960s animated television series of the same name by Terrytoons writer Larz Bourne. According to a 1989 interview, the band cited the character as a "major influence". Linnell: "That series was the first time I ever heard the bass harmonica. It was kind of an existential cartoon as well − all these characters stuck out in this desert, all hating each other."[1]
- The song was not initially planned to be released as a single. John Flansburgh: "'Don't Let's Start' was not perceived as a standout track to us or really anyone in our audience until many months after the album was out."[2] According to Jamie Kitman, the song grew in popularity after a programming executive saw them perform at the Electric Banana in 1987 and began playing it on their local radio station.[3] Flansburgh elaborated:[4]
A very small commercial radio station in Pittsburgh began playing a song off the album called Don’t Let’s Start — and not just playing it, but playing it like it was a big hit. And then their sister station in Long Island, NY started playing it as well. Then all these college radio stations, which had recently coalesced around the indie scene, started playing it. So it was quickly determined we should make another video with Adam for "Don’t Let’s Start".
- The song's video was directed by Adam Bernstein with cinematography by Mark Shprintz. Linnell, in a 1994 newsletter:
We shot the outdoor scenes at Flushing Meadows park in Queens, NY, site of the 1964 World's Fair, which both Flansburgh and I attended as children and remember fondly. Several of the pavilions are still there, including the New York State pavilion which has an enormous map of the state (badly chipped up) covering its floor.
- John Linnell talked more about the making of the music video in a 1988 interview:
Our director, Adam Bernstein, pretty much worked with us on the video. What we did was we took a lot of our stage stuff, like the hats and giant faces; all the aspects of our live show, we condensed into a single video. And Adam, for his part, got us up at about five in the morning to shoot this thing, so we were complete zombies and basically did whatever he told us, which is his incredibly successful method of shooting videos. He wakes people up really early so that he can control them. And I take my hat off to him, I think it worked.
- Flansburgh spoke about the music video in a 2019 interview:
It's never officially stated, but everything is going in circles. We were riffing on the idea of it having this circular motion, and there are a lot of things that work that way in the video. That simple unified approach helped make it very successful. And there are a lot of other things in there that stood out; the fact that it was shot on film, that fact that it was over-cranked by double, and it was black and white. All those things, in many ways, hearken back to A Hard Day's Night, which for a lot of people is their most pleasant rock music video experience.
- All of the props featured in the video were items that the band used in their live show. The disembodied head is William Allen White, an American newspaper editor and politician. The large question mark sign is actually bright red and was constructed by John Flansburgh. The three-foot tall "carpet hats" were also created by Flansburgh. They were made of poster board and felt, and could fold down flat. Flansburgh said of using the hats for the video: "We weren't shooting for any symbolism or imagery. It was more like a cartoon; it was interesting to see how tall of a hat you could make."[5]
- The guitar used by Flansburgh for the music video was a Coral Longhorn borrowed from Jickets guitarist Lary 7. It would also be borrowed again during filming of the "Purple Toupee" music video[6].
- One of the shots included in the music video was the explosion of an accordion, which the Johns "hated" according to Linnell in the Direct From Brooklyn DVD commentary. Flansburgh would recall the creation of the shot on Tumblr in 2023:
[Adam Bernstein] was into the idea, and of course the pyro person was very into it. JL and I had mixed emotions as we were pro-accordion, but who knows what the message really was. It was in fact a very broken, unrepairable accordion that was blown up, so no viable accordions were damaged during the making of the video, but if we had it to do over, I bet we’d set the accordion free.
- Flansburgh and Linnell have also mentioned that the success of "Don't Let's Start" and its music video helped They Might Be Giants to continue on, as Linnell would mention in the Direct From Brooklyn DVD commentary: "Everybody thought we had arrived, meanwhile we're feeling like we're over." Flansburgh would elaborate on the song's impact in a 1989 interview:
We hit right after touring the country to really small audiences, and it was right at that moment we were thinking that we can't sleep on people's floors. We're getting really close to 30, we're not gypsies and we can't hack it anymore. We were touring Europe on a really dismal tour with very little interest, and we come back and our audience had quadrupled. At first it was kind of strange because at first a lot of people wanted to hear just one song, and didn't care that much. But then slowly, we alienated the people who were just there for the moment, they went away, and that was fine. And now basically our audience is people who are interested in our music in general. We found an audience for what we do, which is really great.
- The single mix of this song is more widespread than the original album mix. The remix was created by Bill Krauss after the album had been released. Krauss: "People expect something from a remix that is going to bring something new to it. This wasn't really about that, it was really just to sound better. And I think it does."[7] The remix notably features different drum sounds, a different bass track, and additional reverb. The music video, and most compilation albums, feature the single mix.
- The lyric "No one in the world ever gets what they want and that is beautiful" is referenced in Ernest Cline's 2011 novel Ready Player One, as well as its sequel. The book also mentions that the protagonist "burned through the entire They Might Be Giants discography in under two weeks."[8]
- This song was referenced by Open Mike Eagle in the song "Sadface Penance Raps." It's also been referenced by Jimmy Eat World in "A Praise Chorus," and has been covered by Common Rotation.
Song Themes
1964 World's Fair, Animals, Bad English, Body Parts, Cartoons, Death, Funny But Sad, I've Got A, Letters Of The Alphabet, Loneliness, Love Gone Sour, Money, Music, Nonsense Words, Oblique Cliches Or Idiom, Questions, Screaming, Self-Reference, Telecommunication, The Senses, TV And Movie Themes
Videos
- Watch it on
- Watch it on
- Live on MTV, Randee of the Redwoods Convention, 1988 (after "Shoehorn With Teeth")
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