Gleeful Irreverence

Songs that poke fun at sacred institutions or deflate or refute conventional wisdom. Quite abstract, but truly a trend in They Might Be Giants lyrics.

• Another First Kiss - A cheerful "screw that" to soppy, romantic, adolescent love songs.
• Cage & Aquarium - Mocks the musical "Hair" and, more pertinently, the way the counter-culturalists of the sixties have aged.
• The Devil Went Down To Newport - "Go, go, Satan, go"
• Fingertips - One interpretation is that each phrase is mimicking a different style of music.
• I Should Be Allowed To Think - Manages to skewer whiny didacts as well as those guys at your college who were always organizing symposiums on the First Amendment or putting up prints-out of Allen Ginsburg poems on their doors.
• It's Fun To Steal - Well, it's usually illegal, but in this case, Flans thinks it's fun. He also enjoys breaking hearts, which is usually frowned upon.
• Judy Is Your Viet Nam - Using the rather extreme metaphor of a long, involved war with no clear winner to describe an unusual relationship with an inertia-filled woman.
• Kiss Me, Son Of God - Doesn't make fun of Jesus or Christianity so much as people who exploit the faith of others for personal gain.
• Man, It's So Loud In Here - The rave scene.
• Nothing's Gonna Change My Clothes - The song's title is likely a direct reference to (and possibly a parody of) the iconic line "nothing's going to change my world" from the Beatles song "Across the Universe".
• O, Do Not Forsake Me - If you ever heard the song, you know what this is. Not only that, they occasionally use the phrase "talking like this" which basically is mocking how the narrator is singing.
• Old Pine Box - "You tried punching a cop"
• Purple Toupee - A veritable counterpoint to "We Didn't Start the Fire"'s insistence of the historicity and significance of 60's-90's events
• Stomp Box - Not only is the style mocking satanic heavy metal music, so are the lyrics.
• This Is Only Going To Go One Way - Mocks the idea that everything is written to be your destiny when everything goes wrong
• When Will You Die - Generally, it's not politically correct to wish death upon someone, but the singer of this song can't wait for that to happen to an individual widely considered to be evil.
• You're On Fire