Mammal
From This Might Be A Wiki
Sculpture, from the Apollo 18 promo representing the song
| song name | Mammal |
| artist | They Might Be Giants |
| releases | Apollo 18, Dial-A-Song: 20 Years Of They Might Be Giants, Flood + Apollo 18 |
| year | 1992 |
| first played | February 1, 1992 (230 known performances) |
| run time | 2:14 |
| sung by | John Linnell |
Trivia/Info
- John Linnell explained the process of writing this song in an interview featured in the October 1992 issue of VOX Magazine:
It kind of seemed like the typical way to write a song like "Mammal" is to use 'mammal' in sort of a metaphor way; as sort of an oddball that isn't connected to the rest of the lyric necessarily or is the name, there can be a lot of different ways to do that. But I was thinking, "that seemed like a lot of work," and maybe the easiest thing was to go to the encyclopedia and read the article about mammals and try and write a straight-forward song and it's kind of more challenging in a way.
- John Flansburgh on performing the song live and its subject matter in a 1992 interview with Discorder:
We do a song called "Mammal" off [Apollo 18] as a duo and that works really well because it's a pretty quiet song. It just works better as a duo, so that's the way we do it. We weren't a folk act when we started, we just do whatever material works best with whatever situation or set-up.
The song is basically a definition of the variety of mammals and what they have in common with one another. It's almost an educational song in that you just get a lot of information on what defines a mammal.
- "The monkey with no tail" may refer to the Barbary macaque, whose appearance is distinguished by a vestigial tail. In a broader sense, the lyric may also refer to apes or humans, who are notably distinguished from closely related monkeys by the lack of a tail.
Song Themes
Animals, Colors, Death, Drinks, Educational, Food, Hair, Lists, Relatives, Science, Size, Temperature
Videos
- Watch it on
– Recorded live on November 29, 2008 by CapitalQ
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