Operators Are Standing By
From This Might Be A Wiki
Illustration from the Long Tall Weekend liner notes
| song name | Operators Are Standing By |
| artist | They Might Be Giants |
| releases | Dial-A-Song, DialASong.com (1998), Long Tall Weekend |
| year | 1998 |
| first played | October 23, 1999 (1 known performance) |
| run time | 1:24 |
| sung by | John Flansburgh |
Trivia/Info
- From A Quick Guide To Long Tall Weekend: "Sung by Flansburgh with Linnell at the mighty Hammond B3 electric organ, this meditation on the torments of office work carries on in the grumbling tradition of 'Minimum Wage'."
- It is unknown when the studio version of this song was first recorded, although it is known to have been recorded somewhere from 1994 to 1997:
- An acoustic demo of the song sung by John Flansburgh was known to have appeared on Dial-A-Song as early as 1994[1], roughly dating the song's conception to around this time. The song's chorus also appeared in a Hello CD of the Month Club advertisement featured in the October 26, 1994 issue of the Village Voice.
- Bassist Graham Maby and drummer Brian Doherty are both credited for their performances on the studio recording. Both musicians spent time performing with They Might Be Giants between 1994 to 1997, although Doherty had joined the band a year earlier in 1993.
- Flansburgh does not entirely recall which studio the song was recorded in, although he mentioned on Tumblr in 2023 that it could have either been at Coyote Studio or Kampo Studios[2]. Coyote Studio was notable for being one of the studios where Factory Showroom was recorded[3], while Kampo was one of the recording locations for Here Come The ABCs[4].
- Before the release of Long Tall Weekend, the studio recording of this song was first shared to the tmbg.com Dial-A-Song Online page on November 4, 1998 under the title of "Operators".
- The Möbius strip is a surface with only one side and only one boundary, with the mathematical property of being "unorientable". Flansburgh refers to it again in the songs "Homunculus" and "Omnicorn".
Song Themes
Addiction, Compulsion, Aversion To Work, Backwards, Clothes, Coffee, Drinks, Fire, Occupations, Space, Telecommunication, Television
Videos
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![[3]](https://tmbw.net/wiki/File:Factory_Showroom_Liner_Notes_Side_2.png){kind=link}