Shows/1998-12-30a/Interviews

Suarez:	From N.P.R. news in Washington, I'm Ray Suarez and this is "Talk of the Nation."
	(clip of "Why Does The Sun Shine?" from Severe Tire Damage plays over Ray talking)
Suarez:	Live in the studio, the hardest working men in show business, They Might Be Giants. It's rock 'n' roll...sort of, that believes it's okay to care about the words, okay to laugh, okay to dance; They Might Be Giants, Brooklyn's ambassadors of love, after news.
	(news)
Suarez:	This is "Talk of the Nation." I'm Ray Suarez. From time to time on this program, musicians visit to play and talk. Today, from Studio 3A, you're in for a treat. All the way from Brooklyn, the borough that gave you Neil Sedaka, Barbara Streisand and Walt Whitman, though not necessarily in that order, They Might Be Giants.
	(They Might Be Giants plays acoustic instruments, except Linnell, who sometimes plays the keyboard. They play "Older," then go straight into "Working Undercover For The Man.")
Flansburgh:	We're all doing a Beatle bow.
Suarez:	They've got those cute gray suits with the collarless jackets on.
Linnell:	That's right.
Flansburgh:	Well, we're very flattered that you're wearing our same uniform.
	(chuckling)
Suarez:	Uh, you know how hard it is to find shark-skin on short notice?
Linnell:	I know.
Suarez:	Uh, that's John Flansburgh - guitars and vocals, John Linnell - accordion and vocals, Dan Miller - also on guitar, Dan Hickey plays various found instruments like the suitcase and percussion. They Might Be Giants are here live in Studio 3A in Washington (D.C.) after a rushed 230-mile trip down I-95. This invitation and the band's gracious acceptance grew out of an item in the paper. I noticed that John and John and crew would be playing in Washington tonight — wondered if we might get them in here a couple of hours before they go on. I'd always enjoyed the music, but being middle-aged and holed up in what is sometimes the pop-music backwater of our nation's capital, a place known for other things besides music, I had no idea who else listened, where else They Might Be Giants was rapturously heard. But we asked, and they said: "Yes." So here they are. In light of my son's growing interest in music, I figured: "Here's something I wouldn't mind him listening to." So, a couple of weeks ago, I gave him a They Might Be Giants CD. It is, as they say in radio, in heavy rotation in the house. Then, the other night, I picked up a babysitter, who found my son on the living room rug in rapt attention, and said: "Wow, They Might Be Giants," and I figured: "Well, maybe we're onto something here." Now, most bands fail or never reach the kind of steady interest in their work that allows them to stay together 15 years like this band has. They Might Be Giants doesn't play Wembley Arena, where you have a sea of people lighting cigarette lighters or that kind of thing, um, Madison Square Garden. There's no 72-hour career retrospective on MTV. But what the group does have is devoted fans around the country and across generations. We'll be hearing more music and taking your calls from around the country at 800-989-8255. That's 800-989-TALK. Well, welcome.
Linnell:	Thanks.
Suarez:	I was, uh, poking around on the web-page earlier today, which I found a terrific place to, uh...to just find out...stuff. I mean, it's amazing how much raw inventory you can dump in somebody's lap through a web page.
Linnell:	Right. It's not stuff you necessarily need to know, but it's more stuff.
Suarez:	And pictures, videos, music — it's a really clever way to do that if you want to — you know, it's hard to reach everybody individually. But they can find you.
Flansburgh:	Yes. We actually, you know, we found out about the Internet a long, long time ago just because we do have a lot of fans in, sort of the — I don't know, the...scientific community, and —
Linnell:	Shut-ins, we call them.
	(laughing)
Flansburgh:	"The home-bound," we like to think of them. But I remember actually being dragged to, like, the Columbia University site in Nyack, New York to be shown a computer that was hooked up to the Internet, and somebody saying — this was about 10 years ago — and somebody in our management office very industriously saying: "You know, in the future, this is the way it's going to be," and I'm thinking (sarcastically): "Yeah."
	(laughing)
Suarez:	(sarcastically) "Someday, everyone will have this."
Linnell:	Right.
Suarez:	But, it is a way when you've got people scattered and, you know, you can't get in a van and go see all of them.
Flansburgh:	No, no.
Linnell:	We've tried.
	(laughing)
Flansburgh:	We keep on trying that van thing.
Suarez:	Well, how many nights a week are you standing somewhere playing for live human beings?
Flansburgh:	Well, we tour, you know — it depends on what year. You know, some years, we actually are on the road for the better part of a year and we'll probably do a couple hundred shows in a year, and then other years, we're at home writing songs and trying to recover. But, you know, it's not — it's nothing that other working musicians don't do all the time. I mean, there are actually lots of people who do — I'm always amazed when I see someone like B.B. King's schedule and, you know, he's playing 340 nights a year, and part of it is that —
Linnell:	He's probably trying to figure out how to fill out the rest of those days.
Flansburgh:	Right. "We got off days!" But, yeah. Part of our problem is just physically getting to — since we're not — we can't just roll 200 miles down the road and play. We're always looking for — you know, we always have geography kind of working against us. I mean, that 6th or 7th day of the week, we pretty much spend behind the wheel, because we have to get from — you know, there's no getting rid of Montana. That's what we've found, and we like playing Montana. We've actually had the experience where just getting through Montana is the big challenge.
Suarez:	And, you know, there's not the jet pulling up on the airstrip outside the arena to whisk you away.
Linnell:	Yeah, sadly, there isn't that.
Suarez:	Your people haven't arranged for that yet.
Flansburgh:	No, we'll talk to our people as soon as we can find them.
Linnell:	Yeah, we'll arrange for the people and then we'll get the jet.
Suarez:	Well, but that seriously is part of it. I mean, when you want to make a living doing this, you've got choices to make. It's a "this or this." It's a zeroes and ones sort of binary world. "Can we do this? No."
Flansburgh:	We're looking for more zeroes, Ray.
Suarez:	(laughing) Well, yeah.
Flansburgh:	The ones we know about.
Suarez:	But, you want be home occasionally, too.
Linnell:	That's right.
Flansburgh:	Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
Linnell:	I mean, we're getting into middle-age, too, where physically, it's really super-challenging to be out all the time.
Flansburgh:	I — you know, you were saying you were approaching middle-age, and I figure you're the exact same age that we are.
Suarez:	Probably.
Flansburgh:	We, John and I, have had this argument before about — and I'd like to throw this out to the callers: when does middle-age start? Because I don't feel like I'm middle-aged. John thinks he's already middle-aged.
Linnell:	I think it depends on if it's you or somebody else.
Flansburgh:	I think Linnell's middle-aged.
Suarez:	Well, but the question is how long do you want to live? I mean, you're not middle-aged if you're going to live to be 110.
Flansburgh:	That's right.
Linnell:	You're right.
Suarez:	So you are?
Flansburgh:	Yes.
	(laughing)
Flansburgh:	I'm extremely healthy. But that would be — I think middle-age is being in your 50s, frankly.
Suarez:	Oh really? So I got plenty of time.
Flansburgh:	Is middle-age being in your 40s?
Suarez:	I think so.
Flansburgh:	Okay. (chuckling) Well then, I —
Suarez:	'Cause I don't want to live much past 100. I like to think of myself somewhere in the middle.
	(a few seconds of talking over each other)
Linnell:	That's my position. I think we're — almost all of us in this room are middle-aged by that standard.
Suarez:	I mean, look at Roger Daltrey. You could be playing Scrooge on Broadway.
Linnell:	I know.
Suarez:	800-989-8255. John Flansburgh, John Linnell, They Might Be Giants here in the studio today. Give us a call. We'll go first to Cambridge, Massachusetts where Ken is waiting. Hi, Ken.
Ken:	Hi there.
Flansburgh:	Hey, Ken.
Ken:	Hi, um...boy, I've been a big fan of yours for, I guess, 10 years, not all the way.
Linnell:	10 years, so you're a newcomer.
Ken:	Yeah, I guess so. But I am one of those scientific fans. I just had a couple of questions. First of all, I'm looking forward to the next album, and just wondering when it might be coming out. Do you know?
Flansburgh:	Uh, well, we have this live album that just came out this summer called "Severe Tire Damage."
Ken:	Right, but not counting that one.
Flansburgh:	Oh, not counting our new album.
	(laughing)
Flansburgh:	But we are working on, sort of simultaneously working on a studio album of new adult songs featuring swear words —
Ken:	Great.
Flansburgh:	— and then, a children's record which will not feature any swear words.
Ken:	Hello?
Suarez:	Yeah, Ken?
Ken:	Yes.
Suarez:	Well, uh, is it going to have one of those Tipper Gore labels on it? I mean, like, are you guys going to be in shades and L.A. Lakers jackets on the cover?
Flansburgh:	It's — it's a strange, uh — no, no, it's not —
Suarez:	Not that adult.
Flansburgh:	No, no. I'm just trying to say that we're actually working on a children's record which kind of brings up the issue of what actually is adult material.
Linnell:	Some people find our other material, as you said, appropriate for children. In fact, we're one of those rock bands that you can play for your kids. So why we'd be making a children's records is anyone's guess.
Flansburgh:	We've got to figure out what the difference is, actually. I think, in some ways, it's sort of an open invitation to just kind of let the Dr. Seuss essence of some of our music kind of rage a little bit more. I think that that's the most interesting thing about doing a children's record, is that it'll be — we can be more child...like.
Suarez:	Well, one of the things that occurred to me when I was listening to, I don't know what to call them, maybe the "instructional songs" isn't really what you're — the label that you're looking for. But "James Ensor" and "The Sun Is A Mass of Incandescent Gas" and "Mammal," I was thinking about "Schoolhouse Rock."
Linnell:	Yeah, yeah, we do have those songs. That's not a big part of our whole repertoire. But that has been identified. People often associate that particular slice of what we do with our scene, that we do remedial songs, you know?
Flansburgh:	We've gotten many letters from people telling us how helpful those songs were in, like a mid-term exam.
Linnell:	Yeah, it sounds terrible. I mean, it sounds like the kind of band I would hate, frankly, you know?
	(chuckling)
Suarez:	Well, it beats mnemonics.
	(laughing)
Suarez:	You know, you can actually hum while you're failing your final.
Flansburgh:	I just heard that song "Three Is A Magic Number" by the guy — he's a jazz lyri...uh, he worked with Miles Davis, and it was — I can't remember. His name's like Jared or — and it's an amazing song, and he was one of the original "Schoolhouse Rock" people and, uh, I think what made "Schoolhouse Rock" pretty really effective was that the music was actually really good which is unusual. I mean, most stuff like that, the problem is not the idea of it, it's actually just that the music is really bad. I think, like, you know, all those "Schoolhouse Rock" songs are — the reason they were so compelling is just because they were actually good songs. I think most good songs are pretty good for kids, too.
Suarez:	There's a couple of million people walking around that can sing you the entire "Schoolhouse Rock" canon, which is a frightening thing, you know, 20 years on. Let's go to Tallahassee, Florida. Steven, welcome.
Steven:	Thank you. I have a — I had a roommate who ran up a large phone-bill listening to your song-a-day line. I was wondering if that was still being updated.
Flansburgh:	It is still active. We have a Dial-A-Song service. For people who aren't familiar with it, basically in the '80s, when the phone machine craze kind of took over New York City, and before we were making records, we quickly figured out playing at these clubs that our fans would never, uh — you know, people who would like our kind of music might not be into going to rock clubs at 1 in the morning as much as they are slaves, you know, to their desks at work, and it was just kind of a way to get the word out about the band. It's still going. We're not sure why, but it has all sorts of new songs on it. I mean, you can hear both of the songs we just played on Dial-A-Song, and the number's on the back of all our records and we'll say it at the end of the show.
Suarez:	No, what the heck. I'll do it right now.
Flansburgh:	Okay.
Suarez:	We're — we're shameless here.
Flansburgh:	But they're looking for pencils now.
Suarez:	Okay, find your writing implement.
Flansburgh:	This is — this is dot-org, you know, we don't make any money off this thing.
Suarez:	718, that's for Brooklyn, 486 —
Flansburgh/Linnell:	No, no, no —
Flansburgh:	Hold on.
Suarez:	You — you just sent me this this morning! How could it be outdated or anything?
Flansburgh:	No, I've done this before.
Suarez:	Things move so quickly in the information world.
Flansburgh:	No, no, no, no, it's completely up-to-date. In fact, it's my brand new home phone-number, and I've done — I've made this mistake on T-shirts.
Suarez:	Oh man.
Flansburgh:	Yeah, no kidding.
Suarez:	That really smells.
	(laughing)
Flansburgh:	We've got to get some people. We got to get some people. This is the number. It's 718-387-6962, is the number for They Might Be Giants Dial-A-Song service. New song every hour. It's, um —
Linnell:	It's printed on all of our stuff. If you go into the record store, you can just pick up the record and copy it off.
Suarez:	So, Steven, now you can run up the phone-bill yourself.
Steven:	(laughing) Thank you.
Flansburgh:	But we are also on the web, which is free, and that's at dialasong.com, and that — that doesn't change as frequently. But it also features songs that you can't hear anywhere else.
Suarez:	Right. It's free. Just buy a $3,000 computer and dial it right up.
	(laughing)
Linnell:	Come on.
Suarez:	East Lansing, Michigan's next. Hi, Eugene.
Eugene:	Uh, how're you doin'? I'd just like to say, They Might Be Giants, I love that song "Minimum Wage."
Linnell:	(happily) All right.
Eugene:	In the warehouse, sometimes we get frustrated with our pay. I just play that song, just play it over and over.
	(laughing)
Linnell:	Uh-huh, yeah. Some people live that song.
Eugene:	I just want to ask you guys: what do you guys think of the state of, I guess, modern rock or whatever they call it these days? It seems like the innocence has been lost somewhat and —
Flansburgh:	Well, it's an interesting thing. I mean, the '80s were a very strange time for rock music because a lot — which is the time that we came up in, because in a lot of ways, a lot of artists from the '60s and '70s were really doing a very good job of holding onto their market share, and, uh, a lot of great bands were kind of not getting their shot at the national spotlight, and now, it seems like younger bands have a much better chance of really, uh, you know, making some noise on the radio and I think that's, in many ways, a very healthy thing. But it is a little sad to see the college radio network, which was very, very pure and idealistic and very music-driven kind of go from being, uh, sub-culture to being sort of the minor leagues of the major radio set-up. I mean, it — you know, as they say, money changes everything, and I think, in a lot of ways, it is a little bit more cynical time. But — and maybe the merry-go-round is just going a little bit faster. But, I think for people who are into music for more idealistic reasons, it probably really hasn't changed that much. I mean, most good music is something that you have to seek out and something that you have to kind of invest yourself in on a personal level and I don't think that'll ever change. I think basically that there'll always be a commercial side to it that seems very crass, I mean — and there'll always be good music for people who have, uh, open minds.
Suarez:	But bands trying to break out of, let's say, their original regional audience, or bands trying to break out of a genre audience who want more people to hear them used to go the radio station route because making it onto a rotation was the way to be heard. When I was working at a college radio station in the late '70s, that was the way to start to grow that audience. Now it would seem that it's very difficult to get anything out of a fairly rigid middle-ground onto rotation. There aren't, uh, there aren't shows that are non-genre-driven shows. So it's hard if you're not playing one of the 4 or 5 current forms of music that everybody wants to listen to.
Linnell:	That's right. You have to go to public radio, and that's what we've done.
Flansburgh:	If we don't do it, who will?
	(laughing)
Flansburgh:	That's what we say.
Suarez:	Well, let's hear — let's hear some more music.
Flansburgh:	Okay.
Suarez:	Tell us about James K. Polk.
Linnell:	Okay. Well, he was, as some people know, the 11th President of the United States, and I just saw that guy Paul Johnson on TV. He was going on about little — you know, least-loved American presidents, and he suddenly went into this whole rap about Polk, you know, and we cooked up this song about 10 years ago with the idea that this was an obscure president that was interesting. People should maybe check this out, uh, and he was kind of confirming that as, you know, as a kind of authoritative historian. He said: "In 100 years, Polk will be remembered as one of the great American presidents." So that's, you know, our affirmation. We're not actually — in some ways, I think his politics are not exactly in accord with our own. But, um — he was kind of an expansionist nightmare, you know, he took land from the Mexicans and stuff. But anyway, this is his song. It's called "James K. Polk."
	("James K. Polk" is played)
Suarez:	I'm Ray Suarez. That's They Might Be Giants. You're listening to "Talk of the Nation" from N.P.R. news. 800-989-8255 — St. Louis, MO is next. Hi-ya, Dawn.
Dawn:	Hi. It's great to hear you guys. You sound great.
Linnell:	Thanks.
Dawn:	Listen, I just want to tell you, um, I taught for 7 years. I taught 3rd grade, and I always used your song, "The Sun Is A Mass" to teach part of the solar system unit that I always had to do every year, and the kids just love it.
Linnell:	That's great.
Dawn:	It's real fun.
Linnell:	That's good. You know, that's one of those songs we actually didn't write. But it — it just slipped seamlessly into our repertoire.
Dawn:	Yeah, I understand it was a song from the '50s or something?
Linnell:	That's right. Yeah, you can find the whole record with all the "Space Songs" on it in used, you know, vinyl records stores somewhere.
Dawn:	Uh-huh.
Suarez:	Very much like The Beatles with "Twist & Shout."
Flansburgh:	Yeah. (laughs)
Dawn:	Well, it's a great song and, you know, I was always — when I taught; I stay home with my son now, but when I taught, it was just — I was always trying to find fun ways of teaching, and even though you guys say you do remedial songs, I still think they're really great for kids, and they really enjoy it.
Flansburgh:	Mm-hmm.
Linnell:	Yeah.
Dawn:	And I'm also really glad to know I'm not even close to middle-age.
	(laughing)
Linnell:	Well, congratulations, and we doff our hats —
Dawn:	Thank you. I threw my back out 2 days ago and I have a birthday coming up in January. So I started thinking about (laughing) getting older. But I'm glad to know I'm not even close.
Suarez:	By — by their definition.
Dawn:	(laughing) That's right.
Linnell:	By Mr. Flansburgh's definition.
Flansburgh:	We've got a split vote here.
Suarez:	Happy New Year, Dawn.
Dawn:	Hey, you too. Bye-bye.
Suarez:	Uh, Sarah is next in Quakertown, Pennsylvania. Hi-ya, Sarah.
Sarah:	Hello. I was just wondering, uh, is "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" inspired by the song "Anything Goes" 'cause my dad swears that it is.
Linnell:	Uh, it probably was ripped off from that song. It's got a very similar melody.
Flansburgh:	"Anything Goes?" No, I'm thinking of — you're thinking of "Puttin' on the R—"...this song was written by, uh — we recorded it in 1990, but it was a hit for The Four Lads in the early '50s and we thought that when we recorded it that — again, it's a cover — we thought that it was probably written in the '30s because it sounds so much like "Puttin' on the Ritz."
	(Suarez singing a bar of "Puttin' on the Ritz")
Linnell:	That's right.
Sarah:	No, he swears it sounds like — quite a few of the words sound like what the woman is singing in, uh, "Indiana Jones [and the Temple of Doom]."
Linnell:	(singing) "In olden days, ba ba ba-ba ba-bah..." Yeah.
Flansburgh:	(understandingly) Ohhh.
Linnell:	Yeah, yeah. I think it's part of — of a general, uh, Gestalt. There's a kind of song that it's following in the footsteps — it was written in the '50s. So it really comes after the period when those sorts of songs were super-popular.
Sarah:	Well, you guys do it by far better.
Linnell:	Well, thank you. Thank you.
Suarez:	So, Sarah, you get to tell the old man he's wrong.
Sarah:	Hey.
Suarez:	And how often can you do that?
Sarah:	Not very often.
Suarez:	Well, I kinda figured.
Sarah:	By the way, um, my grandma says middle-age doesn't happen 'til 65.
Linnell:	That's interesting. So, assuming 130 as an average full life-span.
Suarez:	(laughing) Yeah, that's the half-way mark.
Flansburgh:	"Gradin' on a curve," we like to call it.
Suarez:	Wasn't "Gradin' On A Curve?" —
Linnell:	That was a hit for The Four Lads, I think.
Suarez:	Sarah in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, thanks for your call. You're listening to "Talk of the Nation." I'm Ray Suarez. My guests: They Might Be Giants, John Flansburgh and John Linnell with Dan Miller and Dan Hickey. We're going to take a short break right now. When we return, we'll take more of your calls and hear more music. You can ring us at 800-989-8255, or e-mail us at totn@npr.org or write us a card or letter: "Talk of the Nation letters," 635 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington D.C., 20001.
	(break)
	("Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" introduction from "Severe Tire Damage" plays for about 30 seconds).
Suarez:	Welcome back to the program. I'm Ray Suarez. My guests are They Might Be Giants: John Flansburgh, guitar and vocals; John Linnell, accordion, keyboard and vocals; Dan Miller, guitar; Dan Hickey plays the drums and other things you hit to make noise. If you want to join us, our number in Washington is 800-989-8255. Robert's with us from Baltimore. Hi-ya, Robert.
Robert:	Yeah, hi. Uh, okay. I was just wondering about those Internet polls that you've been nominated for.
Linnell:	Ah, yes.
Flansburgh:	They're crazy.
Robert:	Yeah, I think, like, John Linnell was the 9th Most Beautiful —
Linnell:	Yeah. We should explain what it is. It — uh...last or earlier this year, somebody started voting on the People Magazine poll for the Most Beautiful Person of 1998, and started putting my name on the ballot, and I have a feeling that it was some kind of mechanical voting going on because my name shot up to number 9 in a very short amount of time, and...and I thank whoever it was or whatever it was that elected me. Uh, that was very nice. Now, the latest wrinkle is that Mr. Flansburgh is, I think number 3 on the very prestigious Time Magazine "Person of the Century" poll, on the online poll of the person of the century. He's behind Jesus Christ and Adolph Hitler.
Suarez:	But wait a minute. Now this —
Flansburgh:	The "trinity," I like to call it.
Suarez:	It's kind of amazing when you think about how life sometimes ties up neatly in a bow, because here you are, well-known, I think it's fair to say, for singing "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)," and who was number 1 for most of 1998? Kamal Ataturk.
Linnell:	That's correct.
Flansburgh:	Yes.
Suarez:	The mind literally boggles.
Linnell:	Yeah, some Turkish connection going on.
Flansburgh:	And, uh, there's — there's a number of professional wrestlers who also do very well in these polls, and I challenge them.
Suarez:	You calling them out?
Flansburgh:	Anytime, anywhere, I am willing to go on an electronic poll.
Suarez:	John Flansburgh throwing it down to you W.W.F. fans out there.
Flansburgh:	Raven, I see you! I know where you are, Raven!
Suarez:	Vince McMahon's going to do hour 2 of the program.
	(laughing)
Suarez:	800-989-8255. Robert, did you — did you feel that this was done in error or were you sort of glad that the world was returning to some sort of equilibrium?
Robert:	Well, I wasn't quite sure if being right behind Jesus Christ and Adolph Hitler would be a good thing or a bad thing, you know.
Flansburgh:	It's a very comfortable place to be.
Robert:	Yeah, well, I don't know. It's like the best and the worst right there.
Flansburgh:	Well, it's easier than being in front of them.
Suarez:	Right, 'cause being in front of them would bring up all kinds of uncomfortable questions.
Flansburgh:	Yes.
Linnell:	That's right. You'd have everybody against you.
Robert:	But having Hank the Angry, Drunken Dwarf right above you was kind of scary.
Linnell:	Well, that was — he was the winner of the People poll, and so, that, in a way, kind of made the thing more clear.
Flansburgh:	The People thing was kind of fascinating 'cause there was a point where John was — you were actually taken off the poll as "inappropriate," which was, you know, like somebody just said —
Suarez:	And Hank the Angry, Drunken Dwarf was left on?
Flansburgh:	Right, "This has to be a mistake. But the — the angry dwarf stays."
Linnell:	That's right.
Flansburgh:	It was very, very strange. There's politics in everything and even these, uh, nonsensical polls —
Suarez:	— are sullied.
Flansburgh:	Yes.
	(laughing)
Suarez:	Robert in Baltimore, thanks a lot for your call. Uh, Mark is next in Portland, Oregon. Hi-ya, Mark.
Mark:	Hi, uh, I have loved your music for many years. I, uh, I've spent many a drunken or otherwise —
Flansburgh:	That's okay.
Linnell:	No, it's not.
Mark:	— hazy day in grad school listening to your music.
Suarez:	As long as you weren't driving.
Mark:	Uh, I wanted you to comment. I work as, uh, a professional actor/comedian now, and I love the humor in your music. That's my, uh...most favorite thing about your music is just the humor, and I was wondering if you could comment on that. I know a lot of bands will, uh, use anger instead of humor to look at the contradictions in life.
Linnell:	Well, we — we start with anger. In fact, we think of it as anger and other people think it's funny and that makes us even angrier.
	(Suarez laughing)
Flansburgh:	We're bitter men. Um, no. It's a strange thing. It's really a balancing act, I think, for us, you know. I mean we, you know, appreciate comedy just as much as anybody. But I think we, uh, realize the shortcomings of doing music that, uh — where the primary element is comic. It's, uh — it's — it's tough, you know. For us, I think it just really comes down to personal expression. It's the kind of people that we are. We know a lot of other musicians who have a hard time kind of reconciling their personal sense of humor and putting it into their music in a way that makes sense.
Mark:	Yeah.
Flansburgh:	I think, a lot of times, musicians have a much keener sense of humor and there's really — they can't find a way to work it into their music. Um, for us, I think we just don't even — we don't even think about it. I think a lot of our songs, you know, a lot of our songs are probably straighter than — I mean, if you read a review of by somebody who wasn't partial to us, I think, you'd probably get the impression that we were a much more over-the-top thing, when, in fact, like, we're — you know, there's, you know, dignity, dignity, dignity in what we do.
Linnell:	We think so.
Flansburgh:	Yeah, I mean, it's hard to say. But, you know, I mean, a lot of rock bands wear a lot less clothes than we do and, uh...
Linnell:	And we think they're silly.
Flansburgh:	Yes, I mean, frankly, you know, it's a funny business to be in. I mean, we're not trying to be taken more seriously or less seriously. We just — we — we just want people to hear our music.
Suarez:	But I — I think if I was in your business —
Flansburgh:	Yes.
Suarez:	— the thing that would make me defenestrate is hearing something I'm working really hard at being referred to as "novelty."
Linnell:	Yeah, we really, you know — we really had to choose, uh, some kind of negative criticism and what we wound up with was, you know, we run the risk of being considered "novelty." We could be considered "dull" or wound up with was, you know, we run the risk of being considered "novelty." We could be considered "dull" or something else. But, you know, we — we picked this particular thing based on what we liked. You know, we, obviously...earlier on in our lives — you know, musical lives, we probably had thought about being in bands where we were trying to second-guess other people and come up with a sound that people liked and with — the thing about They Might Be Giants that was successful for us was that we really decided to do whatever we wanted to and whatever we thought was good, and we're, you know — we're paying the penalty for that in some ways. But it's worked out extremely well in some, you know, on balancing. Uh, it's worked out very well.
Flansburgh:	I can actually remember our very first show, and we rehearsed for, you know — we put it together over the course of about a month and played for 23 people in the heaviest snowfall of 1983, um...I think it was 1983. But it was extremely — it was an unbelieveable amount of snow on the ground, and some friends came out.
Suarez:	In New York?
Flansburgh:	In New York, yeah.
Suarez:	Oh yeah, that was 1983.
Flansburgh:	Yeah, and, uh, and...you remember that?
Suarez:	Well, I — actually, I got stranded in Manhattan and couldn't go home.
Flansburgh:	Right. And, uh, so —
Linnell:	It's a shame you didn't come by, Ray.
Flansburgh:	Yeah.
Suarez:	I wish I knew, believe me.
Flansburgh:	You were on the list.
	(laughing)
Suarez:	"I'm with the band."
Flansburgh:	Right. There were a lot of people on the list who didn't make it that night. But, um, we played for a very small crowd of people and I remember we put the show together for a long time before we did it, and I remember thinking a couple of the songs were actually kind of creepy, like they had a — at the core of them, there was something very sort of haunted and strange, and, uh, you know, we were very much into a lot of sort of artier new-wave bands like the band Pere Ubu from Ohio, who are, you know, taken very seriously, and I remember — I will never forget that, doing that first show, doing — presenting these songs that I thought were kind of obtuse and maybe even a little arty, but kind of interesting and scary, and then people laughing. I'm thinking: "Wow, this is going to be really different than I thought it was going to be."
Suarez:	Well, John writes in a message to "Talk of the Nation" this morning: "When we played in rock clubs and performance art spaces, in the rock clubs, we were the performance art guys and in the performance art places, we were the rock band."
Linnell:	That's right.
Suarez:	And he adds: "We don't know how to dress," to which I can personally attest from having them in the same room with me.
	(laughing)
Suarez:	Uh, let's go on to Del Rey Beach, Florida. Hi, Eric.
Eric:	Hi. Uh, first of all, I'd like to thank you guys for writing "James K. Polk." It helped me a lot through American History.
Linnell:	Ah, excellent.
Eric:	Uh, also a lot of your songs, uh, have like real apparent meanings, like, sort of hidden, though, like "Birdhouse In Your Soul" is about a nightlight and such. Are most of your songs like that or — like, some of them just — I have no idea what the meaning is.
Linnell:	Well, I think the thing about all of them is there aren't really any hidden meanings, you know, um, there are some songs, I think that have a more stream-of-consciousness or elliptical kind of lyric to them. But there's nothing that's been kept away from you, you know. The song — it's all there, it's just that you have to do some of the work at making sense out of it sometimes and I think that — that only applies to some of the songs. I think a lot of the stuff we do is very narrative and explicit and obvious, and we really mix it up. We write a lot of different kinds of songs. Some of them are, you know — I mean, I think some of them have the quality of stories that might not tell you every single detail or tell you what happens after the end of the story. But they tell you what you need to know to enjoy the story.
Suarez:	Well, why don't we hear "Finished With Lies?"
Linnell:	Okay. This is a brand new song.
	[A single note on Linnell's keyboard, sounding like a xylophone, is heard. I imagine the Flansburgh reached over and played one of the keys. —ed.]
Linnell:	Um, thank you for that note.
	[A much slower, acoustic version (around 86 or so beats per minute) of "Finished With Lies" is played, with lyrics matching the demo version.—ed.]
Suarez:	They Might Be Giants this hour on "Talk of the Nation." On the e-mail file, a lot of interesting questions. One challenges: "Confirm or dispel a rumor: were you the roadies for The Replacements?"
Flansburgh:	No, we were not the roadies for The Replacements. Um, that was announced on MTV as fact for a couple of weeks when we had a video in rotation on MTV, and so it's kind of one of those urban legends that, in fact — you know, you're getting a kind of media confirmation that, you know — I mean, the VJ gets up there and goes: (mockingly) "Here's a video from a couple of guys who were roadies for The Replacements..."
	(Suarez laughs)
Flansburgh:	...and it's very difficult to persuade people that that, in fact, is not true.
Linnell:	We hope, someday, to be roadies for The Replacements.
Flansburgh:	It would be really interesting. We're hoping that when, uh, that Replacements reunion tour starts, that we'll get the call. I, personally, could be the guitar tech for either of those guys.
Suarez:	A lot of people are writing to find out what "Ana Ng" is about.
Linnell:	Well, it's — simply put, it's about the woman on the opposite side of the world, the woman that you've never met, that's the perfect match.
Suarez:	...simply put. So there you go. Now you know what it's about. Uh, Peter writes from Portland, Oregon: "There are no mights about it. You guys are giants. Here's my question — does your music pay for your lives or do you have to have day jobs?"
Flansburgh:	Oh, it — it pays for our lives, and, uh —
Linnell:	Such as they are.
Flansburgh:	Yes. No, it's actually a pretty good life.
Suarez:	Well, I mean, you can't play all those nights and just do it for, you know, handing around a cup.
Flansburgh:	Although you can do all those nights and come home with less money than you left with. We've found — we've found that out.
Linnell:	That's right.
Suarez:	Wow.
Linnell:	That's not uncommon for us.
Flansburgh:	Well, you know, you got the bus, you got the semi, you got the lights, you got the sound —
Suarez:	And the entourage, that must just burn you out.
Flansburgh/Linnell:	Yes.
	(laughing)
Linnell:	That's right.
Suarez:	Aye-aye-aye. Los Angeles is next. Jornez, is it?
Jorenz:	Uh, Jorenz. J-O-R-E-N-Z.
Suarez:	Well, welcome to the program.
Jorenz:	Thank you, uh, I just had a question for the guys. In the early '90s, their sound was still, I think, just the 2 of them and a Mac.
Linnell:	That's correct.
Flansburgh:	Uh, yeah. Well, a drum machine.
Jorenz:	And out in Los Angeles, um, whenever you played a show, it really had a big following and I was curious by —
Linnell:	Why would anyone like that?
Jorenz:	(laughing) No. By, uh, "John Henry," you started using real people to play with.
Suarez:	Two of them are here.
Jorenz:	And the music started changing —
Flansburgh:	Going bad.
Jorenz:	Not bad. I like it myself. But I was wondering if you were disappointed that, uh, you were poised — I thought you were poised for bigger than what you are now and something happened that, uh, it just didn't.
Linnell:	Well, you know, I — there's a lot of different ways of looking at it, and I think that, you know, luckily, for me, I still feel like we were extremely lucky in the early '90s to have the success we had, and we haven't had — we haven't become less, you know, of a working band since then. So I think that we — we did okay and obviously, we could at this moment be whoever it is, fill in the blank, that is in everybody's face all the time. But I — you know, I mean, I think we started out with the idea that that seemed very unlikely, that what we wanted to do was probably not going to be for absolutely everyone in the world and that, in fact, the bands that often are that popular are not actually really beloved by anybody. They're just sort of tolerated by the sum-total of everyone who buys records, and we — you know, we have a pretty — very, actually, very loyal and uh, and — um...good following. They've stuck with us, you know, and we have some new fans like Ray's kids to cultivate and recruit.
Suarez:	That'll take you well into middle-age.
Linnell:	That's right.
	(laughing)
Suarez:	Jorenz in Los Angeles, thanks for your call. You're listening to "Talk of the Nation" from N.P.R. news. Now, Jorenz mentioned that you made the sound bigger when you decided to add a band. What went into that decision?
Flansburgh:	Well, it was completely experimental. I mean, we actually — we toured for a solid year and we were about to go and tour for another solid year and I think we were just trying to figure out a way to change it up. So we — that's when we started working with a live rhythm section, and since then, we've added horns. We often play with horns now, and I don't think — you know, I mean, a lot of things have changed since that time. I mean, it's — at that time, drum machines were a very contemporary sound. I think, in a lot of ways, we're very much a pop band and we kind of do a lot of things in a similar way as everybody else.
Suarez:	But does it change what you write and how you write it, knowing that your arrangements can now have all these different —?
Flansburgh:	Not really, 'cause there was a tremendous amount of — I mean, as a duo, we were always accompanied by a tape that we had created. So what we did with the tape — sometimes, it was like the electronic Ringo and the electronic Paul backing us up. But, uh, a lot of times, we would have sounds — you know, vocal sounds or strange percussion sounds that we had created that were very specific and in some ways, that's harder to reproduce on stage now. We have to really, uh, you know, figure out how to recreate those songs in a compelling way without that kind of set-up. It's just a slightly different —
Linnell:	It's just different. You know, it almost sounded like Jorenz was implying that we might be immensely popular now if only we'd stuck with the — with the 2 guys and the computer format, and it's hard for me to —
Flansburgh:	You thinkin' what I'm thinkin', John?
Linnell:	That's — although we'd be making more money.
Flansburgh:	These guys are holding us back.
Linnell:	We'd be making a little more money now if we didn't have to pay anybody else. But, uh, that's about the extent of it.
Flansburgh:	It was, you know — it was a good format for us to kind of — I mean, ask any local band out of New York City how hard it is to find a drummer to work with. I mean, it's a whole — and we rehearsed in our apartments for years and years and years, and it was no — there was never a problem and it was very — it was just the only way we could do it, and we're just trying to figure out how to keep it going.
Suarez:	Well, like any good rock 'n' roll band, They Might Be Giants has a road saga song, unlike Bo Diddley's or somebody, it doesn't have lots and lots of geographical names. It was a fad at once, you know, you just named a lot of places.
Flansburgh:	Right.
Suarez:	"Detroit," "St. Louis," and everyone would applaud when you got to their town.
	(laughing)
Suarez:	"D.C.!" Here's their road song.
Flansburgh:	Okay. This song's called, uh, "They Got Lost," and it's, uh, on "Severe Tire Damage." Here we go.
	["They Got Lost" is played with Suarez's name inserted in place of "Julie". Suarez talks after Dan Miller plays a few solos on his guitar, and the band continues playing instrumentally until Ray is done. Then Linnell comes in with the "Dan said to Dan" verse, and the song slowly fades out. —ed.]
Suarez:	I want to thank everyone who called and my guests, They Might Be Giants — John Flansburgh, guitar and vocals; John Linnell, accordion and vocals; Dan Miller on guitar and Dan Hickey on percussion. They all joined us from Studio 3A here in Washington. Tune in to "Talk of the Nation" this time tomorrow for a look back on the major events and news stories of 1998. In Washington, They Might Be Giants will be here tonight and back in New York City for a rockin' New Years' Eve. I'm Ray Suarez, N.P.R. news.