Slow
From This Might Be A Wiki
| song name | Slow |
| artist | They Might Be Giants |
| releases | The World Is To Dig |
| year | 2026 |
| run time | 2:21 |
| sung by | John Linnell |
Trivia/Info
- John Linnell in a 2026 interview with the Radical Fabulatorium podcast:
"That song is kind of a further development of something that I've been experimenting with which is microtonality, and what that is is using notes, pitches that are not in the standard 12 tones in the western octave. In this particular song, there are more than 12 pitches in the octave, 19 to be precise, and that's just another system that's actually kind of been explored a bunch as a way of creating. To me, it's an opportunity to create some alternate kind of listening experience. It has a vibe to it that's [...] a little bit haunted and strange sounding, partly for that reason. [...] This particular track, I used a synthesizer to make the thing that sounds a bit guitar-y, it's actually samples of a guitar, and then our bass player (Danny Weinkauf), I think he does own a fretless bass, but he used a normal fretted bass knowing that we were going to be retuning the pitches after the fact electronically. He was very patient, I think it sort of drove him crazy trying to play along to this thing, but it all worked out in the end."
- John Flansburgh briefly discussed this song in a 2024 TikTok live in response to a question related to microtones, although he did not mention it by name[1]:
I have nothing to contribute to microtonal work, but John [Linnell]'s interest are very deeply into some microtonal experiments. And on the new album, there is a microtonal composition that's actually very interesting − and kind of stealth in the way that it uses microtonality − but to be perfectly honest, my ear is not sophisticated enough to work in that mode.
- Flansburgh noted in a Tumblr answer shortly after the release of The World Is To Dig that the song's unique 19 equal temperament tuning was accomplished using the plugin Melodyne.[2]
- This song appears to briefly interpolate the main keyboard line from "Can't Keep Johnny Down," though Flansburgh expressed uncertainty on Tumblr shortly after the song's release about whether Linnell meant it as a deliberate reference.[3]
- This is the second They Might Be Giants song with the title "Slow", the first being an instrumental from They Might Be Giants Vs. McSweeney's.
Song Themes
Accidents, Altered States, Colors, Drinks, Drugs, Falling, Jumping, Medical, Microtones, Problems, Recycled Material, Rhymes, Super-Human Qualities, Time
Videos
Current Rating You must be logged in to rate this. You can either login (if you have a userid) or create an account with us today. Slow is currently ranked #174 out of 1113. (71 wikians have given it an average rating of 8.83) |