Stand On Your Own Head
From This Might Be A Wiki
| song name | Stand on Your Own Head |
| artist | They Might Be Giants |
| releases | Lincoln, Then: The Earlier Years |
| year | 1988 |
| first played | November 25, 2011 (19 known performances) |
| run time | 1:16 |
| sung by | John Linnell, John Flansburgh harmonizes |
Trivia/Info
- John Linnell would explain the song's title and wordplay in 2023 for Everything Sticks Like A Broken Record, a track-by-track breakdown of the Lincoln album featured in Bandbox Issue #103:
There's this expression "stand on your head," which means to be upside down and holding yourself up, but then "Stand on Your Own Head" kind of implies that someone else has been standing on your head and they should stand on their own head instead. That was kind of the gag. The rest of the lyrics have a similar messing-around-with-language quality. "I like people / They're the ones who can't stand," instead of, "I like people / I'm the one they can't stand." That was the kind of writing I was exploring.
- Although first released in 1988, this song's earliest documented live performance was at a Lincoln-themed live show in 2011. In a 2026 Tumblr ask, John Flansburgh confirmed "Stand On Your Own Head" had been performed live as early as 1987, and that there were two different live arrangements prepared for the song:
It is one of the few songs that we did that we performed two distinct ways; the first being more of a rock feel and then shifting over to the revised 2/4 version that ended up on Lincoln. It was really introduced as we entered our first big years of touring and playing songs night after night. The high harmony I sang was a big challenge to my vocal cords which were already kind of smashed from our busy schedule. Fun when I could pull it off, a bit weird when I couldn't! The song made me aware that there might be some songs that were better presented in earlier in the show.
- On some streaming/digital platforms, this song is mistitled "Stand On Your Head".
Song Themes
Body Parts, Fire, Furniture, Heads, Love, Misanthropy, Not In Common Time, Oblique Cliches Or Idiom, The Senses, Sleep, Upside-Down
Videos
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