Talk:Answer

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Essentially a rewrite of I'm Your Boyfriend Now (with other bits and bobs) as Linnell writes another character song. I guess it could be called a sequel/prequel. Answer however lacks the punchline of IYBN or the melody. It's classic Linnell on auto-pilot with metronome guitar on intro, power harmony on the chorus and a bit of accordion towards the end. Linnell sounds like (and indeed Erase a slightly superior version of auto-pilot Linnell) someone doing an impression of himself.

A few weeks in and we've had time for the songs to settle into our consciousness. It's been a bit Hit and Miss so far. No Cops; Music Jail pt 1 + pt 2 and Let Me Tell About Your Operation. are the only three songs I'm listening too. Of the rest I'm pretty much actively not listening to them. Oddly for me I've not liked any of the Linnell lead songs.

We're still waiting for the a real standout track though in the Birdhouse; Ana Ng; Dr Worm; I'm Impressed; You're on Fire ballpark. (Mr Tuck)

Musically, it actually sounds a bit like House of Mayors, at least where the vocal melody and chord progression is concerned. I'd have to agree that the Flans DAS numbers (minus Hate The Villanelle and, in a way, Madam, though it does sound nice) and No Cops are the only ones that really stick since they actually sound like TMBG is doing something different with their music. I enjoy Erase and this song well enough, but I do feel they're just John Linnell being John Linnell with a lot less accordion. I'm hoping all of this will gel together when the album comes out, but who knows? Tvfactoryguy (talk)

I hear the Mayors thing. There's other tunes too that it reminds me of. To be honest, I can't face listening to it again to work it out. Not even bothered downloading it. This is the thing about modern music, in the old days, you bought your record/CD and you'd really give it a chance. Now with spotify playlists ect I'm far less willing to give stuff a chance, even with the Giants. (Mr Tuck)

Watching the band perform the song live on Conan last night, I think illustrates the problem that the Giants have now in terms of songwriting. In their early days, all of their songs were performed live before their final recording. Now, songs are worried into shape in the studio and then released like tame birds into the wild of live performance. Unprotected by the production of the studio some songs really show structural weakness. Linnell's vocal is very weak on the (overlong) verse and the one chord chop chop guitars outstay their welcome even more than on the recorded version. It all sounds horribly stark. Yet again, one wonders why the warm organic acoustic accordion isn't utilised to fill the spaces...(Mr Tuck)

No answer to my prayers

I do like this song, but I would have preferred something a bit more, um, negative, like something along the lines of not being able to answer the question what being alive is like... you know? Dunno if the Johns will ever answer that prayer though. --Freakiosis (talk) 07:07, 18 February 2015 (EST)

Birthday?

I recently found out that one of my coworkers is a fairly big TMBG fan, but she hadn't been paying attention to these new weekly songs. Today she went through and listened to them and told me, "I really like the birthday song!" I couldn't imagine what she meant until I realized this song & video begin with a kid blowing out candles, but the word "birthday" is never uttered. Leave it to someone else to provide me a fresh perspective on the song! --MisterMe (talk) 14:49, 13 March 2015 (EDT)

I believe there is a clear reference to a child's birthday throughout the whole first verse. The girl has constantly been wishing for a pony for each of her birthdays, a wish that sadly never came true, thus the dream would "end in tears" "year after year". Trying to console her, the narrator assures that he is much better than any pony in the world could ever be (no matter what she thinks). Apart from that, I can't really find any further references to a birthday in the song. This probably belongs in the interpretations section rather than the talk page. Oh well. --Freakiosis (talk) 17:16, 13 March 2015 (EDT)