You'll Miss Me
From This Might Be A Wiki
| song name | You'll Miss Me |
| artist | They Might Be Giants |
| releases | Lincoln, Then: The Earlier Years |
| year | 1988 |
| first played | March 1, 1985 (18 known performances) |
| run time | 1:53 |
| sung by | John Flansburgh |
Trivia/Info
- This studio version of the song drastically differs from earlier demos, which featured slow beats and mellow vocals. John Flansburgh would explain the song's performance art nature in a 2013 interview:
That song was a very screamy, kind of histrionic song, and it went down very well live. People found it very exciting. [...] It was fun to perform, and it really kind of blew the lid off people's expectations about what the show would be - it's a very impolite song. What's funny is that, I think as we got more focused on what we were good at in a more specific personal way, it sort of stopped fitting in with the rest of the show. In a way, "You'll Miss Me" was as much about the venues we were playing, which were these kind of half-performance art, half-disco late night demimonde places.
- According to Flansburgh, the band had difficulty translating their impassioned, energetic live performances of this song into a studio recording, an issue which also occurred when recording the No Wave inspired songs "Smiles" and "I Wouldn't Be Mad"[1]. Flansburgh would explain this in 2023 for Everything Sticks Like A Broken Record, a track-by-track breakdown of the Lincoln album featured in Bandbox Issue #103:
That song was essentially impossible to export to a finished recording. We just couldn't crack the code. The cumulative effect of it was just too much. There's something about that song... it's like turning a faucet on and having the water hit you in the face. It's too edgy.
- When asked in 2001 if there were any released songs that he felt weren't so successful, Flansburgh mentioned "You'll Miss Me": "It dates back to our very earliest days as a band, and I think it might be a little too strident. Whenever I hear it, I'm just not sure that it works. [...] But I don't have any regrets. I wouldn't strike it from the record even if I could."[2]
- John Linnell would recall recording the song's instrumentation in 2023 for Everything Sticks Like A Broken Record:
The production of "You'll Miss Me" was the enjoyment of it. John [Flansburgh] had these verses and then we had all this framed chaos going on behind him. It was structured by the drum machine, but then other instruments were sort of playing along, playing the same rhythms or playing things that went along with it. That was our idea of fun.
- In the Then: The Earlier Years booklet, the band would mention that a version of the song was recorded with CBGB owner Hilly Kristal singing the lead vocal[3], which Flansburgh would describe as a "mistake" in Everything Sticks Like A Broken Record[4]. Regarding its existence, Flansburgh would mention the recording's status in a 2013 Tumblr post: "I am sorry to report that the recordings are probably lost. We had to erase tracks just to finish things, and I think that was what happened (no money for things like second machines to duplicate on). Many nice things from then are lost to the ages."
- One demo of this song was identified as "You Kill Me" on some early demo cassettes which may predate the Wiggle Diskette, suggesting that that may have been the original title.
- Alternate and extended lyrics initially featured in demo recordings of this song have been known to be performed live. These include:
- "No one to blame and it's not my fault" instead of "Morticians wait with a shovel and a fork"
- "But I look up and I don't see a cloud / Anywhere in the sky"
- For Watchface's performance piece "The Serial Killer Series", member Iris Rose was inspired to have John Flansburgh perform as John Wayne Gacy after seeing him perform this song live in 1986.
Song Themes
Animals, Body Parts, Clothes, Criminal Activities, Death, Egoism And Pretentiousness, Epistolary Songs, Fire, Holidays, Love Gone Sour, Money, Oblique Cliches Or Idiom, Occupations, Real Estate, References To Other Songs Or Musicians, Sadness, Size, Space, Tableware, Trees And Other Plants, Water, Weather
Videos
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