Difference between revisions of "Problems With Liner Notes"

Latest revision as of 22:40, 1 March 2025

Various incorrect, missing, or incomplete information in their albums' liner notes.

Incorrect song titles[edit]

• Cloisonné - The title of the song is listed as "Cloissoné" in the track listings for Join Us (Four Advance Tracks) and Them Ain't Big Eye Ants.
• Nothing's Gonna Change My Clothes - Some copies of the first pressing of the They Might Be Giants CD (on the East Side Digital label) contain a typo on the back: "Nothing's Gonna Change By Clothes."
• When The Lights Come On - mislabeled as "When the Light Comes On" throughout the I Like Fun packaging and promotional materials

Lyrics not present[edit]

• AKA Driver - Lyrics not present in the John Henry liner notes due to fears of legal problems with the manufacturers of NyQuil. The lyrics are, however, present in the liner notes for the LP reissue.
• Spider - Lyrics not present.
• Yeh Yeh - Lyrics not present in the Mink Car liners because it was a cover of a song administered by a different label.
• Multiple bonus tracks from Then: The Earlier Years:
  • '85 Radio Special Thank You
  • Critic Intro
  • Doris Cunningham
  • Greek Number Three
  • Kitten Intro
  • Mainstream U.S.A.
• Multiple songs from BOOK's book.
  • Drown The Clown
  • Buckle Down, Winsocki
  • There Will Be Sad
  • An Insult To The Fact Checkers
  • This Microphone
  • When The Lights Come On
  • Lake Monsters
  • McCafferty's Bib
  • Applause Applause Applause
  • I Haven't Been Right Yet
  • The Bullies
  • Tractor
  • Tick Tick Tick Tick

Incomplete lyrics[edit]

• Can't Keep Johnny Down - The first instance of the word "dicks" is missing in the LP gatefold.
• Cyclops Rock - The Cerys Matthews bridge is not included in the liner notes.
• Letterbox - The bridge is absent from the Flood liner notes.
• Minimum Wage - The line "HYAH!" is not present in the liner notes.
• Snowball In Hell - The "Side effect or drug trip" verse is not in the Lincoln liner notes.
• Someone Keeps Moving My Chair - The "try on these pants" verse is not present in the Flood liner notes.

Extra lyrics[edit]

• Christmas In The Big House - The YouTube video description for the music video reads "I got big plans" instead of simply "I got plans."
• Hall Of Heads - An iteration of the lines "You can't run away / Your feet won't let you run" are included after "Hide underneath the furnace."
• Road Movie To Berlin - Has two extra lines printed in the Flood liner notes. These two lines were deleted from the final version because the Johns felt they made the song too long.
• Violin - The No! liners print an extra "mop."
• Wearing A Raincoat - The lines "And once they have that attention / They use it to ask for attention" are printed three times instead of the two times it was sung.

Incorrect or alternate lyrics[edit]

• Ant (Indestructible Object Version) - The liner notes retain the line "But you think that's okay..." in the fourth verse from an older version of the song, whereas this recording has it as "And that will spoil your dreams..."
• Au Contraire - In the liner notes for both The Spine and Indestructible Object, the lines "Hate to contradict you, but" and "Hate to rain on your parade" switch places. In addition, the latter line is changed to "Not to rain..."
• Bastard Wants To Hit Me - The line beginning "How has it..." is printed as "How have we..."
• Become A Robot - The Then liners change the line "Here's hoping you don't harbor a death wish" to "Here's hoping you don't harbor a wishnik" in order to protect the faint of heart.
• Bee Of The Bird Of The Moth - The liner notes change the line "Everyone's deforming..." to "Everything's deforming..."
• Broke In Two - "But when I looked" is written as "But while I looked."
• Can't Keep Johnny Down - The liner notes have "piled in a towering mound" for "piled up in a towering mound".
• The Cap'm - The liner notes change the line "My hat looks good on me?" to "This hat looks good on me?"
• Damn Good Times - In the second verse, "Yeah, I know a girl..." is printed as "Yeah, I got a friend..." and "when he turned twenty-one" is changed to "before he turned twenty-one."
• Dark And Metric - The liner notes change the line "No mag wheels in back" to "No magazine back"
• Dog Walker - Liners change both instances of "my mind" to "time"
• Hot Cha - The liners say that Hot Cha had to "run back home" instead of "come back home."
• I Am A Grocery Bag - Liner notes changed "organic grain" to "organic grains".
• I Should Be Allowed To Think - The liner notes say "I was the best hope" instead of "I was the worst hope", and the third "occurs" is missing an S
• In Fact - A typo makes "I've rolled under your piano" printed as "I've rolled under the your piano".
• It's Kickin' In - The Spine's liner notes say "The disaffected waitress" instead of "Some disaffected waitress"
• Let Your Hair Hang Down - Join Us liner notes say "Did you order all the storm clouds", rather than "Did we order all these rain clouds". Also, "Could we leave the barking dogs" is printed instead of "Can't we leave the barking dogs".
• Lullabye To Nightmares - Long Tall Weekend liner notes say "Have you ever seen a bloody head / Egg glass in hand" instead of "Have you ever seen a bloody egg / Glass in hand..."
• Lucky Ball & Chain - The Flood liner notes say "When she told me of that day" instead of "When she told me off that day"
• Memo To Human Resources - In The Spine's liner notes, the line "Talk you through the finer points..." instead is "Walk you through...", while in the liner notes for Indestructible Object, the written line is "With finer points..." In both sets of liner notes, the line "I stuck around..." becomes "I hung around..."
• Nightgown Of The Sullen Moon - The line "Looking up and abruptly forget what you're thinking" is written as "Looking up abruptly".
• Old Pine Box - The line "There's no percentage in that" is written in the digital booklet as "What's the percentage in that?"
• Piece Of Dirt - Lincoln liner notes contain the lyrics of an earlier live version.
• Protagonist - Some verses are mis-ordered, and the line "A novice script may seem strange in this format" is printed as "Script format may seem strange to the novice" in the digital liner notes.
• Re-PETE Offender - "Nametags of pseudonyms" is sung but the lyrics read "Nametags of synonyms"
• The Shadow Government - The liner notes change the line "...I saw the mayor stealing my junk," to "...I saw the mayor stealing my stuff."
• Stalk Of Wheat - "And I'll have it for the rest of my life" becomes "And it lasted..."
• The Neck Rolls Aren't Working - The YouTube video description for the music video (which includes lyrics) read "any last hope of defeating" while the song says "any last hope of destroying".
• The Statue Got Me High - Liners have "A monument" and "threw me to the sky" while "The monument" and "turned me to the sky" are sung.
• Three Might Be Duende - Lines "Fooled by his charm" and "Right off the farm" are switched around in the digital booklet.
• Thunderbird - The line "Before you fall, you have to learn to crawl" becomes "Before you crawl, you have to learn to fall." This order is from an earlier version of the song.
• Twisting - The lyrics on the Asbestos Records LP say "see you twisting" instead of "slowly twisting".
• Women & Men - Liner notes read "water running out" instead of "water giving out"
• Whistling In The Dark - Liner notes read "I merrily walked away" instead of "I happily walked away"
• Who's That Standing Out The Window? - Apollo 18's liners claim the phrase is "my window", but "the window" is sung.
• With The Dark - The liners change the line "Rusted, crusted, combusted, and dusted" to "Rusted incrusted combusted to ashes."
• The World Before Later On - The line "Where are all the complications..." is changed to "Where's all the complication..."

Albums without lyrics in liner notes[edit]

Though definitely an intentional move and therefore not technically a problem, the following albums' liner notes do not contain lyrics to any of the songs.

• BOOK - The standard editions don't include lyrics, but the book version features lyrics to all songs (except "Drown The Clown") as well as selections from I Like Fun and My Murdered Remains.
• Cast Your Pod To The Wind - No lyrics or documentation of any kind included in The Else's packaging, although the Australian release includes a track listing.
• Factory Showroom - The Japanese release includes a booklet with lyrics in both English and Japanese.
• Glean
• Here Come The 123s
• Here Come The ABCs
• I Like Fun - While there are no lyrics for most of the songs in the liner notes or packaging, the lyrics to the title track are included. Some of the songs had lyrics included in BOOK's book.
• My Murdered Remains. - Some of the songs had lyrics included in BOOK's book.
• Nanobots
• Phone Power
• They Got Lost
• Why?

Incorrect Credits[edit]

• Long Tall Weekend - Graham Maby is credited as playing bass on Drinkin', but the song was recorded before he was in the band, as evidenced by a sampler tape from 1993, which implies that Tony Maimone is the true bassist.
• Mosh Momken Abadon - Riad Al Sunbati is credited, but the music was written by Baligh Hamdi.
• My Murdered Remains - LP inner sleeve credits Corn Mo for "No Cops", which is only included on the CD edition.
• They Got Lost - Accidentally credits Dan Hickey and Danny Weinkauf as playing on Certain People I Could Name when, in actuality, it should credit Brian Doherty and Graham Maby, respectively.
• The Spine Surfs Alone: Rarities 1998-2005 - Hal Cragin is credited as playing bass on B10, T-Shirt (Instrumental), which has no live bass guitar. He actually plays bass on A10, They Got Lost (Live).

Other Issues[edit]

• A User's Guide To They Might Be Giants: Melody, Fidelity, Quantity - Says on the timeline that Child's Play's release is related to track 3, "Particle Man". It should say it's related to track 6, "Cyclops Rock". Also, the count of songs per album on the CD itself puts the version of "Older" as being the Mink Car one, when it's actually the Long Tall Weekend version. Additionally, the liner notes claim that Lincoln was released in November of 1988, when in actuality, the album was released two months earlier, and they also claim that Music From Malcolm In The Middle was released in November of 2000, while it was actually released in February of the following year.
• Apollo 18 - The Dial-A-Song number listed is incorrect.
• Dial-A-Song: 20 Years Of They Might Be Giants - Sarah Vowell's essay mentions the Mink Car version of "Older" when the compilation actually uses the Long Tall Weekend version.
• Dunkin Of Course Of Course - In the lyrics "Don't know the flavor, know the proof", the "fl" in flavor is lowercase, while the rest of the lyrics are uppercase.
• Join Us - The digital booklet contains a list of the members of the TMBG Instant Fan Club, of whom some members submitted instructions with their names such as: "(*if you can include both names!)", "(my sons. If will not use, put my name)", and "(That’s my dad, please)". The instructions were inserted into the notes as-is.
• Lincoln 2018 vinyl reissue - on side B, "I've Got A Match" is written as "I've Got AMatch".