Difference between revisions of "Transportation"

Latest revision as of 16:49, 24 March 2025

"We've written a lot of songs about transportation...We're Americans, we drive around a lot." (John Flansburgh, The Tartan Magazine, 1997). References to transportation and vehicles are listed below.

Central theme[edit]

• 100 Cars For Good
• AKA Driver
• Autopilot
• The Bloodmobile
• Boat Of Car
• Brooklyn - Lists the Brooklyn subway trains - "From the F to the G, to the L to the J"
• The Car Crash
• Choo Choo Express
• Come On And Wreck My Car
• Destination Moon - Rocket, airplane, taxi
• Dirt Bike
• ECNALUBMA
• Eight Hundred And Thirteen Mile Car Trip
• Electric Car
• Figure Eight - Skating forever (and a Zamboni)
• Flo Wheeler
• Glasgow - Venue song for The Garage
• Helicopters Of Elves
• Heptone - According to John Flansburgh, celebrates "the joy of riding a bike to a record store"
• Idaho
• I'm A Little Airplane
• In The Middle, In The Middle, In The Middle
• John Postal
• Kitten Intro - "A new kind of car"
• Mink Car
• My Other Phone Is A Boom Car
• The Next Plane To London
• One Car Motorcade
• On The Drag - Drag racing, top-fueler
• Rocket Ship
• Rowboat Mayor
• South Carolina - Bicycles
• Speed And Velocity
• Spoiler Alert
• The Summer Breeze - "An automobile that had driven from its garage ... Be sure there's not a car around ... There's a car without a handle"
• They Got Lost - "They Might Be Giants got lost driving around"
• To The Bubblecraft!
• Toddler Hiway - "Ride her bike down Toddler Hiway"
• Token Back To Brooklyn
• Tractor
• Trucker's Coffee

Briefly mentioned[edit]

• 3 Chords, 2 Teeth, 1 Eye - "Hard to believe we're just waiting for a bus"
• 32 Footsteps - "32 boxcars"
• '85 Radio Special Thank You - "In March, we were all trapped deep inside a subway car racing down tracks going faster, much faster, until they never let us out a full 10 blocks later."
• Alienation's For The Rich - "Just drinkin' and a-drivin'"
• All Alone - "Once upon a time they sent a rocket to the moon"
• All Time What - "Rolling down the highway"
• Alphabet Lost And Found - "Of the dashboard of the car that lost its 'r'"
• Ana Ng - "To the horn on the pole at the bus depot", "...painted on a bridge"
• Authenticity Trip - "We're takin' a jet-plane 'round"
• Backstabbing Liar - "Hear the scream that the turning subway made"
• The Ballad Of Davy Crockett (In Outer Space) - "Traveling through outer space"; "Off went his rocket at the speed of light"
• Bastard Wants To Hit Me - "How can I get to my car? / Climb in, turn the ignition / Pull onto the highway where I am free"
• Bed Bed Bed - "I rode my bike"
• Bee Of The Bird Of The Moth - "Send a tangerine colored nuclear submarine", "Windshield wiper washer fluid spraying in the air"
• Birdhouse In Your Soul - "And kept the beaches shipwreck-free"
• Bills, Bills, Bills - "Do you pay my automo' bills?" and "And then you ask to use my car / Drive it all day and not fill up the tank"
• Black Ops - "Dropping presents from the helicopter", "We fly to Amsterdam"
• Cabbagetown - "As the bus drove by"
• Cage & Aquarium - "Yawn as your plane goes down in flames"
• Canajoharie - "Where a rocket ship experiment went awry"
• Can You Find It? - "Is it in the train or on the tracks or at the station house?"
• Can't Keep Johnny Down - "When he pulls up alongside to say my gas cap is unscrewed"
• Celebration - "The racer must attach five dollars to their car and drive to the DJ booth"
• Chaos By Design - "I dig this abandoned car"
• Charlottesville - "Sell the car", "scamper down the train track"
• Chip The CHiP - "If you drive too fast he'll eat your face / Pass him on the left he'll eat your face"
• Christmas In The Big House - "And driving somebody's car away", "the sleigh in the sky"
• Climbing The Walls - "Then we won't need the car / 'Cause we'll stay where we are"
• Clowntown - "Clown car / Drives far / Honk the horn on the clown car"
• College Town - "She's got a job at the townie bar / And a car"
• Countdown Intro - "They Might Be Giants have just crash-landed their glass bottom car into the control tower at Jim Baker International Airport!"
• Crystal Fortress - "A unicorn awaits at a rainbow bridge"
• Cupid - "Police to move your van"
• Cyclops Rock - "I'm stuck in a van outside of New York"
• Damn Good Times - "Got off from the island on a helicopter"
• Dark And Metric - "No taxi could take you / No trains rolling by / No bicycle shop / No planes in the sky"
• The Day - "And biplanes bombed with fluffy pillows"
• Dee Dee And Dexter - hovercrafts
• Doom Doom - "Park the car, and hitch a star to the Doppelgängers of They"
• Drink! - "You could be a float for the Fourth of July"
• E Eats Everything - "E's eating in a moving car"
• The Edison Museum - "Folks drive in from out of town"
• The End Of The Tour - Cars and car crashes
• Erase - "Everyone gets on the bus out of town"
• Everybody Knows It - "It broke on the plane"
• Everything Right Is Wrong Again - "Just like in the long, long trailer ... the car kept driving"
• Fake-Believe (Type B) - "I'm climbin' in my rocket"
• Feign Amnesia - "Floating on an upstream train"
• The Fellowship Of Hell - "This hunk of junk keeps rolling down the road"
• Fibber Island - "We sew buttons on our cars", "We wear bicycles for hats"
• First Kiss - "We'd build a time machine and go"
• Flansy Stays In The Picture - "I dunno if he was in a VW minibus"
• Four Of Two - "There were flying cars"
• Fun Assassin - "Waiting for a bus from this place"
• The Gravel's Coming With Us - "To accomodate a rocket"
• The Guitar - "In the spaceship, the silver spaceship"
• Gudetama's Busy Days - "And some car dust from your car that they stole", "Sitting in an old truck tire"
• Happy - "I was jogging down my road when a car pulled by"
• Hello Mrs. Wheelyke - "Drive way out of town / You can steer and I'll ride on the hood"
• Hide Away Folk Family - "Tippy-toe to the flatbed, father"
• The House At The Top Of The Tree - "And the dog has his head out the window of the car"
• How Now Dark Cloud? - "Get back in the white panel van"
• I Am A Ring - "Pull the car over now / Put on the brake"
• I Can Hear You - "This car is protected by Viper", "I'm calling from the plane", "Please bring your car around"
• I Love You For Psychological Reasons - "Brain in a jar in a car in reverse"
• I Wanna Be Sedated - "Just get me in the wheel chair and put on the plane"
• Idlewild - "Take a ride on a skywriting plane"
• If I Wasn't Shy - "I'd steal somebody's Cadillac"
• Iowa - A flying broom
• It Could Be Worse - "The cabs, they won't stop"; "The Montgomery bus boycott"
• It's Not My Birthday - "And this train keeps rolling off the track"
• I've Been Seeing Things - "Seagulls, helicopter, windblown trash"
• I've Got A Match - "Get out of the car"
• Last Wave - "If you wanna make out with a biplane"
• Listless - "Helpless to influence my ship's relentless course"
• Live In Nashville (Part 2) - "John and John are about to emerge from their automobile"
• London - "On the bus"
• Lord Snowdon - "I'll go far in an open car"
• Lost My Mind - "Circling an unknown baggage carousel..."
• Lucky Ball & Chain - "Sure as you can't steer a train, you can't change your fate"
• Kings Of The Cave - "After cruisin' much further than you can in a car"
• Man, It's So Loud In Here - "They revamped the airport completely"
• Mario Speaks - "..it's all water under the bridge"
• Marshie - "Get in the van, kids"
• Memo To Human Resources - "Later in my car I considered what you said"
• The Mesopotamians - "Driving our Econoline van", "I thought you crashed your car"
• Mission Control - "I left it on the bus"
• Mr. Hughes Says - "Tell the pilot and the blimp", "Tell the streetlights and the car"
• Mrs. Train - "I don't want to be first in line to see Mrs. Train"
• Nanobots - "In a van stacked up on other vans"
• Narrow Your Eyes - "I get on the bus" , "I get on my bike"
• New York City - "We kissed on the subway", "Staten Island ferry", "It's on the bus", "Brooklyn Bridge"
• Nine Bowls Of Soup - "Nine bowls of soup on the wings of an airplane"
• No Answer - "Under the sound of the car horns"
• No Way To Reach You - "On the lookout for the mail truck"
• One Dozen Monkeys - "Now that monkey rides a bike around with me"
• Ooh La! Ooh La! - "We don't want to roller skate", "Here comes the 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 motor-scooters"
• Out Of Jail - "The way she stole that car"
• Pandor Jingle - "I like your auto / Yeah, I like your car"
• Penguin - "Looks for a place to park"
• Pet Name - "Waiting at the bus stop"
• Pictures Of Pandas Painting - skateboards and helicopters
• Poison Flowers - "Who's going ride my bike when I'm back in school?", "Who's going to steal the rowboats from the lifeguard station?"
• Protagonist - "Drove off in her car", "A BATTERED AUTOMOBILE drives past STATE LINE SIGN."
• Push Back The Hands - "You wanna sing to drown out the car horn", "Screeching tires but never a collision"
• Put Your Hand Inside The Puppet Head - "Ads up in the subway", "Quit my job down at the carwash"
• Quit The Circus - "Now I make as much sense, As the car on the lawn", "I'll stay in the car"
• Rabid Child - Truck driving
• Reminder - "Was he taking a bus?"
• Rhythm Section Want Ad - "Speak softly, drive a Sherman tank"
• Robot Parade - "There's electric cars, there's electric trains"
• Sally Boy Candy Bar - "I've been told when a fish needs a bike, the fish can walk or take a hike," "And it's driving me out of my car"
• A Self Called Nowhere - "I'm looking for my car"
• The Shadow Government - "Driving home from my meth lab;" "Here comes the Humvee"
• She's Actual Size - "Rearview mirror...as she drives away"
• She's An Angel - "The Shriners loaned us cars"
• Shoehorn With Teeth - "The plane can never land"
• Sleeping In The Flowers - boats, "I got a ride home with a drunk guy"
• So Long, Mockingbird - "Cars can pass me by, I don't mind"
• Sold My Mind To The Kremlin - "Train stations filled up with the mentally ill"
• Spy - "I might gaze on a submarine"
• Stuff Is Way - "The bag that you drag behind your car"
• Subliminal - "As I got hit by a car"
• Synopsis For Latecomers - Container ships
• The Second Longest Night - "Telling jokes in cars"
• Thermostat - "Should you continue driving anyway?"
• Thinking Machine - "Shaving copter anymore"
• This Is Only Going To Go One Way - "As we hurtle down the expressway / Buckle up, prepare for the new day"
• This Land Is Your Land - "As I was walking down the river of highway / I saw before me that giant skyway"
• Thunderbird - Planes? "Spread my thunder wings and fly"
• Towson - "As you navigate the rotary / On your way to park your car by the theater"
• Triops Has Three Eyes - "The tricycle has one more cycle than the washing machine"
• The Truth In Your Words - "I came to get my mini-bike returned"
• Turn Around - "We were waving our arms out the window of a fast moving passenger train"
• Vancouver - "She doesn't ride a motorbike"
• Wait Actually Yeah No - "Twenty car collision"
• Wearing A Raincoat - "Wearing a raincoat is flying around in a yellow rubber airplane made out of a raincoat"
• We're The Replacements - "We're out on the road / Moving equipment"
• Where Do They Make Balloons? - "Cars are from Japan"
• Wicked Little Critta - "He pops a wheelie on his mini-bike"
• Words Are Like - "...a car"
• Working Undercover For The Man - "The video surveillance van"
• The World Before Later On - "Where's my hovercraft? Where's my jet pack?"
• Weep Day - "That person took a train to Africa"
• You Don't Like Me - "Daguerreotypes, beauty contests, and cruise control"
• You're On Fire - "Is that your car they're towing? / I'm pretty sure that's your car / No, you can't park there"
• Zilch - "China Clipper calling Alameda"

Honorable mention[edit]

• A Ton Of Stuff - While not implied in the song, in the commercial itself, they are packing a ton of stuff into the back of a minivan.
• Apollo 18's cover has an image of an Apollo Lunar Module.
• Experimental Film - In the H*R video, the Penny Farthing that the Tentacle Skull rides.
• The Flood cover image, taken during a severe flood in Kentucky in 1930, prominently features a man maneuvering his homemade raft, with two men in a rowboat in the background.
• Heart Of The Band - The video includes a hot-air balloon.
• Mink Car
• In the video for Music Jail Pt. 1 & 2, several disembodied heads (potentially Puppets) are on wheels.
• Rat Patrol - Long Tall Weekend liner notes picture includes a car
• Severe Tire Damage
• The Spine's liner notes show a rocket or airplane of some kind.
• One half of the cover of The Statue Got Me High is a photograph of an Earth-based test of the Apollo program's lunar rover.
• The cover of The Pink Album depicts a parade of whimsical objects, including a number of vehicles.
• The Join Us cover art features a pink monster hearse, and so does the music video for When Will You Die.