Problems With Liner Notes

Songs whose lyrics are misquoted in their albums' liner notes.

Lyrics not present

• '85 Radio Special Thank You
• AKA Driver - Lyrics not present in the John Henry liner notes due to fears of legal problems with the manufacturers of NyQuil.
• Critic Intro
• Doris Cunningham
• Greek Number Three
• Kitten Intro
• Mainstream U.S.A.
• Spider
• Yeh Yeh - Lyrics not present in the Mink Car liners because it was a cover of a song administered by a different label.
• Weep Day

Incomplete lyrics

• Au Contraire - All "Right On"s are omitted from the liner notes.
• 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 "Too late or soon..." section is missing from 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

• 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 twice.

Alternate lyrics

• Piece Of Dirt - Lincoln liner notes contain the lyrics of an earlier live version.

Wrong lyrics

• 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".
• 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".
• 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..."
• Old Pine Box - The line "There's no percentage in that" is written in the digital booklet as "What's the percentage in that?"
• 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.
• 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 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."
• 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, incrusted, 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..."

Heard vs. written lyrics

• It's Not My Birthday - liner notes say "Never more will be around," but some hear "Never more we'll be around"
• Snail Shell - liner notes say "Sir hand," but some hear "Sirhan," a reference to the assassin
• A Self Called Nowhere - liner notes say "A thing named it in a bottomless pit," but some hear "a thing named id in a bottomless pit"

Honorable mentions

• Apollo 18 - The Dial-A-Song number listed is incorrect.
• The Else - Packaging contains no tracklist, publishing information, etc. for the bonus disc packaged with it (Cast Your Pod To The Wind).
• Factory Showroom - Though definitely an intentional move and therefore not technically a problem, the album's liner notes do not contain lyrics to any of the songs. The Japanese release of the album includes liner notes that include lyrics in both English and Japanese.
• Here Come The 123s - No lyrics in the liner notes
• Here Come The ABCs - No lyrics in the liner notes
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.