Flood Promo

Flood flag

John and John in the coffee shop

Background

The Flood Promo was a promotional cassette distributed in the UK in 1990 to promote the band's new album, Flood. It is available for viewing in the special features section of the Gigantic DVD. The following is a transcription of the video.

Transcript

• Theme From Flood

Begins with a slow 15-second camera pan across a New York City skyline, which fades into a flowing red "ELEKTRA ENTERTAINMENT PRESENTS" flag, followed by a yellow flag with the logo for Flood on it.

• Coffee shop

Begins with an outside shot of De Robertis' Italian Pastry Shoppe (176 First Ave, New York, NY). Fades to the inside of the coffee shop, where John and John are sitting at a booth, drinking coffee.

JL: Hi! Thanks for joining us for coffee, I'm John.

JF: And I'm John of They Might Be Giants.

JL: And we've got a new album out, on Elektra Records. It's called Flood.

JF: This is our rock promotion video, so...(jolts head back) come on inside.

• Music videos

Cuts to snippets of older TMBG music videos for about a minute. (Not included on the Gigantic DVD) Then, back to the coffee shop.

• Coffee shop

JL: Some records that come out today only have ten songs, or less.

JF: This makes us angry.

JL: But instead of cursing the darkness, John and I have decided to do something about it. We've put out a record with nineteen songs on it.

JF: And that's why our record is better.

JL: If you buy our new album, Flood, you'll be getting songs like...

• Flood tracklist speed-run

This section consists of the Johns running down the entire tracklisting for Flood in order, in one minute and 23 seconds. First, a John shouts out the song's title, then it cuts to both Johns sitting in chairs, lounging back and snapping their fingers while a snippet from the song (usually containing only its title) plays, and the song's title is shown in large, white, capital letters on-screen.

Birdhouse In Your Soul!

John and John listen

Hot Cha!

More listening

JF: Theme From Flood!

• "Floooooooood"

JL: Birdhouse In Your Soul!!

• "Birdhouse in your soul"

JL: Lucky Ball & Chain.

• "Lucky ball and chain"

JF: Istanbul, Not Constantinople.

• "Istanbul was Constantinople" (Silent on Gigantic DVD due to copyright reasons)

JL: Dead!!

• "Dead"

JF: Your Racist Friend.

• "Your racist friend"

JL: Particle Man.

• "Particle man"

JF: Twisting!

• "Twisti--"

JL: We Want A Rock!

• "Want a rock to--"

JF: Someone Keeps Moving My Chair!

• "Someone keeps moving my chair"

JF: Hearing Aid.

• "-earing aid"

JL: Minimum Wage.

• "Minimum wage, hyah!"

JL: Letterbox.

• "Letterbox!"

JL: Whistling In The Dark.

• "Whistling in the dark"

JF: Hot Cha.

• "Hot Cha"

JL: Women & Men.

• "Women and men"

JF: Sapphire Bullets Of Pure Love.

• "Sapphire bullets, bullets of pure love"

JL: They Might Be Giants.

• "They Might Be Giants, boy, They Might Be Giants"

JF: And Road Movie To Berlin.

• "A road movie to Berlin"

• "BRITISH TV APPEARANCE" - "Night Network - TX 3rd March 1989"

Paul Thompson: The live music tonight came from two of Brooklyn's foremost music talents, a combo of whom it is often said, "They might be giants." We welcome John Flasburgh--Flansburgh--and John Linnell, independent sex symbol superstars from the U.S. of A.

JL: Well spoken, Paul. That's every word true.

PT: So what is true? That you are the most successful independent group in the States now, aren't you?

JF: Yeah, but I mean that's sorta like being the world's tallest midget.

PT: To what do you attribute the success of They Might Be Giants?

JF: We have a Dial-A-Song service which has certainly helped people out of New York find out about us. We bought a phone machine, and with just a regular phone line started advertising this number. And you can call and hear a different song by They Might Be Giants any time, day or night.

PT: Well, what a surprise. Strange you mention that, actually, because we've got that phone number here now. If you would like to dial 0101

JF: That's the country code.

PT: 718--area code--387 6962--

JF: That's right.

PT: you can get a different They Might Be Giants track--

JL: That's right.

PT: every day.

JL: Call from your parents' house. It's cheaper that way.

PT: Of course you come from America, so do you have an American Dream?

JL: Every night, Paul.

• Coffee shop booth

JF: Here's a special acoustic version of the song "Particle Man".

• Particle Man performance, with accordion, electric guitar, and metronome.
• Coffee shop booth

John and John are holding cups of coffee. They look up to face the camera.

JL: 'Let's take a moment and listen to the first single off our record, "Birdhouse in Your Soul".

"Birdhouse in Your Soul" begins to play, and Flansburgh looks back down at his coffee. A long moment later, we cut to a shot of John and John from a couple tables over as the song continues.

External Links

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