She Was A Hotel Detective

From This Might Be A Wiki

song name	She Was a Hotel Detective
artist	They Might Be Giants
releases	Back To Skull, Dial-A-Song, tmbg.com (1998), TMBG Clock Radio (as "She Was A Hotel Detective DEMO"), Podcast 26A, John Henry + Factory Showroom
year	1994
first played	December 30, 1995 (15 known performances)
run time	3:21
sung by	John Linnell

Trivia/Info

According to Linnell, this song was an attempt at a follow-up song to the self-titled album's "(She Was A) Hotel Detective", "in the tradition of 'Peggy Sue Got Married' and 'Let's Twist Again.'" The two songs are not, however, stylistically similar. A third song called (She Was A) Hotel Detective In The Future was later released on Podcast 5A.
John Linnell spoke about the song in a 1995 interview when asked if there'd be more songs in the series:

We got such a muted response from the second song — most people seemed to think it was a cover of the first song. Sometimes I think the only person who liked that song was Flansburgh. I basically made a demo at home and I played it for him and he was really excited about it. Then we recorded it and even some of our friends were not particularly... interested in it [laughing]. So, I don't know if I should get discouraged or not.

At shows, John Flansburgh sang the chorus falsetto, which partly inspired him to write the song "How Can I Sing Like A Girl?". However, on the studio version, Linnell sings with pitch-shifted vocals.
Interestingly, the text "Motel Directive Wigue Wigue Wishnick" is inscribed in the leadout groove of 1988's (She Was A) Hotel Detective (EP). This seems to be echoed in the lyric "She read that motel directive".
The lines "She didn't care about expensive things / No furs or pearls or fancy cars or diamond rings" are similar to lines from the musical Chicago. In "All I Care About", Billy Flynn sings "I don't care about expensive things / Cashmere coats, diamond rings".

Song Themes

Altered Voice, Conservatism, Death, Falsetto, Gender Issues, Hotel Detective Series, Intelligence, Espionage, Money, Not In Common Time, Occupations, People (Imaginary), Reading, Recycled Material, Weapons, Windows

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She Was A Hotel Detective is currently ranked #108 out of 1020. (135 wikians have given it an average rating of 8.92)

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