This isn't a review of They Might Be Giants, but my own relation to their music. I remember picking up a CD of Flood in a store, maybe a Suncoast Video or a Newbury Comics. I was probably like 10? 7 years or so after it released in 1990. After first hearing Istanbul on Tiny Toons, I'm enchanted by the seeming nonsense lyrics, the nasal vocalization, and the intense indie folk rock aesthetic. I can't believe there's More. These two Johns singing about Prosthetic Foreheads and Whistling In The Dark have grabbed me by the brain and filled it with a pleasant whimsy and joy.
Call it a few years later, and I'm still listening to them. They've even shown up on Homestar Runner (another linchpin of my selfhood). The sort of outsider feel of TMBG (even though they were definitely getting into their more popular status) really appealed to me as a teen with anxiety and weird friends. We can sing about Palindromes and some terrifying lady named Ana, and we can take satisfaction in that.
It's the late 2000s. I'm finishing up my undergrad at college and heading towards grad school. An intensely stressful and painful time in my life, and there's a lot that I regret from that period. It's stuff that I still feel the scars of, and that I am working through. I probably blasted Dr. Worm and Birdhouse in Your Soul 100s of times, along with Mesopotamians and Bee of the Bird of the Moth. It never really fails to get me hyped and lift my mood some. Really pulls me back to a more untangled place in my life.
And here's the thing that I love more than anything else. I'm a big fan of TMBG, and they're STILL making music. They're still doing the thing, refining their art, and just having fun. Recently, I've gone through some more personal shit, and they were there for me with Erase and Let's Get This Over With. It's meditative. It loosens me up. The nonsense is sincere, but it's nonsense all the same.
There's not much else for me to say, except the Communists Have the Music