They Might Be Giants

A NewYorkCity-based rock duo with a very unique sound and always unusual, often clever, not seldom even educating lyrics. The name, of course, is indirectly self-referential: "they" implicitly refers to They themselves.

From 1999-2004 the two Johns of They Might Be Giants toured with a "band of Dans" -- a configuration often referred to as the full-house band due to the amusing line of band members: John, John, Dan, Dan, and Danny. In poker, this hand would properly be referred to as "Dans full of Johns".

TMBG are perhaps most popular among the more nerdy types. However, they have explored so many different musical styles that they probably have at least something to offer that you like. Many of their songs are simple and extremely catchy, which is probably the reason for their great mainstream success.

Guide to enjoyment:

1. Listen to a few TMBG songs;
2. Let them bounce around your head for a few days;
3. Enjoy hours upon hours of music from your new favourite band!

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To be fair, they owe much of their popularity to an excellent episode of Tiny Toons in which there were two full-length animated music videos of They Might Be Giants songs - Istanbul (not Constantinople) and Particle Man.

Um. TMBG has been popular long before these were created. If anything, their appeal to younger folk is a relatively recent phenomenon. They have now done numerous cartoon theme songs, a couple of kids albums (No and an ABC album), and performances at Disney.

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There's a whole other wiki dedicated to TMBG: This Might Be a Wiki, http://www.tmbw.net.

Personally, I would have preferred the name "It Might Be a Wiki" to preserve the magic about the naming scheme, but I guess having a name that starts with "TMB" is nice, too. -- DanielBrockman.

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A favorite TheyMightBeGiants reference: MercedesLackey? places her mage Tannim under psychic questioning, which he is able to resist (a la The DemolishedMan?) by singing TMBG tunes.

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An overloaded definition. "They Might be Giants" is also a movie starring George C. Scott who thinks he is Sherlock Holmes in a hunt for Moriarity. He teams up with Dr. Mildred Watson played by Joanne Woodward

And, of course, that quote is a reference to Don Quixote, who tilted at (attacked on horseback) windmills because they might be giants.

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In Soul Music, by Terry Pratchett, there's a band called 'We're Certainly Dwarfs'

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To relate them to software and other geeky things, some tidbits:

• They wrote a theme song for the company that designed their website (Oranges).
• They covered a couple of songs from an old educational record called "Space Songs" (Why does the sun shine?, A shooting star is not a star)
• The Johns have a thing for encyclopedias, hence the rather accurate songs about the 11th US president, Belgian painter James Ensor, mammals, and string theory.

CategoryMusic