Album: Flood
Year: 1990
. . .
While Flood didn’t chart that much higher than Lincoln — #75 to #89, with their highest-charting was 2011’s John Henry at #32 — it certainly charted harder, being one of those records that people didn’t like, they became obsessed with, playing it for their friends. I remember at least on post-Wild Blue apartment party where Flood was the over and over soundtrack, and while it might not have charted all that high, it’s legend has been passed down over the years, and it’s the only TMBG album to go platinum. Or, hell, gold for that matter. (Though I should point out that the DVDs for their children’s albums Here Come The ABCs, Here Come the 123s and Here Comes Science all went gold, so maybe that counts?)
Whether or not Flood is objectively the greatest of the like three dozen studio, live and compilation albums that They Might Be Giants have released in the past 47 years is impossible to tell. But it’s my favorite, and it’s probably the favorite of most of the people who haven’t bought their entire oeuvre. Which I’m assuming is nearly every single one of the tens of people who have are currently reading this. Why, as an indie-rock society, we have landed on Flood as They Might Be Giants’s pinnacle might never be known.
However, for me as an individual, it’s basically comes down to the first side — which is hilarious to say for someone who only ever owned Flood on CD — which features “Birdhouse in Your Soul,” “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” and the trilogy of winners that finish it: “Particle Man,” the name-dropping “Twisting,” and my other all-time favorite TMBG song, “We Want A Rock” which starts with a circular violin riff from Mark Feldman, and John Linnell singing hook after hook after hook.
Where was I?
I forgot the point that I was making
I said if I was smart that I would
Save up for a piece of string
And a rock to wind the string aroundEverybody wants a rock
To wind a piece of string around
Everybody wants a rock
To wind a piece of string around
Now, apparently Linnell is making a metaphorical point about needing something, like a rock, to wind our life string around, in order to get going. Honestly, I read the Genius explanation of “We Want A Rock” several times before trying to summarize it here, and I’m not sure I get it.
What I do get however, are the harmonies that John Flansburgh is tossing on top of Linnell, and what I really really get is just how much fun it is to sing “Everbody wants a rock to wind a piece of string around” over and over and over. And, of course, that’s not even the most fun thing to sing along with. Nope, this is:
Everybody wants prosthetic
Foreheads on their real heads
Everybody wants prosthetic
Foreheads on their real heads
Sure, the lyrics might be absurdist metaphorical philosophy making fun of trends in marketing and fashion, and yeah the music might be fun, with all of the stops and starts and violin and accordion solos, but none of that matters, none of it, in the face of this chorus.
Throw the crib door wide
Let the people crawl inside
Someone in this town
Is trying to burn the playhouse down
They want to stop the ones who want
Prosthetic foreheads on their heads
But everybody wants prosthetic
Foreheads on their real heads
This will never not kill me 100%, and after that, Flood goes from great to very good, or at least that’s why my prosthetic forehead is telling me.
“We Want a Rock”
“We Want a Rock” Live in Pawling, NY, 2018
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