Hungover and Hearing Things

The Eastern Washington diner I sat in years ago was somehow both busy and empty at the same time. The servers moved with a level of urgency that didn’t quite match the number of people sitting at tables or waiting to be seated. My head, along with the heads of everyone I was sitting with, was pounding from the night before. Too many drinks were consumed, and not nearly enough of them were 100% water.

While I waited for my coffee, orange juice, and (even though I don’t really like them) a Bloody Mary, I found myself humming along to the music playing overhead. It had that late-60s sound to it. Even though it sounded foreign, I somehow knew the melody. Every lyric felt familiar. My hungover brain felt as though reality was collapsing around it.

Then it hit me.

This had to be the original version of a song I already knew. The version I’d heard countless times is the eighth track on Mink Car by They Might Be Giants; a cover of the 1965 hit by Georgie Fame & The Blue Flames called Yeh Yeh.1

This Song Has So Many Sounds

For a song that has two previous version that predate the 1965 hit, this version of Yeh Yeh is clearly it’s highest evolved form. It’s got an all-you-can-eat buffet of percussion happening with little flurries of bongos, a cowbell maybe, a woodblock, and even possibly an empty oil drum. In general, there are so many interesting sounds coming at you that I highly recommend putting on some good headphone and giving it a real listen. There’s so much to love about it.

This track sits right in the middle of Mink Car, and it feels like an exclamation point. Up to this point, the album has been building its strange little world, and Yeh Yeh bursts through it like pure momentum. It’s bright, it’s playful, and it doesn’t overthink itself for a second.

John Flansburgh steps in here with a song that lives entirely in that early-stage relationship energy. Not the complicated part. Not the “what are we doing” conversations. Just the part where everything feels easy and obvious.

Listening to this song pulls me straight back to that moment when you meet someone and something just… clicks.

Not in a dramatic, cinematic way. Just that quiet realization:
Oh. There you are.

In the song, it’s as simple as an invitation. Come over. Hang out. Play records. Let the night happen.

And the answer is immediate. Enthusiastic. Uncomplicated.

Yes.

There’s a line that lands right in the middle of all that:

And there'll be no one else alive in all the world 'cept you and me

It’s not literal. It’s that feeling when your attention locks in so completely that everything else fades out. The room is still there. The world is still happening. But for a little while, it’s just the two of you, sharing the same space, the same music, the same moment.

Yeh Yeh Energy

That’s what this song captures better than anything else. Not love as a lifelong contract. Not destiny. Just connection. Immediate, mutual, and easy.

For me, this song isn’t about “the one.” It’s about finding your person in that moment.

And I don’t think there’s only one version of that in a lifetime. Sometimes it’s temporary. Sometimes it lasts. Sometimes it teaches you something you didn’t know you needed to learn.

But when it’s there, you feel it.

There’s a shared rhythm. A kind of unspoken agreement that you’re both tuned to the same frequency, even if you couldn’t explain it out loud if someone asked you to.

There are plenty of songs about love that try to define it, dissect it, or turn it into something bigger than it needs to be.

Yeh Yeh doesn’t bother with any of that. It’s not trying to explain the feeling. It just drops you right in the middle of this bright, loud, a little chaotic, and very nostalgic rock sound.

It’s the sound of saying yes without hesitation. Of not overthinking it. Of just letting something good be good while it’s happening.

And maybe that’s why it hit so hard in that diner.

Sitting there, half-alive, trying to recover from the night before, everything felt a little off. The server, in a hurry still tossed a handful of loose silverware into the center of our table and stormed off. Then this song comes on and suddenly there’s this jolt of energy. Something familiar, something fun, something that doesn’t ask anything from you except to go along with it.

Yeh yeh.

Right in the middle of Mink Car, it feels like a shot of pure optimism. A reminder that not everything has to be complicated to matter.

Enjoy it while it’s there.

Because the very next track?

That one has other plans.

You’re reading one of my Mink Car essays. An album full of pop, depression, car accidents, and high fidelity.

• See all Mink Car posts - Start Here

• Dive deeper into TMBG lore at TMBW.net (fan-run and fantastic)

The EP tracks. The rarities. The songs that didn’t make the main record but somehow made permanent homes in my life.

This is Kiss Me, Son of Extras.

Remember the woman who was a hotel detective from They Might Be Giants’ self titled album? The one in the song with the wild laughing John Flansburgh, crunchy guitars, and saxophone? Nearly ten years later, John Linnell presented Flansy with this follow up to our hero, which they released on the Back To Skull EP.

Linnell used pitch-shifting tools to reach the high notes in the chorus but during live performances, Flansy would hit the falsettos for this one and that is partly what led him to write the song How Can I Sing Like A Girl.

Anyway, I really enjoy this one and sing it in the car all the time. I wish so badly that I could walk into any karaoke spot and they’d have this available to sing. It would absolutely make my night. Check it out and let me know what you think.

You’re reading a post from Kiss Me, Son of Extras. A series of posts for the TMBG songs that don’t live on a big studio album. These posts are for the EP tracks, the rarities. The ones tucked away in between bigger releases but are also woven into my actual life.

• See all Kiss Me, Son of Extra posts - Start Here

• Dive deeper into TMBG lore at TMBW.net (fan-run and fantastic)

A lot of my life, I’ve felt disconnected from people and my surroundings.

Like I’m observing everything but not participating. Or maybe I am trying to participate, but there’s this underlying feeling that I don’t quite belong in it.

My mind has a narrator that contextualizes everything as rejection. It fills in gaps that don’t exist. It rewrites neutral moments into something personal. Like people aren’t being sincere. Like they don’t actually like me.

I know that’s not true.

That doesn’t stop it from being the first thought that shows up.

It takes constant reframing. Therapy-learned skills. Active effort just to quiet that voice down to something manageable. I’d love to make it disappear entirely, but I don’t think that’s how this works.

And then there’s this song.

A Song About a Hat (That Is Not About a Hat)

Hovering Sombrero appears on Mink Car (2001), but carries with it an unmistakable Flood-era DNA. Gentle, strange, and sincere. According to John Linnell, the song was written in studio twelve years prior to Mink Car while they were recording Flood. It’s built on soft instrumentation, almost lullaby-like, with Linnell delivering something that feels less like a performance and more like a quiet intervention for those of us who feel things a little too strongly.

Somewhere along the way, this song about a sombrero went from “another quirky TMBG track” to something else entirely.

The shift happens with this one line:

You’re never just a hat. You’re never only just a hat, you know.

Two things are happening in that line.

The narrator is telling a sombrero that it isn’t just a hat.

And at the same time, he’s telling us this song was never really about a hat at all.

It’s about me. It’s about you. It’s probably the singer talking to himself.

The song becomes this gentle but persistent refusal to let yourself collapse into your worst self-assessment.

It’s about what happens when you obsess over failures long enough that they start to feel like your identity. When regrets stop being something you carry and start being something you are.

And then this voice steps in and sings:

No. You’re not just that. Even if that’s what it feels like.

Collecting Evidence Against My Brain

Today, I woke up before 5:30AM to meet friends for a sunrise cold plunge.

We stood in the Puget Sound and watched the sky wake up.

Later, I met an former-coworker-turned-friend for a drink on a patio. On the walk there, we ran into another friend of mine. Then another inside the tavern. Then the friend who works there. Then a conversation with someone at the bar who was already halfway in on what we were talking about.

It just… kept happening.

Connection. Community. Familiar faces. New ones. Easy conversations.

The exact kind of day my brain insists I don’t belong in.

Cognitive Dissonance In a Good Way

At the end of the day, I listened to Hovering Sombrero one more time before sitting down to write this.

And it hit me that this song hasn’t just been reminding me of something.

My entire weekend was evidence of it.

I’m not just the guy whose wife left, trying to figure things out.

I’m the guy who did the work. The therapy. The uncomfortable internal stuff.

And who is still showing up. Still connecting.

Still here.

Even though I still struggle to feel any of that most of the time.

Time, Dread, and the Floating Hat That Outlasts Everything

There’s a moment in the song where time itself becomes the problem.

Clock hands spin so fast they create wind. Calendar pages rip free and scatter across the yard. Hundreds of years pass. Everything familiar disappears.

And through all of it, the sombrero just… hovers.

I hear that verse and feel dread creep in immediately.

I think about my kids getting on the bus.

I think about how my oldest will be thirty in a couple of years.

I think about where I was at thirty; married, in a different city, trying to figure everything out and feeling like I got there way too fast.

I think about how much has changed in the last year. The last decade.

What about ten more years?

How many more “ten more years” do I even get?

Thirty, maybe?

There it is. The drop.

My chest tightens. My stomach empties out. My sense of self shrinks down to something small and temporary and insignificant.

A brief existence in an infinite universe.

A hovering sombrero.

And from there, it’s really easy to collapse inward.

The Chorus That Won’t Let Me Stay There

There’s another song on this album that leans all the way into that dread. I’ll get there.

But this one doesn’t let me stay in it.

Because every time I start spiraling out, the song does something simple and almost absurd:

It puts an arm around my shoulder.

And it reminds me:

I’m not just a hat. I was never just a hat.

I am not just a passing thought. Not just a failed version of myself. Not just the worst thing I believe about myself.

Even if my brain keeps trying to sell me that story.

Hovering

I still feel disconnected often. I still have that narrator. I still lose arguments to it more often than I’d like.

But I’m here.

Still showing up. Still connecting. Still hovering. And maybe that’s the point. Not to feel fixed or to feel certain but just to keep going.

To hover.

You’re reading one of my Mink Car essays. An album full of pop, depression, car accidents, and high fidelity.

• See all Mink Car posts - Start Here

• Dive deeper into TMBG lore at TMBW.net (fan-run and fantastic)

Fine Dining Is a Scam

Two years ago, I sat at a table of a fancy restaurant for a friend’s birthday.

It was the kind of fancy restaurant that calls their mashed potatoes a “potato puree.” Do you know who else calls their food a puree? Gerber. The baby food company. Just because you over mashed it and added your weight in butter doesn’t make it any more elevated than mashed potatoes.

And don’t make me order my sides separate. Yes, I’m still on this restaurant thing.

If you have filet mignon as a main course on your menu, go ahead and serve that to me with what you - the chef - felt was the best complete dish for that protein. Maybe serve it on top of a bed roasted seasonal root veggies with a pepper and wine reduction sauce, garnished with fresh fennel. But what do I know! Or you can sear and thinly slice it, served on a bed of that potato puree you’re so excited about.

Making me select and pay separately while I create my entire dinner plate as if I’m starting a new Elden Ring character build isn’t “we do things a little differently here,” it’s “we decided not to have our restaurant function the way everyone has agreed a restaurant should function.”

So, I ordered the roasted carrots as one of my sides.

My grandma used to make me roasted carrots all the time when I was very little. The best way to have them was when she would steam and mash them up a bit with a dab of butter and a sprinkle of salt. I was really looking forward to these roasted carrots.

Anyway, The Song

How does any of this relate to I’ve Got A Fang? Fair. Let’s talk about the song.

The sixth track on the Mink Car album from They Might Be Giants, it’s a fairly simple song. Featuring a baritone sax joining the bass guitar and some electronic programming - including a rapid hi-hat that starts the song off and continues, unrelenting throughout. Ceasing only once after deteriorating before the bridge.

The band’s original version of the song did not include the hi-hat but one of the album producers wanted to put it in and honestly, it is doing a lot of heavy lifting as far as the vibe goes. Without it, the song is still a banger but there is a quirkily, unbalanced energy happening with the running hi-hat across the track.

John Linnell is handling all of the vocals in this one by singing in two different octaves of a very monotone styles. It gives the lyrics a sort of spooky vibe while he goes on about using his fang to open up cans of tomato juice or making his girlfriend’s mom’s head explode like an atom bomb on sight of his hideous face.

I’ve Got A Fang is almost an absurd commentary on low self-esteem imposed body horror all over something kind of normal; a slightly longer, pointier tooth. The narrator is singing about himself with a tone that sounds like he’s given up hope of ever looking “normal” again. That he identifies as a monster with a fang tooth who is not as valued, loved, or admired as someone with a full set of nice, regular teeth.

Back to the Crime Scene

Back to that birthday dinner..

At last, I lift my carrot filled fork up to my mouth. I take my first bite.

The end where I cut that whole roasted mini carrot with the edge of my fork was soft, but the center where my teeth made contact was fresh-from-the-ground raw. I bit into it with all the confidence of a person who thinks they’re about to bite into the fully roasted carrot that they just ordered.

My tooth broke.

Discreetly, I made my way to the bathroom and looked in the mirror at my newly chipped front tooth and accepted my new reality. Then, while staring into my own face, I let out a sigh of defeat and I said:

Great.

Now I’ve got a fang.

You’re reading one of my Mink Car essays. An album full of pop, depression, car accidents, and high fidelity.

• See all Mink Car posts - Start Here

• Dive deeper into TMBG lore at TMBW.net (fan-run and fantastic)

As a card-carrying member of a secret musical society, I have somehow acquired an advance copy of this album. I’m sorry, I’ve been sworn to secrecy. There was an oath and everything.

Writing about each of their songs on a weekly basis would normally keep me from even mentioning these until years from now. By then, I’d have lived with them, worn them down, figured them out.

Today is not that day.

Today, I just want to listen to this album front to back for the first time and share what’s happening in my brain as it unfolds.

Let’s Listen to The World Is to Dig!

Back In Los Angeles

The tone-setter. Slow, soulful, with unsettlingly jazzy drums. It feels like something trying to hold itself together… and then quietly failing. Fantastic start.

Wu-Tang

This one dropped last month and has fully grown on me. Linnell is doing what Linnell does best: melody for days. Flansy slips in with backing vocals that lift the chorus perfectly. It lands like an early 2000s anthem. The Wu-Tang Clan presented here less as a group and more like a mythic force interrupting the narrator’s spiral.

Sleep’s Older Sister

Darker territory. Sleep itself is too expensive now. I get the sense of being led somewhere without resistance, fully aware there’s no way back. The destination feels like… death? The drums decay into something genuinely unsettling.

Je n’en ai pas

Okay this song is entirely in French haha. I love this. Crisp guitars, piano, bass, tight drums. I immediately had to look up the translation and I’m still not entirely convinced these are complete sentences.

Outside Brain

Marty Beller is a force here. Flansy builds a great pop-rock structure around a feeling of being socially out of sync. A song for people who miss cues, or feel like they’re slightly outside of everything. This song is speaking to me directly.

Let’s Fall In Lava

The title alone is subverting my expectations. My mind wants it to be “Let’s Fall In Love” but instead it sounds like we’re talking about literally falling into hot lava. Guess what? The song is about jumping into hot lava together. Complete with Terminator 2 references!

Telescope

Every TMBG album needs a short, strange little piece and this is it. Feels like a quiet argument about reality and how tools meant to expand understanding instead threaten it for people who’ve already decided what’s true. The vibe is very Stuff Is Way.

Garbage In

Oooh, a song about mental overwhelm if I’ve ever heard one. Flansburgh singing “remove the head or destroy the brain. Those are the two solutions.”

Get Down

A horn-filled good time. There’s a futuristic-voiced Flansburgh with a groovy bass line. This is a bop. What’s it about? Oh just something about a very old message arriving to Earth that everyone needs to GET DOWN! Destruction is eminent.

New Wave Will Never Die

Mellow, and reflective. Feels like a thesis about continuing to create even when things feel unstable. I’m definitely coming back to this one.

Overnight Sensation (Hit Record)

My early pick for the best song on this album is actually a cover of a song by The Raspberries that I was unfamiliar with. I greatly prefer this cover over the original. The guitars are filthy and the chorus is powerful. This is a bona fide They Might Be Giants rock ballad. AND the video features a band within the band that has not been seen since 2007 - The Mesopotamians!

Character Flaw

Starts off sounding like it wandered in from Here Come the ABCs and then flips into something bright and deceptively upbeat. Underneath that: regret, damage, and consequences that can’t be undone. Underneath it all we hear: “afterwards, when it is much too late to uncross the line and much too late to unspeak the unspeakable. Afterwards, when no words can express the depth of regret or fix the broken trust lying in the rubble. I feel so bad.”

Hit The Ground

Flansburgh sad sack song, and I mean that with love. This time he’s a stage magician.. Smooth vocals, organ, synths; it’s a good time.

What you Get

The first verse of this song is full of questions that run my head countless times per day. “Is it just a bit? Should you commit to it? Is there something to get? Are you overthinking it?” I can tell that I will be listening to this A LOT. Linnell is a perfect lyricist. There really is something wonderfully genius about his talent for lyrics and melodies that work so perfectly together.

Slow

What if you drank the wrong potion and now reality is slowing down? Every gesture, every expression becomes visible. You understand everything, but can’t respond. You become hyperaware and completely isolated inside it. So you jump from a mountain top. And as you fall, you slow down even more. Knowing you’re both doomed to die and doomed to never reach the ground. This song is disorienting, pulsing, bending, slightly warped. It is incredible.

In the Dead Mall

Walking blues rock. Tight, simple, effective. Feels like people moving through a life that’s already emptied out. The structure is still there. The meaning isn’t.

What the Cat Dragged In

Great horn section. Big band energy. Feels like someone fully aware that no one is excited to see them again… and showing up anyway.

They Might Be Feral

I think song is capturing the mindset of someone who doesn’t recognize band anymore and resolves that discomfort by labeling them unfamiliar and dangerous, corrupted, or ‘feral.’ The “leave politics” out of it fans. The people who are always “othering” and wanting their culture to be preserved and safe. I think TMBG are addressing those fans (former fans) with a song about how they sound to the world. And to reiterate that not only might they be giants, but they also might be feral.

Final Thoughts

After one full listen, I’m pretty sure I love this album.

The World Is to Dig feels like an album about trying to exist in a world where identity, meaning, and reality all feel unstable. Where you can’t fully trust what you’re seeing, or even who you are.

The systems don’t hold. The signals don’t line up. So you’re left to make something anyway.

And instead of collapsing into that uncertainty, the album feels like it’s pushing back against it. Make something. Connect anyway. Laugh at how absurd it all is.

In a world where nothing feels stable, whatever matters is what you decide to carry anyway.

You can pre-order The World Is to Dig on vinyl, CD, cassette for release on April 14, or own it TODAY as a digital download at tmbgshop.com today. Do it.

Another First Kiss is a snapshot into a life I’ve stolen many glimpses of.

Unlike previous They Might Be Giants songs, the fifth track on Mink Car is a love song that does not collapse into a terrible end. No sad sack. No unrequited love. Just two people, living together, being comfortable with themselves in the ordinary moments of a shared life.

I miss that.

Love songs tend to orbit beginnings. The spark. The realization. The “wait a minute, is this person my SOUL MATE?” moment. That’s the cliché.

This song lives in the middle.

There’s a lyric that expresses this succinctly:

We’ve run out of things to say

And we’ll be happy anyway

That’s not the beginning of love. That’s what happens after you’ve said everything and have eased into your life enjoying couch time with 90 Day Fiancé on.

It’s about that quiet, settled space. The routines. The shorthand. Two people so fully inside a cozy life together that they want to rewind just enough to feel that first kiss again.

Have you ever had that?

In the months after a relationship ends, it’s hard to see the good moments as real on their own. Everything is filtered through the ending. Memories feel tethered to the hurt. The loss. The sings said, or not said.

But healing does this weird, necessary thing. It lets you hold multiple truths at once. That something can have been good and still be over. That you can remember it without dragging the ending into every memory.

I’ve experienced that comfortable pocket before. The feeling where you’re not just co-existing but interacting with one another in a way that becomes less like two people and more like a neutron and proton orbiting each other as a single atom. Each with their own distinct characteristics but combined as singular force of nature.

Sure, I’ll admit I don’t completely understand how atoms work.

Hearing this song now doesn’t make me want to relive a first kiss from the past.

It makes me want the next one.

The electricity of looking into their eyes as you both glance down at each others lips, hoping to God that you don’t do something awkward. .

And then the shift.

The moment your nervous system realizes; it happened.

And whether it lasts forever or barely survives the week, that moment gets carved into you anyway.

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You’re reading one of my Mink Car essays. An album full of pop, depression, car accidents, and high fidelity.

• See all Mink Car posts - Start Here

• Dive deeper into TMBG lore at TMBW.net (fan-run and fantastic)

I’ve started, erased, and started over with this post more times than I’d like to admit.

Which feels appropriate, considering the song.

The truth is, I have exactly one meaningful memory tied to Mr. Xcitement. And it has nothing to do with lyrical analysis, sonic innovation, or whatever else I usually try to convince myself I’m here to do.

It’s this:

This was the first They Might Be Giants song one of my kids ever requested.

He was two years old, strapped into the back seat, chanting over and over again for “Mr. Citement!” like it was the only song that had ever existed or ever would. No context. No explanation. Just pure, unfiltered demand.

I had no idea then that I’d be standing next to him 24 years later, watching this same band play live. Or that his youngest sibling would also come with me to a show, despite not even existing yet at the time of those car rides.

That’s the whole thread. That’s all I’ve got.

And honestly, it feels like enough.

Mr. Xcitement is an experiment in sound manipulation, collaboration, and good vibes. Featuring Mike Doughty and The Elegant Too, the track feels like a weird kind of homecoming. Mink Car is deep into the full-band era, but this song pulls in that chaotic, sample-heavy, anything-goes energy that made the Johns feel so distinct in the first place.

It’s built out of manipulated horns, programmed beats, and a rap that still sounds like it’s actively dodging interpretation. You can try to pin it down, but it slips right through your hands every time.

Usually, I go digging for something deeper. Some emotional throughline. A meaning that ties the song to a very specific part of my life.

This time, I don’t have one.

There’s no hidden revelation here. No long-lost memory unlocked by a lyric. No philosophical unraveling of what it all means.

It’s just a perfect song to turn on in the car with the windows down, sunglasses on, volume cranked up to eleven.

And sometimes, that’s the entire point.

You’re reading one of my Mink Car essays. An album full of pop, depression, and high fidelity.

• See all Mink Car posts - Start Here

• Dive deeper into TMBG lore at TMBW.net (fan-run and fantastic)

The EP tracks. The rarities. The songs that didn’t make the main record but somehow made permanent homes in my life.

This is Kiss Me, Son of Extras.

First off, yes, I skipped a post this weekend. Life got BUSY! Also, this is FREE so I feel little to no guilt over this act of wanton disregard for self-imposed deadlines.

Fortunately for you, today is an anniversary date in TMBG history that brings with it a plethora of fun rarities that I want to share today. On March 25, 1997, the boys released a compilation album called Then: The Earlier Years. This included the full first two albums (Self-Titled Pink Album and Lincoln) plus all B-sides and 19 tracks that had never been heard before.

What a treasure trove for teenage me!

The album art and booklet were illustrated by Tony Millionaire (pictured above), and to commemorate my first 100 subscribers to Kiss Me, Son of Blog, I got that art tattooed on my leg a couple of years ago.

SO…

Here are my current favorite rarities from Then: The Earlier Years, in a carefully curated order. Enjoy.

Kitten Intro

No, They Might Be Giants are not Satanists.

Now That I Have Everything

(Bah-boo, BAH-boo)

Weep Day

Weep weep weep weep weep weep weep weep weep weep weep weep weep weep weep weep weep

Check the footnote for an Open Mike Eagle track that features this song! A TRUE fan to his core.1

Fake Out In Buenos Aires

What is fake?

I sing “in Beunos Aiiirrreeesss,” whenever I hear the words “Beunos” or “Aires.”

Become A Robot

(clang clang) Clang clang whoops too late

You’re reading a post from Kiss Me, Son of Extras. A series of posts for the TMBG songs that don’t live on a big studio album. These posts are for the EP tracks, the rarities. The ones tucked away in between bigger releases but are also woven into my actual life.

• See all Kiss Me, Son of Extra posts - Start Here

• Dive deeper into TMBG lore at TMBW.net (fan-run and fantastic)

The EP tracks. The rarities. The songs that didn’t make the main record but somehow made permanent homes in my life.

This is Kiss Me, Son of Extras.

Before John Henry was released as the debut full live studio band incarnation of They Might Be Giants, there was an EP called Back To Skull. There are two absolute gems on this EP and today, I want to share ONDINE.

If you love yourself a good ‘ol John Flansburgh, sad sack heartbreak song, then you’ll love this. A song about a man so devastated by the emotional death he’s suffered at the hands of his mythical-level girlfriend, that he says she may as well back over his body with a pickup truck and finish the job.

Go read up on the Undine’s of folklore and add some legendary layers to this one. But for now, if you haven’t before - this is ONDINE.

You’re reading a post from Kiss Me, Son of Extras. A series of posts for the TMBG songs that don’t live on a big studio album. These posts are for the EP tracks, the rarities. The ones tucked away in between bigger releases but are also woven into my actual life.

• See all Kiss Me, Son of Extra posts - Start Here

• Dive deeper into TMBG lore at TMBW.net (fan-run and fantastic)

The Nightclub Realization

Last year, I went with a group of friends to a local venue called Airport Tavern.

“It’s been completely remodeled,” they told me.

I hadn’t been since performing stand-up in their small stage area years ago when the performance area was the size of a living room and the PA sounded like a Speak ‘N Spell.

Now it was enormous. Huge stage. Massive sound system. Lights everywhere. The old bar still tucked off to the side, but the rest of the place looked completely different.

It was also my first time in a dance club.

A friend leaned in to tell me something over the music. I caught maybe two syllables and a vague gesture toward the stage. I tried to repeat what I could make out from lip reading.

“WHAT???” she shouted back.

All around me people were dancing and yelling half-sentences at each other that nobody could actually hear.

And suddenly I’m smiling. Everything clicked like that last puzzle piece being pressed into place. The entire room suddenly made sense as a song lyric popped into my head.

They revamped the airport completely

Now it looks just like a nightclub

Everyone's excited and confused

I wasn’t just at a club.

I was inside one of my favorite They Might Be Giants songs.

Man, It’s So Loud In Here is track 3 from the Mink Car album and in my opinion, one of They Might Be Giants’ greatest songs. It’s an electronic tour de force recorded mostly with sounds from the Proteus 2000 sound module. A rack synth that specialized in the glossy electronic textures of the early 2000s.

When Every Place Becomes a Nightclub

Something I love about this song is that the nightclub isn’t really the point. The corner store turns into a nightclub. The airport turns into a nightclub. Every public space slowly becomes the same bright, loud environment designed to keep us moving and consuming. Excited and confused.

It’s also a song that sounds exactly like the environment that it’s criticizing. Listening to this song is being “trapped” in the nightclub while the narrator complains about the nightclub. A classic TMBG trick where the meaning of the song is happening in the music itself. Honestly, it’s infuriatingly clever and makes writing about their songs harder than it should be.

This song gives me frisson on most listens. Something about it builds into this power-driven rock-dance hybrid where every beat, synth stab, and gated guitar chord scratches a different part of my brain. If you love New Order’s Blue Monday, The Pet Shop Boys, or any of the disco synth-pop of the 80’s, you can’t not love this one. Get good headphones, find someplace quiet and put them on. Listen to Man, It’s So Loud In Here.

The Goth Night Solution

Dance clubs always felt like something that passed me by. My twenties were full of working retail, making dinners, and singing my small children bedtime songs.1 I’ve never considered myself much of a dancer either, but a Goth night at a club is full of fellow weirdos, outcasts, former theater kids. All of the kinds of people that I have ever or would ever be friends with.

How you move or dance doesn’t matter in that space. Maybe it doesn’t matter in any of the spaces but there, it feels safe to be expressive and show up however you are. Rather than feeling like I’m too old at 46 to be grooving as a DJ dressed as an Empress Vampire plays mixes of Bauhaus and Joy Division, I feel happy and connected to the music.

At no point have I felt out of place or unwelcome. Thanks largely to my supportive and amazing friends.

ANYWAY, we’re not here to wax poetic about how much I love my friends, we’re here to praise this song that I’ve loved so long and one day last summer, finally fully understood it.

Even though my smart watch will alert me to the unsafe decibel levels, or the fact that we have to carry our coats or purses around if we can’t claim one of 5 tables in the club, it is one of my favorite things to do. Dress up in my most goth attire, meet my friends on the dance floor and, for a few hours, stop overthinking.

Instead of anxiety, relationship troubles, stress from work, or broken hearts…

everyone in the room is thinking the same thing.

Man, it’s SO loud in here.

You’re reading one of my Mink Car essays. An album full of pop, depression, and high fidelity.

• See all Mink Car posts - Start Here

• Dive deeper into TMBG lore at TMBW.net (fan-run and fantastic)

The EP tracks. The rarities. The songs that didn’t make the main record but somehow made permanent homes in my life.

This is Kiss Me, Son of Extras.

Hey, why DOES the sun shine though? In 1993, They Might Be Giants released an EP with this 1959 cover to help answer that very question. I think I was a sophomore in high school when I first acquired this song and it made me smile every time I listened to it. It was just the kind of song that a kid like me would be drawn to.

Just last night I fell asleep to a full episode of MTV’s 120 Minutes where the band played this song live. The fact that these guys brought an accordion and glockenspiel on stage at MTV’s biggest alternative music centered show and played this live, is so alternative to alternative. I love it still. Here’s that performance.

This also led to two other extreme favorites of mine. I LOVED (and still do) playing this live rocking out version from Severe Tire Damage on the guitar in high school.

Since the original was first written in the 1950s, science had come to understand the sun differently.

It wasn’t a giant mass of incandescent gas at all; there is a FOURTH state of matter. Queue the new song for 2009, Why Does the Sun Really Shine? (The Sun Is a Miasma of Incandescent Plasma). Here’s this gorgeous beast of a song performed live on At Large.

Sometimes, a thesis has to be rendered invalid. But doesn’t mean it can’t still rock.

You’re reading a post from Kiss Me, Son of Extras. A series of posts for the TMBG songs that don’t live on a big studio album. These posts are for the EP tracks, the rarities. The ones tucked away in between bigger releases but are also woven into my actual life.

• See all Kiss Me, Son of Extra posts - Start Here

• Dive deeper into TMBG lore at TMBW.net (fan-run and fantastic)

Cyclops Rock is the second track on They Might Be Giants’ 2001 album Mink Car. This would normally be a great opportunity for a tangent about the upcoming Christopher Nolan film The Odyssey, because of the obvious cyclops tie-in. Mentioning it would probably net me a few search-engine-optimization points from the internet gods. Unfortunately, the only connection I can find between this song and Homer’s masterpiece is the word “cyclops.”

This is a crank-the-volume song. It’s poppy. It’s punky. Those are not words anyone has ever used in a serious music review, but I’m free-associating here. From the first moment I heard it, Cyclops Rock was a banger. The lyrics tell the story of someone in the middle of a breakup, but references to Chucky from the Child’s Play movies keep it from feeling too heavy. Instead of pure heartbreak, the song lands somewhere closer to light-hearted spite-punk. The tubular bells probably help with that too.

Let’s talk music. Cyclops Rock wastes no time getting to the point. It starts with the loud ringing of three bells before Danny Weinkauf’s bass riff comes in and stomps through the entire song. John Flansburgh’s crunchy electric shoves its chords into your ears as the chorus - and the thesis of the entire song - arrives almost immediately.

Dan Miller’s lead guitar melts across the first verse, and the whole piece is simple, loud, and full of feeling. Later, a guitar solo collides with John Linnell’s bass saxophone, and the bridge features guest vocals from Cerys Matthews. The arrangement is endlessly listenable while tapping into an emotion scores of people know well.

Time to get vulnerable

Here’s the thing though. I first heard this song as a very young parent of a two-year-old, married for roughly the same amount of time. Logically, I understood what the song was saying. But I didn’t truly relate to it until about six months ago.

Long-time readers may remember that while I was writing about songs from John Henry last summer, I suddenly found myself in the throes of an unexpected divorce. New readers will quickly discover that many of these songs are now tangled up with that experience. I can’t help it. It’s where I am in life.

Like Odysseus, I too completed an epic journey; sailing back home after navigating the emotional wreckage of a breakup. Each rung on the grief ladder becoming its own small monster to wrestle with along the way.1

Let me share how this song lands today, starting with the chorus, which I hear posed as a rhetorical question.

I taught you how to cyclops rock, and then you go and turn around and break my heart? And waste my cyclops time? Mess up my cyclops mind?

This is the voice of resentment. When I hear it now, I think about those early weeks after the breakup when it felt like I had poured so much of myself into someone and the life we built together. Thinking we both wanted the same future. Bringing her into the lives of my kids. And then suddenly she was walking away. Was it all for nothing?

Those early breakup days are raw. Spite, resentment, anger. The chorus reminds me of how it felt seeing her looking happy afterward. Sharing good moments with our friends while I felt gutted. I had given part of my world to someone, and they carried it with them on the way out the door.

Gotta find a new place to hang out, ‘cause I'm tired of living in Hell.

Walking into the neighborhood grocery store alone, headphones on and music playing, had always been a mundane routine. But the first time I did it after the divorce, memories flooded in. The two of us doing bits and fake arguing over ingredients.

Every place I liked to shop, eat, or get drinks was anchored in that “two-ness” we had. For a short time I avoided those places just to give myself space to heal.

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It was sweet, like lead paint is sweet. But the after-effect left me paralyzed. I just stare, with my one glass eye. Hoping you won't be back again.

“I dare you to go no-contact,” one of my friends said two days after the split. He said it with such confidence that it felt like a challenge he knew I would never accept. But then I did.

Not right away. But quietly, a couple months later, I did. Seeing notifications from the group chat hurt. Instagram stories hurt. Everything hurt. The best way to heal was to stop reopening the wound. Blocking meant I’d have to send a new follow request later, which created a small fail-safe against impulsively undoing it.

My defeated heart keeps beating on

Back then I was feeling everything at once while trying not to show it. In those early days it felt like I had been wrecked. I cried harder than I had in decades. It genuinely felt like part of me was dying. But underneath it all my heart kept beating, and even though I couldn’t see it yet, I was slowly healing.

Until my body tried to actually die. Just after Christmas I suffered a brain bleed and spent ten days in the hospital. By February I was feeling like myself again. Not brain-bleed me. Not divorced me. Just me. It’s a good place.

Today, I am fully healed from both. So, yeah.

When this album came out, I understood what the song meant in my mind. My heart didn't know it.

It sure does now.

You’re reading one of my Mink Car essays. An album full of pop, depression, and high fidelity.

• Dive deeper into TMBG lore at TMBW.net (fan-run and fantastic)

The EP tracks. The rarities. The songs that didn’t make the main record but somehow made permanent homes in my life.

This is Kiss Me, Son of Extras.

Remember Limewire? The early torrenting platform from the year two-thousand? Although this EP was available as early as 1992, I don’t think I found it until I searched Limewire for anything They Might Be Giants related. I enjoy hearing a remix of a song I love and this one is especially included.

This Outer Planet Mix of The Guitar feels like a true Apollo mission into the cosmos. It features samples of President Richard Nixon's phone call to Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin during their moon landing. If I was in a club, and this song came on… oh, man.

It contains enough of the original elements to be recognized as The Guitar but also entirely different. It’s like trying your favorite coffee brewery’s americano but this time, iced with club soda, a splash of orange juice. It’s still got that small town roasting flavor but absolutely remixed (also VERY good. I highly recommend you try that drink.)

You’re reading a post from Kiss Me, Son of Extras. A series of posts for the TMBG songs that don’t live on a big studio album. These posts are for the EP tracks, the rarities. The ones tucked away in between bigger releases but are also woven into my actual life.

• See all Kiss Me, Son of Extra posts - Start Here

• Dive deeper into TMBG lore at TMBW.net (fan-run and fantastic)

Today, I’m so excited to be kicking off the next series of posts from They Might Be Giants’ 2001 album - Mink Car.

Within the time that spanned between Factory Showroom and the release of Mink Car, I’d gotten married, had a two-year-old, and moved from Tacoma to Olympia, WA. I was 19 when I became a dad and could barely afford to live let alone by myself music.

The actual memory of the moment I got this CD has decayed into the nether from the entropy of the universe. I do remember the feeling I had however. I knew better than to spend money on something for myself without running it by someone else first. Without hesitation, I bought that CD at first sight.

It didn’t go over well when I got home. I remember that part.

Bangs opens Mink Car like a grin that’s just a little too wide. Bright, pop-y, and almost smirk-like. Beneath that grin lies an album rife with resentment, feeling unworthy, disparity, the relentless passing of time, and abusive distortions in relationships. Sonically though, Bangs is the perfect opening sonata for this album.

Imagine someone who seems to only be interested in particular part of your body. For over half of my readers, you didn’t even have to imagine it. You probably recalled 90% of the people you’ve ever encountered. And it’s always one of a few body parts that the media commonly sexualizes. Not this guy.

This isn’t a high-T alpha stereotype. This is a man who uses the word “proscenium” in a love song. He’s not objectifying her body. He’s objectifying her haircut. I see him as a sesquipedalian1 who is also an aficionado of hair that has been cut to hang over foreheads. NOT the person. The BANGS.

Here’s a favorite lyric of mine:

And although I liked you anyway, Check out your haircut

A proscenium to stage a face that needs no makeup

A song produced by the talent behind Birdhouse In Your Soul, performed live in studio, written with beautifully simple melodies. It’s a brilliant piece of power pop all for the sake of singing about someone who loves bangs. I love it. This is a no-skip must for me. I will listen to it in full, anytime it comes on.

You know who should not hear this song? Anyone who is emotionally contemplating giving themselves bangs after a major life change (or that time each month for those who have uteruses.)

If this is you - do NOT let this song influence you. Call your bestie. Wait 24 hours.

This song cannot be held legally responsible for your bangs.

You’re reading one of my Mink Car essays. An album full of pop, depression, and high fidelity.

• See all Mink Car posts - Start Here

• Dive deeper into TMBG lore at TMBW.net (fan-run and fantastic)

The EP tracks. The rarities. The songs that didn’t make the main record but somehow made permanent homes in my life.

This is Kiss Me, Son of Extras.

Stormy Pinkness is one of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard. Not just “beautiful for a TMBG song,” but beautiful out of all songs.

All one minute and ten seconds of it.

It’s the third track on the Istanbul (Not Constantinople) EP, and the first time I really heard it was on a cassette in junior high.

There was a girl I talked to every Sunday night. After months of building connection (and courage), I shared how I felt in paper form. I asked her out.

It wasn’t reciprocated. She started dating a football player named Pat. Our weekly calls ended.

That night, I played this song alone in my bedroom.

And I cried.

Fast forward to today. Okay, now rewind to this past summer.

It’s the first night in bed alone after the divorce.

This time I didn’t even have to play this song. I could already hear it in my mind. I lay in bed, sang it quietly to myself, and cried again.

This is Stormy Pinkness.

This is Stormy Pinkness

You’re reading a post from Kiss Me, Son of Extras. A series of posts for the TMBG songs that don’t live on a big studio album. These posts are for the EP tracks, the rarities. The ones tucked away in between bigger releases but are also woven into my actual life.

• See all Kiss Me, Son of Extra posts - Start Here

• Dive deeper into TMBG lore at TMBW.net (fan-run and fantastic)

They were fans of goth music, ren fairs, and discussing philosophy with a few teenagers until the sun came up. They are also key in my development as an anti-capitalist.

Enter the infinite cannon

The Bells Are Ringing is the final track on Factory Showroom by They Might Be Giants and it’s an incredible finale. We start with handbells played by session musician, Amanda Homi. Could the gang have easily used a keyboard to create that sound? Sure but why not have the true rich and ringing tones of a talented handbellerist? Handbellist? Handbell player?

Come to think of it, she might be a percussionist.

After our first pass through the chorus, which comes before the verse, we are treated to hearing it again but this time as a round. I learned today that this is also referred to as an infinite canon. Much, much cooler sounding. A round is when multiple occurrences of the same melody are happening at the same time but beginning on different beats.

Handbells are often played with this same musical round technique in hymns or you might be thinking of a certain Christmas song, with this same musical round technique. Which I think are also hymns?

A mere sixteen seconds into The Bells Are Ringing and it becomes apparent that the vocals will be mimicking the classic format of the musical rounds of the bells. John Linnell is a true melodic mad man.

There’s another layer being performed that adds to the depth of the song’s message. To understand that, I need to talk a little bit more about my time spent in those Shari’s booths in high school.

The Shari’s Seminary

Some of my fondest memories from my high school era are staying at the laser tag/arcade after hours followed by driving over to Shari’s to talk about rivalries with groups like the Rosicrucians and Jesuits, the teachings of the Ordo Templi Orients, the long reach of the Freemasons and of course, the Illuminati.

These large table discussions are what first inspired me to read the Communist Manifesto. I remember seeking it out at my public library as if I was seeking forbidden knowledge.

When I heard The Bells Are Ringing for the first time this lyric stood out immediately:

The bells explain what they’ve been lacking all along

They were disorganized and that was what was wrong

That’s it! I thought. This song is all about Communism. How cool? My favorite band have the same set of life principals as me! I kind of didn’t think about it much more after that. I just really loved this beautifully written song.

I was in the hospital while listening to this and had to text one of my kids immediately with whom I had just finished season one of Pluribus.

Spoiler alert for Vince Gilligan’s Pluribus.

In Pluribus, scientists discover a signal coming from FAR AWAY in space. Using that signal, they engineer a viral RNA sequence which eventually spreads across the planet and turns anyone infected into one hive mind. A shared conscious that seems to be connected via that same space signal. A literal sound.

The bells are ringing, The song they’re singing

The sound is bringing the people ‘round

They hear the instructions, They follow directions

With almost every human being acting as one, a single shared goal, a lot of problems were getting resolved; and quickly. There was no “what about me?” or “How do I get what I want?” Because there was no I. Just the understanding that humans were in this together along with the entire planet.

Why is that? What was wrong before the hive mind? It’s because as a whole, the species was physically, ideologically disorganized.

Ok, look. I’m getting too deep in the weeds on this Pluribus thing but stay with me.

A woman named Carol is not affected and not part of the hive mind. So, of course from her perspective, everyone has lost their individuality and agency, and that is affecting her own, and is therefore bad. In that sense, Carol is the defector. The one who is not affected.

A girl with cotton in her ears

Is shielded from the bells' effect

In the show, the hive mind is openly trying to solve how to get Carol to be part of the hive. How to get her mind to react appropriately to the signal.

As if by hidden signal, The people turn to face her

One thousand eyes are staring, They pull away her earplugs

The band describes The Bells Are Ringing as this:

It isn’t about Communism.

Joining the Round

Remember when I was writing about musical rounds? Before I went on about Pluribus for nine hours?

A musical round only works when everyone agrees to enter at the right moment and to be part of the whole and not seeking solo praise or affirmation. The beauty of it is undeniable. So is the surrender it requires. The Bells Are Ringing lets us feel that surrender in real time. It shows us how intoxicating it is when chaos resolves into pattern, when disorganization suddenly has a conductor. That doesn’t make the conductor right. It just makes the music (or message) powerful.

Those nights at Shari’s felt like that. We believed we were tuning ourselves to some larger frequency, uncovering hidden order beneath the mess of the world. Maybe every generation does that. I’m pretty sure every movement does. The trick isn’t pretending the bells aren’t seductive. The trick is remembering that someone is always ringing them and deciding, consciously, whether you’re joining the round or keeping the cotton in your ears.

You’re reading one of my Factory Showroom essays. An album full of oddball beauty, quiet heartbreak, and some of the band’s most elegant songwriting.

• See all Factory Showroom posts - Start Here

• Dive deeper into TMBG lore at TMBW.net (fan-run and fantastic)

Wizardry in Wax

Generally speaking, my understanding of how sound works with our ears is decent. Waves traveling at varying lengths, follicles in our ears that feel those waves and send signals to our brains to interpret the information... the rest of it.

When it comes to trapping that information onto a device so that it can be saved and played back at a later time? That’s just wizardry.

The wizard responsible for our earliest commercial recording medium was Thomas Edison with his phonograph and tin-foil cylinders. Eventually, Edison’s team combined brainpower with the folks at the Volta Laboratory — including Alexander Graham Bell — to develop the wax cylinder recorder.

Some of those original machines still live at the Thomas Edison National Historical Park in West Orange, New Jersey.

And that is where They Might Be Giants recorded I Can Hear You, the second-to-last track on Factory Showroom.

This Car Is Protected by Viper

In 1996, these lyrics felt like sharp little snapshots of modern life. Today, they feel like artifacts:

This is a warning

Step away from the car

This car is protected by Viper

For those of us around at the time, it was common to walk through a mall parking lot and accidentally trigger sensitive car alarms. This particularly infamous system used a stern voice to warn potential threats that the car was “protected by VIPER!”

It was less of a theft prevention system and more of a public shaming device, doling out embarrassment to anyone unfortunate enough to set it off and draw the eyes of every living person within a 90-foot radius.

Guess where I am

I’m calling from the plane

I’ll call you when I get there

My dad once showed me a cordless phone that his job gave him. It could work almost anywhere outside of the house. A phone you could use on an airplane, in the car, or out in the field while working, I guess. I didn’t know the phrase “cell phone” yet. Most of my junior grade classmates were buying pagers at mall kiosks. Probably right after setting off Viper alarms in the parking lot. It would be two more years before my first Nokia phone.

What’s your order?

I can super-size that

Please bring your car around

Drive-thru fast food ordering was cliched as impossible to understand or order effectively, and that technology, from recent experience is mostly the same. Honestly, if you drive through for some burgers today, unless you are blessed with a touch-screen computer to place your order, you will find that understanding employees through the tiny menu speakers has made zero advances in three decades.

If I want food without cooking or sitting in a restaurant, I can use my supercomputer phone to order that food for someone else to sit in a drive-thru line and bring it to me. Why would I go there myself? Have you ever tried to order food from the Wendy’s drive-thru in Tacoma? You can’t hear shit from that speaker.

The Sound of the Future

In 1996, listening to I Can Hear You was an experience that let me hear what it was like when we first started recording sound. The band used 1890s technology to comment on 1990s technology. And the punchline was that the “cutting-edge” devices of 1996 often sounded just as distorted, tinny, and half-audible as the wax cylinder itself.

The yelling car alarms. The novelty of calling from a plane. The novelty of ordering through a speaker. What makes the song even more interesting to me now is that those targets have also become antiques.

The ancient recording method now feels like it’s calling out the modernity of 1996 as just another temporary phase of noise.

As a person who frequently ruminates on my own mortality and the infinite passing of time, maybe that’s what I’m really hearing now. Not just the antique recording or the outdated references, but the sound of a moment in my own life becoming historical.

Just Barely

That wax cylinder once preserved fragile voices from the 1890s. This song preserved a fragile moment from the 1990s.

When I press play now, I’m listening to both eras at once.

I can just barely hear a version of the world, and a version of myself, that don’t quite exist anymore.

You’re reading one of my Factory Showroom essays. An album full of oddball beauty, quiet heartbreak, and some of the band’s most elegant songwriting.

• See all Factory Showroom posts - Start Here

• Dive deeper into TMBG lore at TMBW.net (fan-run and fantastic)

Writing while listening to this on repeat. Cup of coffee in hand.

I can’t explain it, but even as a non-smoker, I wish I had a cigarette.

Some Songs Wait

There are songs you think you understand because they hurt at the right time.
And then there are songs you don’t understand until years later, when the hurt finally lines up with the words.

Pet Name is one of those songs.

It sits near the end of Factory Showroom, the antepenultimate track on an album where They Might Be Giants sound noticeably more settled into being a live band. By this point, the record has slowed down, grown warmer, and allowed grooves to breathe.

I love how the bass groove leads this song with so much emotion. Paired with the congas, it gives Pet Name a loose, sultry feel, carrying forward the same vibe and tones introduced at the top of the album with S-E-X-X-Y.

It is the early hours of 6:50am, okay this isn’t that early. Most people are up in the world around now but it’s early for me to be up and writing. I’m trying out this new daily routine I’ve cooked up and so far, going pretty meh.

My headphones are on as I type and I’m listening to Pet Name on repeat. I don’t typically try to write while actively listening to the song that I’m writing about but I really enjoy this song. The rich tapestry of sounds it brings along with the deep mix of emotions it conjures.

Feeling It Before I Understood It

My first high school breakup happened the year of this album’s release in 1996. Pet Name would come on during my grief ridden listens and I connected to the emotion behind it even though I didn’t fully understand or relate to what was being sung. I knew it was about a relationship that either was unravelling, had recently unraveled, or was always in a state of unravel. While we were together, my girlfriend and I were very wonderful to each other.

As far as teenage dating goes, we considered each other’s feelings, shared affectionate little pet names and it was all seemingly reciprocal and good. Until she just wanted to have all of that with someone who wasn’t me and broke it off. Typical high school dating.

I would hear this song during the 16 and a half years of my first marriage - right out of high school. And even through all of it - and my exit - this song didn’t seem any more relatable than my high school breakup. My first divorce was about escaping a dynamic that was severely bad for my mental health, self-worth, and overall self-preservation. I didn’t hear the song and feel the kinship with the singer or music at all.

The Inventory

Early spring of 2025, I was walking around the park while my second wife was away with friends in Mexico. We had been having a lot of long conversations about our relationship and her current feelings surrounding her place in the world and things she regrets not doing.

I was taking a mental inventory of the previous six years of our marriage when Pet Name came on. So much more was clicking. As often as I felt loved and cherished, I also found myself feeling avoided, discarded, betrayed. This non-reciprocal dynamic left a disingenuous taste in my mouth.

After she split, and the dust had settled, I listened to this song in preparation writing and there it was. I knew when it came on that this time would be different.

There were tears. Some were from grief and some from a sense of relief granted me by the clarity. This song was talking about the things I was unable to see or afraid to name out loud for years.

Acceptance, Arriving Late

and it’s a lucky thing

because that sentimental stuff

doesn’t suit you

at all.

This lyric used to sound angry to me. Now, it just doesn’t land that way. It resonates for me like acceptance arriving late.

It’s the moment where the narrator stops expecting something the other person was never built to give. Not because they were cruel or withholding, but because sentimentality simply wasn’t where their energy went. Some people are wired to linger over meaning, memory, and gesture. Others are consumed by the ongoing work of managing themselves.

Listening to this now, I don’t hear bitterness in that lyric the way did before. I hear the relief that comes with naming a mismatch. The kind you only recognize after you’ve spent years hoping someone might one day grow into a language they never really spoke.

Almost

Some relationships don’t end because the love disappears. They end because it never quite lands where it’s meant to. Pet Name keeps circling the idea that love wasn’t absent, it was translated poorly. And that kind of understanding doesn’t arrive during the relationship, it arrives afterward, when there’s finally enough distance to tell the truth.

I’m still listening to Pet Name. Still drinking the coffee. Still sitting with the clarity. The song didn’t save anything, but it named something. And sometimes that’s enough. I’ll leave myself with this lyric:

And we almost figured out

how we'd get along

And given time we'd

find it strange to

be alone. . .

You’re reading one of my Factory Showroom essays. An album full of oddball beauty, quiet heartbreak, and some of the band’s most elegant songwriting.

• See all Factory Showroom posts - Start Here

• Dive deeper into TMBG lore at TMBW.net (fan-run and fantastic)

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James K. Polk was born on November 2, 17951, in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, and rose to national prominence during a period of intense political division and territorial ambition in the United States. He would go on to become the eleventh president of the United States, a figure whose legacy remains controversial.

History would eventually look back on him as a real bastard of a man. More than a century after his presidency, Polk would be immortalized in song as the subject of a very factual track by They Might Be Giants. The song appears as the tenth track on Factory Showroom, though an earlier, fan-favorite version was released years prior on an out-of-print EP (and is the personal preferred version of this biography’s author).2

The Election of 1844

In 1844, the Democratic Party was split over the issue of territorial expansion. The leading contenders for the party’s presidential nomination included Martin Van Buren, a former president and abolitionist3; James Buchanan, a seasoned diplomat perceived as a political moderate; and Lewis Cass, a military officer and outspoken advocate of westward expansion.

From Nashville emerged a relatively unknown candidate: James K. Polk. Though not considered a front-runner, Polk’s strong alignment with the doctrine of Manifest Destiny and his appeal to Southern and expansionist interests secured him the Democratic nomination. His surprise ascent earned him the nickname “Napoleon of the Stump,” a reference to his reputation as a forceful and effective speaker.

Presidency and Expansion

Polk assumed office in 1845 with a clear and aggressive agenda. Known for his austere demeanor and limited personal warmth, he governed with singular focus. His administration committed itself to territorial expansion, lower tariffs, and financial reform.

During his four-year term, Polk oversaw the annexation of Texas and pursued conflict with Mexico, resulting in the Mexican-American War. The war concluded with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, through which the United States acquired vast territories in the Southwest.

Polk also resolved longstanding disputes with Great Britain forcing them to sell the Oregon Territory, securing U.S. claims to lands south of the 49th parallel4. In domestic policy, he reduced tariffs and built an independent treasury system5, separating federal funds from private banks.

Final Years and Legacy

Having fulfilled the major objectives he set for himself upon entering office, Polk declined to seek a second term. He left the presidency in 1849 and died shortly thereafter, on June 15 of that same year.

Though his accomplishments permanently reshaped the geographic boundaries of the United States, Polk remains a controversial figure. His expansionist policies accelerated national growth while deepening divisions over slavery and the use of military force.

James K. Polk was the eleventh president of the United States. Often overlooked. Rarely celebrated. Undeniably consequential.

You’re reading one of my Factory Showroom essays. An album full of oddball beauty, quiet heartbreak, and some of the band’s most elegant songwriting.

• See all Factory Showroom posts - Start Here

• Dive deeper into TMBG lore at TMBW.net (fan-run and fantastic)

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A few weeks ago, I was lying in a hospital bed, miraculously recovering from a ruptured aneurysm. Tears were welling up in my eyes.

Not because of head pain, or fear of dying, but because I was listening to Spiraling Shape.

It’s the ninth track on Factory Showroom by They Might Be Giants, and that was the first night this song had ever made me cry.

What the Shape Is Supposed to Be

This song can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. It’s specific enough to know it’s about something desirable, something people willingly exchange parts of themselves for, even after hearing the warnings, knowing the risks, or having been down the road before.

For years, I thought I understood what that something was.

My earliest listens equated it with religion. Christianity, specifically. Later, cults. Fraudulent belief systems. Cultural fads that promise transcendence and deliver disappointment.

But lying in that hospital bed, something shifted. Much like my brain at the time, a deeper and more personal meaning began bleeding through to the surface.

In Spiraling Shape, They Might Be Giants warn the listener about an ominous yet seductive thing—the Spiraling Shape—that will entice and consume you, drive you insane, and eventually spit you back out. Leaving you jaded. Insistent that you never enjoyed it. Certain you’ll never fall for it again.

This Isn’t About Cults

That night, I realized I’d been hearing this song wrong.

This isn’t a song about cults or religion.

It’s a song about falling in love.

I need to be clear about something before I go any further

I’m not writing this from a place of clarity or hindsight. I’m not reporting on a spiral I’ve already escaped. I’m writing this while currently inside my spiral.

Mid-fall, mid-loop, still staring at the shape.

Falling in love isn’t unique to me, but every time I’ve done it, every time I’ve made myself vulnerable by sharing my feelings, it has eventually ended with my heart being crushed. Writing this means putting myself back in those moments. Feeling those feelings again. And this one is heavy.

Over the summer, my wife left me. What began as “living apart but staying married and committed” quickly collapsed into something colder and harder to name. I felt insane during that time, not metaphorically, but genuinely questioning my own perceptions. Wondering how I could have been so certain about something that seemed to evaporate so easily for the other person.

The grief hit harder than I expected. Stronger than anything I’d felt in a very long time. I kept asking myself the same question over and over: How did I get all of this so wrong?

At the beginning of that relationship, nearly a decade earlier, I had warned myself. I told myself that opening my heart was likely going to end in rejection and hurt. I had worked hard to be grounded and centered, to protect my sense of self, to find fulfillment independent of anyone else.

As the song puts it:

Down, down, down you go
No way to stop
As you fall, hear me call
No, no, no
Listen to this warning and consider these
Simple words of advice
Stop, stop, stop

Instead, I followed the feeling. The happiness. The possibility of being loved in return. I exchanged stability for the pursuit of love.

Never Again (A Lie I Needed)

In the weeks after she left, I found myself reporting to my therapist that the connection I thought we had was a fraud. A fake. That I never truly enjoyed it. That I always doubted it. That I would never allow myself to fall like that again.

Therapy helped me learn how to let more than one thing be true at the same time. What we had was beautiful and full of love, and there was also pain, confusion, and harm. Those things weren’t mutually exclusive.

Fine. I could accept that.

What I wouldn’t do was make the same mistake again.

Back in that ICU bed, Spiraling Shape pulled me back through all of it and then further. I realized I was right back where I’d started.

There was someone new. Someone I was talking to nearly every day. Someone I told myself very deliberately not to fall for. I had reasons. Practical ones. Emotional ones. I told myself this had to stay platonic.

Lying there, I knew the truth.

I was already cooked.

I already had the feelings. I was already falling in love. The spiraling shape was in clear view, and I wanted to see it so badly.

Weeks passed. Now I’m sitting at home, writing this, and in the middle of it I learned about someone else. Complicated feelings. Late-night visits. A kiss.

While I was trying to figure out how to express what I felt, she was sharing her feelings about someone else. I responded with sarcasm or support, minimizing myself in real time to maintain the connection.

That should have been my warning.

Consumed in the Shape

This essay was supposed to end differently. I wanted it to land on courage. On the idea that despite every warning and every past hurt, I would always choose to fall in love, because it’s who I am.

Right now, that ending feels dishonest.

I put out my hand and fell through the window. Clawing at nothing, I dropped through the void. My terrified screams are inaudible, drowned in the spiral ahead and consumed in the shape.

You’re reading one of my Factory Showroom essays. An album full of oddball beauty, quiet heartbreak, and some of the band’s most elegant songwriting.

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