Fingertips: Twenty-one Little Voices in My Head
From “Who’s that standing out the window?” to “I’m having a heart attack,” here’s my life, haunted by Fingertips.
The second-to-last song on Apollo 18 in some ways is also twenty-one more songs. Some call it a suite, a collection of half-digested hooks, an amalgamation of little ditties; we call it Fingertips and it is a musical miracle of micro melodies.
The song is comprised of 21 individual micro songs that each contrast with the song before or after it. It’s like listening to 1/3 of a chorus instead of an entire song.
I don’t know my health plan ID by heart, can never remember anyone’s phone number without looking it up in my contacts, and I once had my own age wrong for a whole year. But I remember every word of all 21 of these little numbers in order and think of them many more times per day than I figure is healthy.
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For the CD release of Apollo 18, each of the little songs comprising Fingertips was listed as an individual track. The liner notes indicated that this CD was meant to be listened to on shuffle so that you would randomly hear one of these little guys throughout your listening session.
Honestly, I Fingertips as one thing. John Flansburgh has stated several times that since they’ve been playing this song in their live shows, they always play it as one song, and at this point, he considers Fingertips to be ONE song. So maybe that makes me an Apollo 18 Reformist.
Let’s hear this collection of magic sounds and then jump into Fingertips, piece by piece.
Everything Is Catching On Fire
Get used to reading about how often and why each of these mini-choruses enters my mind and escapes from my mouth on a near-daily basis. Whenever I’m having a day where every possible step I take is the wrong one. Every frustrating or flat-out wrong outcome is presented to me. When I’m sure that even every timeline of every version of me across the multiverse is having the same terrible day, I sing this to myself.
I sing this to myself pretty often.
And every time I do, my mind continues to the next piece in line.
Fingertips
Bluegrassy goodness. This is one of a few select songs that I will begin belting out or keep quietly to myself when I hear any hint of twang.
I Hear The Wind Blow
Sometimes, I wish I could observe the beauty and wonder of nature, wind blowing through the lush evergreen trees of my Pacific Northwest-based home, and just enjoy it at face value. What would it be like to be present in that moment? However, I live in a timeline where I found They Might Be Giants. If I lived in a tornado state and was about to have my home and self wiped off the face of the earth by a category 5 storm, I’d be singing I Hear The Wind Blow as it happens.
Hey Now Everybody
My go to musical reference when I’m at a party or a zoom meeting where everyone is talking over each other. The voices get louder and louder to compensate. You desperately want some auditory order to be instilled - but how will you get everyone’s attention?
Who’s That Standing Out The Window?
This tune is one sentence long and is asks a question that I fearfully ask myself whenever I peer out of a window at night - unable to see anything in the darkness. The thought of a figure suddenly appearing gives me chills. This is why I don’t like sitting next to windows at night without the curtains closed. Unless I’m on a top floor of a building. It must come from a movie I saw as a kid but I think of that when I hear this. And I sing this to myself whenever I’m not sure what I’m seeing out of a window.
I Found A New Friend Underneath My Pillow
I recently began imagining this voice is coming from former president Joe Biden and now that has over written any previous associations. For whatever reason, my brain think this voice is remarkably similar to former president of the United States of America, Joe Biden.
Come On And Wreck My Car
I asked my oldest to make an intro for the podcast version of this newsletter (yes, I paid him) and he wrote me a couple options. The one I chose for my intro was inspired by this little number. It’s a a splash of surf-rock swagger
Aren't You The Guy Who Hit Me In The Eye?
I’ve always loves the idea of someone trying to recognize the person who hit them in the eye but they’re not entirely sure since their vision is much worse after being hit in the eye. So they have to ask the person, hey, “aren’t you the guy who hit me in the eye?” That’s very funny to me.
Please Pass The Milk
I’m a milk drinker. I like putting a mug in the freezer until it gets nice and frosted, then pouring myself a glass of milk into that frozen mug, and drinking it as little crystalized icey milk bits start to form on the sides and break off as I drink it. Perhaps, this is related to the governments milk campaigns in the late 80’s and 90’s, but I love it. I love drinking milk. The association of monstrous antagonists throughout film who all drink milk was a real bummer but so be it. I will stand along side the milk drinking greats of history.
Leave Me Alone
This runs through my mind daily. No exaggeration At some part of my day, I will inevitably want to be left alone. From people, from social media messages, texts, the cat, anything. I reach sensory overload and just need a minute. Ever since this song came into my life, it’s become my anthem of wanting to be left alone.
Who's Knocking On The Wall?
Never in any time of my life have I nor will I ever sing this to myself as often as I did when I live in the Broadmoor apartments in Tacoma, WA.
→Who’s Behind the Hammer? An Investigation into Our Neighbor
All Alone, All By Myself
Inevitably, after I have pushed everyone away from me so they will leave me alone. I realize that I’m alone. And I start contemplating the lonely cage I’ve built for myself. Also, I sing every time I have the whole house to myself. Or when I get to work before anyone else.
What's That Blue Thing Doing Here?
I like to replace the word “blue” in this one with whatever subject I see that doesn’t belong. Wife buys a new bed nightstand? Someone set something on my desk at work while I was gone? These are all great times to sing this one.
Something Grabbed Ahold Of My Hand
I’ve referenced this may times while watching horror movies with friends. Pretty self explanatory but once someone in the movie is grabbed by someone or someTHING, I start singing this.
I Don't Understand You
My best friend and I had started repeating this phrase and melody to each other either instead of or after first, “what?” after the other said something that we didn’t catch. It was also a fun thing to sing to any adult driving with us sitting in the back seat who tried to talk to us over the sound of being on the road. It wasn’t really very fun for the adults, I don’t think.
I Heard A Sound
I will never get the lyrics right when I sing this. Something about the cadence and quickness of the words—it just defeats me every time. I once heard a live performance of this song where John Flansburgh himself got this one wrong and I stopped feeling embarrassed about it. They know what they did.
Mysterious Whisper
This is my favorite part of this entire Fingertips song. They way John Linnell emphasizes the middle of the word “mysterious.
“Mys-TEEEER-ious whis-PER”
It delivers serotonin to me every single time.
The Day That Love Came To Play
I’ve tried to sing the harmony parts for the word “play” and I don’t think I can ever make it work.
I'm Having A Heart Attack
On June 30, 1993, I was shopping for fireworks with my best friend and his parents. I had a bit of a sore throat but powered through the rest of the day. By that night, I was feeling sick to my stomach (not uncommon as I had chronic stomach aches due to chronic anxiety). In the morning, on July 1, 1993, I was unable to reach my parents by phone to get picked up. I had my own key and asked to be driven home. I remember feeling really sick at this point. My throat was on fire and I could barely swallow my own saliva.
I don’t remember being told the news, but my granddad (on my mom’s side) had died earlier that morning of a heart attack. My next memory is of me being woken up by my grandma (who was expectedly unphased at the passing of her decades long ex-husband). She looked extremely worried about me though. That’s when I started to realize that I had a thermometer in my mouth and a cold wet “worsh rag” as my grandma would call it. I had a temperature that scared her.
It turns out, I had a severe case of strep throat. My grandma had to crush up the antibiotics and stir them into some pudding. Even still, it felt like swallowing knives. Through my feverish haze, I remember my grandma yelling out to my mom from my bedroom, that she can’t just ignore her children’s health because life has gotten too hard. Somebody needs to be keeping an eye on us. True, but also, that’s what you just did, Grandma. Her dad died and you checked on me to help. Gonna have to take my mom’s side on this one—a rare occasion.
A week or so later, after the funeral service, we drove from the cemetery out to my grandad’s property for the wake. My mom was was always on the verge of tears at this point in the grief process. It was a long drive so I popped in my Apollo 18 cassette. We made it part of the way through Fingertips before I realized this part of the tune was coming. I had been singing along the whole time. Eventually, this little number played through the car stereo.
“I’m having a heart attack.”
It’s sung four times over and each time I heard the verse, I could feel the tension building and also had to fight the urge to laugh. It was, and remains, absurdly funny to me that I would put on a song on the way to a wake for granddad who died from a heart attack at age 63, and sing along to “I’m having a heart attack.”
Every time I hear this part of the song, I think of that first week of July 1, 1993 and the moment in my mom’s car.
Fingertips (Whispered)
Apollo 18 was another of my go-to listens when trying to fall asleep at night. I had too much anxiety as a kid so falling asleep was a problem for me and thusly, would usually make it all the way through a cassette still awake. Hearing the whispered refrain of “fingertips,” let me know that the last song was soon on its way and wasn’t any more asleep than I was 40ish minutes ago. Sometimes the timing would be so perfect, that this would play just at those moments where you in a dream state but still hear the sounds of the waking world. That in between state. I would hear “fingertips” whispered to me like calm assurance that I drift all the into slumberland.
I Walk Along Darkened Corridors
When I listen to Apollo 18 from start to finish, in one sitting, I always feel as though this last section of Fingertips is the end of the performance of the album. It’s the last line of the play. The beautiful conclusion. The fade to black. I hear it and feel this sense of satisfaction and closure from this great masterpiece of an album. The only thing to left to hear is the album’s coda—the final statement. A reprise of the Apollo 18’s entire motif. A song you’ll read about in the next post, called “Space Suit.”
If you enjoyed the images used for each of the musical segments above, they were created by artist David Cowles for a tour poster and for one of the greatest They Might Be Giants shirts to exist. You can pick one up from the band directly at tmbgshop.com
You’ve made it to end, where I get to share with you, my favorite live performance of Fingertips. The Mysterious Whisper, and I Walk Along Darkened Corridors both give me goosebumps when I listen. I hope you like it as much as I do.
P.S. If you want a second opinion (and a great story about seeing TMBG post-pandemic from the 7th-most-nosebleed row imaginable), Steve Goldberg also wrote beautifully about Fingertips over on his fantastic newsletter, Earworms and Song Loops:
Thanks for the shoutout. I was wondering if you made the art accompanying the segments until you revealed the true artist (I mean actual- you are both true artists). I’ll have to order that shirt!
A couple of years ago, I wrote a piece all about songs in the form of a question, and I completely overlooked the fact that fingertips has four of them within the same song!
https://earworm.substack.com/p/they-might-be-giants-fingertips
It's from a while ago and not my best work, but there you have it.
Still need to read your piece (it's gonna happen today -- oy how come I can't manage or control time?).