Lie Still, Little Bottle

a song that taught me the word "gregarious."

What a beautiful They Might Be Giants song. John Flansburgh sings this subtle jazzy song with a sweet and gentle tone. It’s every bit as elegant a poem as it is a perfect song.

In the earliest days of listening to this song, I often wondered if I would ever experience being depressed and dissatisfied with my life WHILE ALSO drinking a bottle of alcohol and taking pills of some kind.

“Don’t worry, young Chase,” I say to myself through some sort of temporal window into the past, “you certainly will and I don’t want to spoil the experience with any additional details. Just drink lots of water before you go to bed. Yes, I know you feel like you can’t possibly get any more water in there but trust me (you.)”

I have a growing selection of TMBG songs that I listen to specifically when I am feeling down or depressed. The sadness doesn’t go away but I end up feeling oddly comforted by the addition of a sad soundtrack. A Main Character Moment, if you will. This song is one of those songs. While I wouldn’t necessarily consider it a sad-sounding song, it lends itself well to my lowly moods.

Embarrassing story time. I do not think a year has passed since I first heard this song as a teenager that I have not sung along to it in the bathroom mirror with my hairbrush “microphone.” This perfect jazz-club-esqueue quality makes me want to snap my fingers, sway from side to side, and sing “too gregarious too niiiiiice” as I throw back my head. Please share your own bathroom mirror song-time moments in the comments.

Just before the verse “Black coffee’s not enough for me,” there is a singular piano key struck with gusto. At that precise moment, wherever we happened to be when this song was playing, my best friend and I would flip our hand up at the other’s face with a middle finger. Exactly in time with the note. It was invigorating. Honestly, it’s still hilarious and I highly recommend you try it in the bathroom mirror to yourself.

In 2003, with the release of Gigantic: A Tale of Two Johns, I learned that Lie Still, Little Bottle has some deep TMBG lore. Taking to the stages of fringe performance art stages in the likes of Greenwich Village, John Flansburgh would perform this song with an enormous stick as the sole percussion instrument. A feat that I’ve never witnessed live but did get to enjoy the resurrection of on the Live at the Music Hall of Williamsburg album. Below this sentence is some footage I found on YouTube of that exact performance I just mentioned. Somehow, it is exactly how I pictured it.

Lie Still will not be the last TMBG song I share my love of bathroom sing-a-long time with. In fact, my theme for the next KMSOB Listening Party will be Sing-A-Long favorites. If you’re new here, once per month, I host a listening party via Spotify available to paid subscribers. We hop into the Substack app and chat about songs as they play. Everyone joining is invited to add a few of their own to the queue. Our next listening party is set for Saturday, March 16, at 10am. If you’re on the fence about a paid subscriber plan, hop in for March only and check it out. It supports a great cause (me) and is a pretty good time.

I really do not know how to wrap this up and wish I talked about the listening party as a footnote or something but here we are.

What is your GO-TO shower sing-a-long song? Share it in the comments below!