Mammal: From Encyclopedia Pages to Lullabies
A TMBG song full science, nostalgia, and a four-chambered heart.
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The First Time I Heard ‘Mammal’
If not for ‘Mammal’ by They Might Be Giants, I may have never learned what a Monotreme1 is. Sure, this song hit my ears before I reached high school biology. And that’s probably why it’s also the first place I heard about Placentals2, Allotheria3, and Echidna4. Look, not everyone is an animal scientist.
The first time I heard Mammal prompted me to look up words in an old encyclopedia set my parents had. Yes, I am of an age where I had a computer in my house but alas, we did not have any America Online accounts. Instead, I had to suffer through looking up information manually in books that I knew were outdated. Not that there would have been any recent discoveries related to the Allotheria.
I have so much to say about this song that I love. It’s the fifth track on Apollo 18 and loaded with carefully crafted melodies and scales that ascend and descend in a way that only John Linnell could assemble. I never skip listening to Mammal. It is, without a doubt, a stone-cold banger.
It was such an immediately brilliant experience. I actively flipped through the liner notes while I listened to albums for the first time. Mostly to better understand the lyrics and to check the back for the next song coming up. I remember seeing the title Mammal and then the song started.
“Glass of milk. Standing in between extinction in the cold and explosive radiating growth. So the warm blood flows through the large four-chambered heart. Maintaining the very high metabolism rate they have.”
Linnell could have started this song off by listing facts about what makes mammals what they are. Instead, he conjures this poetic imagery to illustrate that we need milk to survive (initially), that our existence comes after a great icy extinction fueled by our adaptive radiation, warm blood, and high metabolism rate. Straight-up facts that sound like poetry. It’s an incredible song.
An Unlikely Bedtime Song
This is another in a lineup of TMBG tunes that had a permanent place in my rotation of bedtime songs that I sang to each of my kids. Night after night, tucking each one of them into bed and singing a handful of songs as they fell asleep.
There was a brief period of time where I was singing Mammal three times per night, every night, for about three years. Until my kids each wanted a customized Pandora station to fall asleep to rather than my quiet singing.
It’s weird to think back to a time in my life where sleep schedules, snacks, school, chores, and bedtime were my entire life. I didn’t start out good at this initially. It was a tough transition, but I became a very good stay-at-home dad.
For a brief time in my life, I even produced a podcast about being a stay-at-home dad. Making hot chocolate to sip while my kids took turns calling out which music videos on YouTube they wanted to watch next. A flood of memories comes in from what feels like a completely different lifetime to me now.
The Life That ‘Mammal’ Soundtracked
Separating this song from my first time listening and my parenting years that would follow later is impossible. Each listen is like a hug. A gentle reminder of this lifelong relationship to a song that once filled my desire to be understood and the role I played in my kids’ lives.
I think of sleepovers at my best friend’s house, hiding away in my bedroom to avoid hours-long talks from my mom while I stood in the doorway of her room. But I also think of taking my kids to the playground, making some creative pancakes in the mornings, and watching them grow up and become independent.
It’s all so intertwined and deeply personal. I have a hard time not tearing up when I listen to this fact-based song.
Last week, I started practicing bass guitar again and decided to learn this song since I was listening to it so much in prep to write this piece. Now, on top of the endless memories and life spent connected to this song, I can physically connect with it through playing the music myself.
It’s a wonderful feeling for a wonderful song about mammals.
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My kids were the right age for the Bed, Bed, Bed CD to be their lights-out sleepy time soundtrack for several months, but it never occurred to me to sing to them myself. That's a sweet story you tell, perhaps my favorite of yours.
Huh, I know (and like) this song, but had never registered the song title (a friend of mine made a TMBG tape for me, so I didn't always have the titles in front of me). It is a charming song.
Just because of the coincidence of name, I will also link to the Cindy Kallet song, "I'm A Mammal" --https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1FolXZ3DBM
(She says, of the song, "Thanksgiving with relatives; dinner ready and our three-month old was hungry too! But, alas, I was not welcome to nurse him at the table, so he had his meal of thanks in the bedroom and I had mine reheated later. The next day, talk with friends about how we humans seem to have distanced ourselves from the fact of our 'animalness'. That night in the car I started singing what became the first verse, and by the end of the four-hour drive home, John and I had completed the song.")