No One Knows My Plan: Brass, Smugness, and Secret Smiles

The horns are shouting, Linnell is smirking, and my recent sad days are all behind me (ok, a little in front of me still but mostly behind me. Let's move on.)

Sitting cross-legged on the carpet of my suburban childhood home, I had my eyes locked on our big square TV. My obsessive combing of the Sunday newspaper’s Entertainment section had paid off. Live from the House of Blues was airing, and for the first time, I was going to see They Might Be Giants perform on my own screen¹. The first song on that televised set was No One Knows My Plan.

Just past the halfway mark on TMBG’s John Henry comes track eleven, and it’s a no-skip, stone-cold banger. What hits me hardest in No One Knows My Plan are the horns. The trumpet especially takes this song over the top. The horns punctuate Linnell’s lyrics and make the track feel like it’s walking a conga line into vague absurdity.

It’s another entry in Linnell’s long resumé of magnificent melodies. It’s classic Linnell, almost smug in its cleverness. The way his voice rides the instruments gives the whole song that unmistakable TMBG quality: catchy, interesting, and new. It’s impossible for me to imagine anyone else pulling off a song in this way.

There’s a line that goes:

in the allegory of the
people in the cave
by the Greek guy

For me, that’s peak Linnell. A clever lyric, syncopated with the instruments and drums in a staccato style that somehow lands as both hilarious and profound. If you haven’t heard this one, please take a couple minutes and enjoy it.

No One Knows My Plan is not only a feel-good banger, it has the distinction of being my favorite track on John Henry. This week felt lighter knowing I’d have this song on repeat instead of spiraling through memories of deep losses from years ago. Or spiraling through deep losses from just a month ago. But instead, grinning at a trumpet line and a smug Linnell melody. It’s been an emotional palette cleanser that could not have come sooner.

So what is this song all about? My relationship to it is probably a little esoteric. Most of my interpretation relies on what I was bringing to the table when I first listened.

When I hear No One Knows My Plan, I think about how my thoughts are the one thing nobody else can see. They are mine alone. Sometimes I keep them to myself because it feels protective, like a secret smile behind iron bars. Other times, it’s because I don’t want to risk showing affection, or admit to being hurt, or let someone else know exactly how vulnerable I am.

The funny part is, while I can be guarded with my own feelings, I’m also constantly analyzing others. Turning over their intentions, predicting how their character might affect me down the line. It’s a paradox: keeping my own plans under lock and key while busy sketching out the “blueprint of the angle” in everyone else.

Maybe that’s why this song feels so comforting. The horns shout, the lyrics wink, and Linnell sounds like he knows exactly what it’s like to keep something alive and private in your head. It’s a reminder that not everything has to be shared to be real. Sometimes the plan can stay yours.

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What about you? Do you have a song that feels like your own secret smile? Something you don’t explain, you just keep close? Tell me in the comments, I’d love to hear.

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1. That fateful performance from 1995. Listen for when Linnell says “here we go,” and just know that I hear being said in my mind every single time I listen to this song. It’s right after the brief interview!