Hello Radio and My 55-Paragraph Crisis

In this unnecessarily exhaustive dive into a TMBG song, we explore greetings, Alexander Graham Bell, and my terrible creative decision making process.

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A throw away thing?

What can I say about a 55-second song with a mere three words, repeated three times? This song, “Hello Radio,” is track number 8 on Miscellaneous T—They Might Be Giants’ collection of B-sides. A song that John Flansburgh himself described as “really just a throwaway thing.”

I enjoy this song. It’s brief, sonically interesting, and over before anyone could dare to press a skip button. Plus, it lent its name to a future TMBG tribute album called Hello Radio: The Songs of They Might Be Giants. I don’t have a litany of distinct memories or emotions rolled up into this one, but that doesn’t mean my post needs to be a “throwaway thing.”

Instead, what if I were to write one paragraph for each of the 55 seconds of music that comprise this extremely short interstitial of a song? Fifty-five paragraphs—what even is that? Too much for an essay but too short for a novel. A thesis? Could I write a thesis about They Might Be Giants’ eighth track on Miscellaneous T? I realize, even as I type this, that I might be stepping into an awful idea that will drive readers away immediately. Let’s begin.

Hello?

Contrary to literary critics, a paragraph can sometimes be one single word. This makes the first sentence of paragraph 5/55: “Hello.” I spent a long time trying to come up with a third sentence for this paragraph (2 days) and it seems to be “not happening.”

The History of Hello

Saying, “hello” is synonymous with answering a phone call. Whether it’s by picking up a landline handset or tapping a digital image of a button on your smart device. We say “hello” like a statement of “hey, start talking, I answered,” or “hello?” like a question of “who is trying to contact me and why. What do you want?”

There was a time before telephones where “hello” was less common. I learned that people used to greet each other mostly based on the time of day they were both experiencing.

“Good afternoon,” “good evening,” and the rest. Why is it always good and not “incredible” or even “terrible?” Not a lot of “Terrible morning” greetings before brunch.

After the phone, there became a need for greeting a person on the other line who may be experiencing an evening when you were still in the afternoon. A multi-time zone greeting like “hello” started gaining traction.

“Hello” and its variants were used as a statement of surprise like “woah there!” When Alexander Graham Bell was first answering calls on his telephone, he used “ahoy!” This call was a greeting or farewell used in sailing and logically might have made more sense than declaring your surprise or exclamation about a phone call.

Ahoy There!

This song could have been called “Ahoy Radio” and I would have been writing about a lot nautical things like “dunnage” and “The Law of Admiralty,” and whether or not Flansburgh knows how to tie a cleat hitch. Thankfully, “hello” stuck.

In 1889, telephone operators were called “hello-girls” because their job was to answer different calls. I think we’ve reached place as a society where they would at least be called “hello-women” today. Obviously, it would be best to not relegate a job to any gender (and that gender is fluid) but I think I accurately estimated the amount of emotional growth we’ve seen since the 1800’s.

So, if hello-girls were people who answered and connected phone calls, what is a hello-radio?

Okay, it feels like I’m making great progress on my path to 55 paragraphs. This has got to be what like 48 49 paragraphs at least? I’m gonna count.

Fifteen!? That’s it?!

. . . ugh

This

Is

Maybe

One

Of

The

Worst

Ideas

That

I’ve

Had.

Look

We

Already

Established

That

A

Paragraph

Can

Be

Just

One

Word.

At this point, I’m essentially just adding line breaks words and calling it writing. Is this what Flansburgh felt like when he recorded ‘Hello Radio’? Free and unburdened by expectations? Ok *cracks knuckles* let’s dig into this some more.

In the entire 1,000ish years that the English language has been around, hello is only about 150 years old. We started using the word hello for about as long as The Bronx has been annexed by New York city.

That is a FACT that I had to look up for the sake of this article. I’m dedicated to fact finding and thorough research for this in order to present the most factual information possible. No cutting corners or diminishing the high integrity and authority of my newsletter here.

Did Somebody Call a Doctor?

That’s why, for a deeper understanding of Hello Radio, I turned to the work of Dr. Linnelleanor Flansburghenstein, a noted TMBGologist and president of the TMBG Linguistic Subunit at KMSOB University. In her exhaustive and definitely very real treatise (that I didn’t write), “On ‘Hello Radio’ and Its Relation to the Apex of They Might Be Giants’ Period of Word Economy,” Dr. Flansburghenstein lays out the song’s profound significance in excruciating detail.

To fully grasp the artistic significance of “Hello Radio,” one must first consider its lyrics. Three iterations of the word “hello” comprise the entire lyrical body of the song, a choice that some might consider lazy. Yet, as I shall demonstrate, this deliberate sparsity (which might not be a word) is not only a reduction of language but a profound distillation of it.

The first “hello” emerges as a spattering barrage of two voices at once. A beckoning to the listener that is at once universal and deeply personal. Two people who answered a phone call simultaneously? Two people mistaking a radio for a telephone by coincidence at the same time? The possibilities are already endless.

By the second “hello,” now inflected as a question, the speakers introduce existential doubt: Is anyone truly listening? Did they mishear another voice and speak over it, or was the “extra” voice simply their own, echoing back—a sonic metaphor for the crushing realization of one’s true isolation?

The final “hello” fades, refusing resolution, and leaving the listener suspended in a void of unanswered connection. This three-way structure mirrors a philosophical exercise as much as a musical one.

Musically, “Hello Radio” exhibits a deceptively simple soundscape that masks its underlying complexity. The vibraphone patch, sourced from the Casio FZ-1 Sound Disk B, serves as a foundation, evoking the “the acoustic uncanny.” It is both artificial and familiar.

By confining the composition to 55 seconds, John Flansburgh challenges the listener to confront the fleeting nature of human interaction. As we engage with this brief moment of connection, we are reminded that the act of reaching out is often more meaningful than the response you get in return.

It is worth noting the juxtaposition of “Hello” and “Radio.” The former is intimate, a word most often used in one-on-one exchanges; the latter is impersonal, a medium designed for broadcasting to the masses.

“Hello Radio” invites us to imagine a scenario in which we are both the recipient of an intimate greeting and a passive audience to a message cast out into the ether.

Finally, one cannot ignore the cultural implications of “Hello Radio” within the broader They Might Be Giants catalog. As a product of the Duo’s early Dial-A-Song era, it embodies the band’s ethos of brevity; something often dismissed by the mainstream but celebrated by their dedicated fans.

In this regard, “Hello Radio” is not merely a song; it is an artifact of its time, a 55-second transmission from one world to another, asking the eternal question: “Hello?”

Excerpt from “On ‘Hello Radio’ and Its Relation to the Apex of They Might Be Giants’ Period of Word Economy” by Dr. Linnelleanor Flansburghenstein, TMBGologist.

The 55th Paragraph

We have reached the triumphant 55th paragraph of this (possibly unnecessary) entry. In a masterful display of my writing prowess—and without a single corner cut—I shall now wrap this all up with a poignant conclusion that ties everything together. Which is to say that, much like the history of the word ‘hello,’ this song is interesting, seemingly arbitrary, and surprisingly short. I think we all learned a lot here today. Congratulations, me.

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