Space Suit: A Musical Liftoff in 96 Seconds
A Quiet Goodbye from Apollo 18
The final song on Apollo 18 is also one of the first that They Might Be Giants ever wrote. It was the very first track Flansburgh and Linnell played live as a band; before they released a demo album or had a record deal. And now, it quietly closes out their most ambitious experiment in harmony, melody, and MIDI sampling. It’s a song called Space Suit, and I can’t think of a more fitting curtain call for the Apollo era.
I don’t often hear Space Suit compared to the other songs on this album. It’s not on any of my playlists. I actually hadn’t queued it up on its own in ages. But I love this track. And I almost always experience it the same way: as the final ripple after playing the Apollo 18 album start to finish. That’s when it feels ripe. For my ears, that’s when it really lands.
Space Suit blends all the signature instruments of the album: accordion, guitar, and synth, into a sound that feels simultaneously expansive and deeply intimate. I remember feeling disappointed when I first heard it as a teenager. No words? An instrumental closer? It felt anticlimactic. But then I grew up.
Now, it feels inevitable. Cosmic. The end of Apollo 18 doesn’t need lyrics. It needs a liftoff.
When I listen to it now, I picture John and John as cosmonauts, suited up and floating toward the edge of a musical universe they’ve spent a decade inventing. And in many ways, that’s exactly what was happening.
Apollo 18 would be their last album as a duo. After this, the era of tape loops, drum machines, and reel-to-reel tape recorders would give way to a full band and a new way of making records. Space Suit feels like a beautiful farewell to all the sonic engineering and DIY innovation that got them this far. A quiet wave goodbye from inside their space capsule.
Their next album, John Henry, would land two years later, recorded live in the studio with a full band. This meant a drummer, a bass player, and an additional guitarist. And.. . horns? But I’ll start writing about that next week.
For now, I’m grateful to exist in the timeline where this album happened, and to everyone who’s followed along these past eighteen weeks. Onward and upward, into a brave new frontier.