Stomp Box: A distorted hymn for my grief and catharsis.
“Stomp Box” by They Might Be Giants is both a song and an exorcism. Screaming through distortion to find catharsis.
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The Raw Sound of Release
The second-to-last song on John Henry perfectly captured my emotional state after countless late-’90s listens. There’s a raw energy that seems to claw its way out of the speakers. Literally screaming out the demons from which the singer wants to be freed.
Upon first listen, Stomp Box felt like the final punctuation mark on the album. One where John Flansburgh and John Linnell evolved They Might Be Giants from a duo, performance art-esque, niche band into a full, live, niche band. As I moved increasingly further away from the day of my uncle’s passing1, this song began feeling like it was expressing all the emotions I’d built up inside.
Anger
Sadness
Frustration
Hopelessness
Stomp Box gave those feelings a voice.
Noise as a Language
To me, this is also one of the hardest rocking songs in the entire TMBG catalog. With its organ, electric guitar, bari-sax, drums, and trumpet - it’s a little stripped down compared to most songs of the album but it’s aggressive and intense. Every lyric shouted into an overdriven microphone, giving each word an angry flair.
A stomp box, in its simplest form, is a wedge-shaped block that a guitarist stomps on to create percussive rhythm. I think that, over time, the term came to include effects pedals shaped the same way. Devices that distort, bend, or overdrive sound by stomping on it with your foot.
It’s actually a very clever thing that I enjoy about this song.
So the song “Stomp Box” is a recursive loop: distorted vocals about the very device creating that distortion.
Stomp Box speak my thought
Vent these voices from the dark
Shout Shout Shout Shout Scream it out
Blast your missive
Tell the wordless message
Little Stomp Box Tear it from my heart
Classic TMBG meta-storytelling; using the tool to describe the tool to express the feeling.
Distortion as Meditation
These days, Stomp Box is hitting every bit as raw and true as the year I first heard it. My John Henry writing journey was fraught with emotional battlegrounds and deep feelings of loss and grief. Reaching this track was exciting, cleansing, and felt like the weight of the world had been lifted from my shoulders.
The distortion in this song always strikes me as the honest release of emotion that refuses to sound polite.
What’s Coming Next
Next week, my final essay about the songs of John Henry will be published and I’ll probably set this album aside for a long while. Each new record I explore reshapes my relationship with its songs, but none carried the same pre-existing emotional voltage as this one. When the day comes that I feel ready to listen straight through this album again, it will bring with it an even more complex level of emotional memories. I look forward to that day coming but it will be a good long while from now.
