🌊 Theme From Flood 🌊
A brand new blog post about a brand new record from 1990. . .
A chance encounter with a band on TV
Flood1 is the first They Might Be Giants album that I owned. It felt like a main quest of the game of my life to obtain this relic. February 1st, 1991, I sat on the floor in my bedroom after school, watching Tiny Toons on my TV. It was an episode that many fans around my age recall as the first time they heard John Flansburgh and John Linnell.
Episode 51 “Tiny Toons Music Television” aired with several animated music videos to popular, well-known songs plus two songs by They Might Be Giants that many had never heard. Myself included. It was love at first listen. I needed to find the source. This was music for me.
In those days, my parents took me to the Pierce County Library where I was fond of searching for musicians in their database and placing requests or holds. This was really helpful when searching for movies to watch. I’d remember the production company, search “Universal” and have tons of options.
Side Quest accepted: Find TMBG
I incorrectly heard the band name as THE Might Be Giants and so, to no surprise, my attempts to find any of their work in the public library computer system failed. Similarly, my one attempt to find them at the mall record store came up empty. If I had less social anxiety, I might have asked an employee and learned that I had the band’s name wrong.
Fast forward to late 1992 grade. I’m at a new friend’s house. His mom was my teacher and through a series of ridiculous events, we were becoming fast friends. To this day, he is my closest friend. In fact, more like a brother. In his bedroom, I picked up a spiral notebook laying on his bed to read what was scribbled down.
He said it was some lyrics he heard that he liked from a song on the radio. A station that his older sister was into (107.7 The End) was playing it. It would end up being a song from Flood.
Achievement Unlocked!
Clock swipe to 7th grade. 1993. I’m taking a shower with 107.7 The End playing in the background. A song comes on with very familiar sounding vocals but the song is unknown to me. After a block of music, the DJ recounts the tracks and artists. I learned that I’d just heard Don’t Let’s Start by THEY Might Be Giants. Everything clicked. And by that, I mean that I realized I’d been searching for the wrong the band name.
At this point in my life, I do not remember purchasing the Flood album at the store. But it did happen. What I remember is unwrapping the cellophane from the cassette, popping it into my Walkman, reading the lyrics in the liner notes for the first time. It felt like I had accomplished a core life quest.
My life moving forward would be one with They Might Be Giants. With this first listen, I would discover a music that wasn’t my parents, wasn’t playing daily on pop radio, and was never talked about with my friends. I found music that spoke to me. *I found* it.
An Album with an Introduction
The first song on the album, Theme from Flood needed to match the level of my enthusiasm and joy for finally finding the source of those two songs I heard on TV two years earlier. This song rose to the occasion. A chorus of singers harmonizing about the musical journey I was about to embark on. An opening piece that gave me goosebumps. It was as if this choir knew my journey. The lyrics are as follows:
Why is the world in love again?
Why are we marching hand in hand?
Why are the oven levels rising up?
It’s a brand new record for 1990.
They Might Be Giants’ brand new album-
Flood
Listen to Theme from Flood below:
This album had been out since 1990? And it’s a brand new one? This had to mean that this was not the first. There were others out there and my best friend and I needed to find them.
I don’t intentionally add this song to my playlists but I never skip it. For me this song brings me back to that day when I discovered my favorite band. I had no idea then, the kind of major life events that I would turn to this music for support.
Knowing these things now, I hear Theme from Flood and I quickly recount those moments. Moments that I’ll writing about over the course of the next several weeks.
How did you come to be a fan of They Might Be Giants?
The first TMBG song I heard was "Istanbul" which just seemed like a fun novelty song. The first time I heard them and thought, "thus is weird, unique, and I want to know more" was when someone on my HS debate team was listening to "Dead" -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPgXYPJC2uA
How I came to be a fan? I have no idea if this is an especially uncommon introduction, but in episode 3 of the sitcom "Raising Hope" it plays the song Istanbul a few times in it and I was very intrigued by it. I would go on to search for that song online and come across both it and Birdhouse, which I immediately fell in love with leading to me diving deeper and deeper into TMBG and becoming a fan.