Working Undercover For The Man: That's a Wrap on Mink Car
They Might Be Giants' 'Working Undercover for the Man,' imposter syndrome, corporate disguises, and a proper goodbye to the Mink Car album.
Let's just start writing and see where I go with this one. The entire Mink Car album is now behind me, and I should probably do a section at the end of this where I share some final thoughts on the album as a whole. Dang, should I have been doing that after every album? Oh well. Moving forward.
Imposter Syndrome is not something I alone am uniquely experiencing in my daily life. I'm not sure I know anyone who doesn't go about their day and, at some point, feel like they are "faking" something. Maybe it's their role at their job, a parent-teacher conference, or a social situation like sitting around a bonfire two weeks ago with close friends, the person you recently started dating, and also your ex-wife is there.
If you have never suffered Imposter Syndrome before, please tell me, what is it like having such a normal and stable life? Do you just walk around with confidence all the time? What was it like having two parents who equally showed you healthy examples of love and affection?
The Assignment
Working Undercover For The Man is going to be our final post about songs from Mink Car, which feels correct, because this song is basically a mission statement for anyone who has ever had to pretend to be a person at a job.
John Flansburgh has said it's "more a meditation on the 'Mod Squad' than anything else. A late '60s/early '70s TV series about a group of young adults who chose to act as undercover hip youth rather than face legal consequences for the crime of "vagrancy." Yeah, I had to look up what the Mod Squad was. Also, ACAB includes the narcs of the Mod Squad.
In that same interview, Flansy talked about the performative nature of being on stage and the fakeness of all of it:
"There's nothing true about being on stage. I guess the idea of rock music…people in the rock culture are so hung up on this notion of 'authenticity' that it's painful. And I just thought that the idea of the guy in the band, you know, he's just a narc, was kind of exciting."
I‘ve been working hard
Practicing to sing and play guitar
Growing out my hair And working on my stare
Paid to fake it In a traveling band
And I’m working undercover
for the man
On its surface, the narrator is some sort of criminal informant playing the role of band guitarist, while being fully capable of actually playing guitar in said rock band. So are they pretending to be a rock guitarist? Or are they a rock guitarist who also happens to be a criminal informant? From the narrator's perspective, he seems to feel like he's pretending to be in the band, when he's actually the double agent. I relate to this from a slightly skewed but very closely adjacent angle.
My Cover
I feel like the Imposter Syndrome I struggle with in my work life is a lot like being "paid to fake it." Instead of touring in a rock band while I infiltrate and surveil a fanbase, I'm showing up to team meetings, practicing my workplace banter, and getting good at Excel. Trying to be "corporate." Climbing the "ladder to success."
Meanwhile, in my core, I am a writer. A deep thinker. An absurdist who struggles with existential dread. A person who would maybe be described as an outlier or a bohemian, depending on the time period. I'm someone who got good at putting on the mask required to participate in an office day job, but who always knows one fundamental truth about himself: I work for the man. But I am working undercover.
Sound Check
Musically, this is a perfect song to end the album on. There's that very classic-era TMBG keyboard effect that sounds like a small chorus of people, but very digital. There are horns, a moment of acoustic guitar fingering over a deep, interesting bass line, and Flansy's singing is frankly beautiful here. Even the promo material that was released along with the album mentioned that John and John toured in Ford Crown Victorias, the same cars unmarked cops drove. The band was undercover before the song ever says a word about it.
Closing the Case on Mink Car
That’s a wrap on an album that was the third studio record made with a full live band, after the famous Duo Era ended. John Henry was the growth spurt, the huge unproven change. Factory Showroom followed and brought back some of that old-school TMBG charm with the micro-Moog and strange sound artifacts, like a band still figuring out how the new format fit the old instincts. Mink Car, for me, is where they actually figured it out. Where the live band stopped being an experiment and started being the truth of the thing.
And this song takes all of Mink Car's essence and gives it a gentle landing. Every album after this one, TMBG keeps evolving, but they never again lurch forward as hard as they did leaving the Duo Era behind. The format had completed its transformation. There continues to be more new and interesting stuff still to come. Just not this particular kind of change again.
Blowing My Own Cover
I have spent the last 1,009 days writing about every They Might Be Giants song, and I never once stopped to notice that half of what I was doing this whole time was also a kind of undercover work: showing up every week in the costume of "guy with a music blog," while actually just trying to figure out how to be a person. Same as the narrator. Same as the guy at the bonfire. Same as basically everyone I've ever met who seemed like they had it together.
I don't think I'm faking it, exactly. I think I'm just working undercover for the man, and the man is just being a person in the world, and none of us ever really clocked in voluntarily or had a say in whether we were born or not.
So, what’s your cover story? What’s the job title you tell people, versus the thing you actually are underneath it?
Thanks for stopping by the blog. Mink Car is done. Onward.
You’re reading one of my Mink Car essays. An album full of pop, depression, car accidents, and high fidelity.
See all Mink Car posts - Start Here
Dive deeper into TMBG lore at TMBW.net (fan-run and fantastic)