They Might Be Giants

DATE November 26, 2003 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: John Linnell and John Flansburgh talk about their
latest children's book
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

They Might Be Giants is the band defined by interesting contradictions. It
has a cult following, but it's also reached a mass audience through its song,
"You're Not the Boss of Me," the theme for the TV series "Malcolm in the
Middle." The band's songs are loved for their clever and sophisticated lyrics
about unusual subjects, but They Might Be Giants also has a lot of fans who
are kids. In fact, the band has a new children's book and companion CD called
"Bed, Bed, Bed." It's a follow-up to their recent children's CD, "No!"

The band is made up of John Flansburgh and John Linnell who have been making
music together for about 20 years. A profile in The New Yorker described them
as the elders to a whole generation of smart, earnest nerd rockers. John
Linnell plays keyboards and sings; John Flansburgh plays guitar and sings.
Their new children's book, "Bed, Bed, Bed," is an illustrated version of the
songs on the companion CD that comes with the book. It includes this song,
"Impossible."

(Soundbite of "Impossible")

THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS: (Singing) Well, they said I was impossible. Yes, they
said I was impossible. And that someone who behaved like me couldn't be,
couldn't be. But I knew that I was possible. Not completely unbelievable.
And the one they said could never be, it was me, it was me. But there's
something else they didn't know. You can change your shape and you can grow
out of nothing into something new, something made up into something true.
Though it happens quite impossibly, the impossible turns out to be possibly.

GROSS: That's "Impossible," the companion CD that comes with the new They
Might Be Giants' book, "Bed, Bed, Bed," a bedtime book. John Linnell, John
Flansburgh, welcome back to FRESH AIR. Good to have you back again.

Mr. JOHN LINNELL (Band Member): Thank you.

GROSS: I thought what we might do at the beginning is have you, John Linnell,
recite the lyrics of the song because the book is actually, you know, the
lyrics of the songs. So let's hear how it sounds as a bedtime story.

Mr. LINNELL: OK, we'll give it a shot. `Well, they said I was impossible.
Yes, they said I was impossible and that someone who behaved like me
couldn't be, couldn't be. But I knew that I was possible, not completely
unbelievable. And the one they said could never be, it was me, it was me.
But there's something else they didn't know. You can change your shape and
you can grow out of nothing into something new, something made up into
something true. Though it happens quite impossibly, the impossible turns out
to be possibly.'

Mr. JOHN FLANSBURGH (Band Member): Mr. William Shatner, ladies and gentlemen.

GROSS: I like that. I think it's, like, the children's version of the great
American story of personal transformation, that, you know, you can change.

Mr. LINNELL: Yeah, it's kind of our low-rent version of "Free To Be...You And
Me" I think.

GROSS: Right. So why did you want to do a children's book?

Mr. LINNELL: Well, you know, we did this children's record last year called
"No!" that was--it was remarkably successful commercially but it was also--I
mean, we felt like it was actually surprisingly successful artistically. It
was a really satisfying experience in that it was a very abstract project. It
really brought us back to our kind of art school rock psychedelic roots. It
was very liberating to be kind of free of all the concerns of, you know,
trying to figure out how to make a song that's relevant to pop radio, which is
kind of a dreary affair these days.

So it was really fun. And we were approached to do a children's book by Simon
& Schuster. I'm not even sure how qualified we really are to be making
children's books, in a sense, but it's sort of like when somebody says, like,
`Hey, you want to be in a movie?' you kind of go, like, `Yeah, sure.'

GROSS: You already had a song, too, even before the CD "No!" that had caught
on with kids, and I'm thinking of the theme from "Malcolm in the Middle,"
"You're..."

Mr. LINNELL: Yeah.

GROSS: "...Not the Boss of Me." And I've always wondered about that song.
How come it's "You're Not the Boss of Me," and--as opposed to the more
grammatically correct "You Are Not My Boss"?

Mr. LINNELL: Well, it was something that--you know, it was a very popular
expression in the household that I grew up in. And I think, you know, grammar
and syntax are not such a big deal with little kids.

Mr. FLANSBURGH: Yeah, I think that's part of the appeal of the song, in a
way, is that the grammar's so screwy, it gives it a special childlike
emphasis.

GROSS: Do you have kids of your own now, either of you?

Mr. LINNELL: I do, yeah. I've got a boy in kindergarten.

Mr. FLANSBURGH: And my wife and I are raising two cats.

GROSS: Aha.

Mr. LINNELL: They're in kindergarten as well.

GROSS: John Linnell, now that you have a child, are you more interested in
writing songs for children?

Mr. LINNELL: Well, there's sort of a more practical urgency to it. I realize
that a lot of the material that John and I have done in the past--well, we've
always sort of felt like we were a band that kids could like. There are
lyrics in our repertoire that I now see are pretty unsuitable for kids. So I
like having the opportunity to do stuff that I can actually play for my son
that doesn't scare him.

GROSS: You've said that writing kids' songs has been artistically liberating,
and I thought I'd play an example of a song I couldn't imagine you writing
without the premise of, `Well, this is for kids.' But it's a really terrific
song. It's called "I Am Not Your Broom." And why don't we hear it and then
maybe you can talk about the writing of it?

Mr. LINNELL: OK.

GROSS: This is "I Am Not Your Broom" from the They Might Be Giants' album,
"No!"

(Soundbite of "I Am Not Your Broom")

THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS: (Singing) Now, broom, you must now sweep for me. The
dust it fills my room.

No, John, I will not sweep for you, for I am not your broom.

What nonsense are you speaking, broom? My words you must obey.

Another life awaits me and I'm leaving you today. I am not your broom, I am
not your broom. I've had enough, I'm throwing off my chains of servitude. I
am not your broom, I am not your broom. No longer must I sweep for you for I
am not your broom.

(Soundbite of humming, harmonica music, sweeping noises)

GROSS: That's "I Am Not Your Broom" from the CD "No!" by They Might Be
Giants. And my guests are John Linnell and John Flansburgh, the founders of
They Might Be Giants.

Can you talk a little bit about writing "I Am Not Your Broom"?

Mr. FLANSBURGH: Sure, yeah. Well, that was actually written before we
started putting together a record for kids.

GROSS: That's not proving my point.

Mr. FLANSBURGH: I think it's an example of something that--there are a few
songs on "No!" that we sort of reworked to make them more appropriate for
kids. And that one, I guess, we just figured would be OK, though it includes
words like `servitude' which I guess you have to explain to kids what that's
about. Even the concept of the wage slave broom or whatever the relationship
is is a little bit hard for kids to understand.

GROSS: I suppose.

Mr. LINNELL: Well, getting back to "Boss of Me," I think it's sort of
actually a universal theme among little brothers everywhere.

Mr. FLANSBURGH: Right.

Mr. LINNELL: Servitude is something every family understands.

GROSS: I love the song, though, because it works just on a--you know, on a
literal almost like housework level, but it also could be like the angry lover
or the angry worker and--it's really fun.

Mr. LINNELL: Yeah. Well, it was kind of meant to be completely literal. The
song was written after I got ahold of one of these little inexpensive cameras
in the shape of an eyeball that you can plug into your computer. And I
realized, like, John and I could actually make our own videos, not for $1/2
million, but for, you know, the $99 it cost to buy this thing. So I started
out, you know, looking around the room for something to use in the video, and
all there really was was my broom and my face. And so that pretty much was
the entire basis for the song.

Mr. FLANSBURGH: Right.

GROSS: In addition to writing songs for children, you're still writing...

Mr. LINNELL: Yeah.

GROSS: ...whatever songs you want to write? And you just have this knack for
coming up with lyrics that say things that songs don't often say, or at least
they don't often say it in the way you say it in your songs. I guess I'm
thinking here, as an example, of your song, "Older." I mean, there's a lot of
songs that are kind of bittersweet about getting on in years and stuff, but I
can't think of one that's kind of as blunt as "Older."

Mr. FLANSBURGH: Yeah, I think that, you know, some of my favorite stuff that
we've done just kind of emerges. You know, I mean, it's not that we're not
thinking about what we're doing, but I think often stuff just kind of pops
out, and then you make sense of it after the fact. And "Older" was that kind
of song. It just--it kind of felt like it wrote itself because it had this
sort of weird, unconscious quality.

GROSS: John Linnell, were you thinking about getting older when you wrote
this song? Or did a clever rhyme just come to you and...

Mr. LINNELL: I pretty much think about getting older all the time.

GROSS: Do you?

Mr. LINNELL: In fact--I mean, the funny thing about our stuff generally is I
think that John and I have a lot of anxieties and concerns that are sort of
floating in the background that are just there in the songs because that's
what's in our heads. You know, the music is often much happier, and I think
that's one of the reasons why people think we're appropriate for their kids,
even our adult material. But, yeah, I mean, that's a--you know, death and
things like that are pretty much constant topics for us.

GROSS: Yes, with song titles like "Hopeless Bleak Despair."

Mr. LINNELL: "Hopeless Bleak Despair" being an example, yeah.

GROSS: But what I want to play is "Older." So why don't we give that a
listen? And this is from the They Might Be Giants album called, "Mink Car."

(Soundbite of "Older")

THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS: (Singing) You're older than you've ever been and now
you're even older. And now you're even older, and now you're even older.
You've older than you've ever been and now you're even older. And now you're
older still.

Time is marching on. And time is still marching on. This day will soon be at
an end and then it's even sooner, and then it's even sooner and now it's even
sooner. This day will soon be at an end and now it's even sooner, and now
it's sooner still.

Mr. LINNELL: Just for the edification of your listeners, that's a
rauschpfeife and a sarrusophone...

Mr. FLANSBURGH: That's right.

Mr. LINNELL: ...which you won't hear too often.

GROSS: Oh. What...

Mr. FLANSBURGH: If there any rauschpfeife or sarrusophone enthusiasts out
there.

GROSS: It...

Mr. LINNELL: They're real ancient. Well, one of them, I guess, would be
called old.

Mr. FLANSBURGH: One of them's a 19th century instrument that's still...

Mr. LINNELL: Right.

Mr. FLANSBURGH: ...hanging around, and one of them really is like a--I guess,
from the Renaissance or something like that.

Mr. LINNELL: Yeah, the sarrusophone is sort of an ancestor of the saxophone,
and the engineer actually turned to us in the middle of the recording session
and said, `I know why this instrument didn't catch on. It doesn't work.'

GROSS: Well, maybe that's why there was something about the song that was
reminding me of, like, an early chant.

Mr. LINNELL: Right. That's correct.

Mr. FLANSBURGH: Absolutely.

Mr. LINNELL: That's kind of what we're going for. I mean, it was definitely
a conscious effort to, you know, create a sort of other worldly, out of
time...

Mr. FLANSBURGH: Something with spider webs on it.

Mr. LINNELL: Yeah.

GROSS: Right.

Mr. FLANSBURGH: Get me some instrument that has some spider webs...

Mr. LINNELL: Right.

Mr. FLANSBURGH: ...please.

GROSS: My guests are John Linnell and John Flansburgh of the band They Might
Be Giants. They have a new book for children that comes with a CD. It's
called "Bed, Bed, Bed." We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: My guests are John Flansburgh and John Linnell of the band They Might
Be Giants. They have a new book for children that comes with a CD called
"Bed, Bed, Bed."

You still have Dial-a-Song which is one of the early things that made the band
unique. You had--John, why don't you describe it?

Mr. LINNELL: Well, it's basically just a phone number in Brooklyn that's
connected to a phone machine. And we have a--you know, it's like an
'80s-style phone machine that breaks all the time because it can't really hold
up to the weight of the calls. But you simply hear a song. And the idea of
it kind of came out of, you know, we came up as a band in the mid-'80s in kind
of a weird downtown New York, Lower East Side, East Village art and
performance context. And it seemed like an interesting way to find a
different kind of audience for what we were doing. We were playing in a lot
of clubs at 1 in the morning, and it seemed sort of unreasonable to think that
a curiosity seeker would stay up that late. So this was a way to kind of
reach out to them.

And phone machines were really a fad at that moment. I mean, it's hard to
think of phone machines as being new, but they were a brand-new idea. So we
were kind of harnessing, you know, just the latest technology and using it to
sort of show our songs--you know, get our songs to people without having any
kind of, you know, other support.

GROSS: And how has the use and the meaning of the Dial-a-Song changed over
the years?

Mr. FLANSBURGH: I don't think it particularly has. I mean, it's still the
exact same set-up. There's only one line. It's the place where all of our
material kind of gets its beginning. All the demos of songs that will
eventually wind up in the show or on records or will be--you know, are doomed
to obscurity all make their way, you know, first through Dial-a-Song. And I
think that the audience has not changed all that much. I mean, originally,
there was this real--originally, I think it was a more local thing where they
were sort of downtown New York people at work listening on their speaker
phones. But I think there's still that element of people who call it up sort
of as a way to break up their day, you know, just something to amuse them.

Mr. LINNELL: Yeah, although I think the Internet has kind of largely--you
know, in some ways, the way people use the Internet for entertainment at work
reminds me--it's as if it's the biggest Dial-a-Song service of all time, you
know. It's just a great way to get away from your job.

GROSS: Do you have feelings about free music on the Internet?

Mr. LINNELL: You know, we give away a lot of free music on the Internet. I
think that, you know, it's a really complicated issue. And people have very,
very strong opinions about it. You know, it's fine for us. There's so many
great songwriters that I feel like are kind of having the structure of how
they make a living kind of cut out from under them. It's really hard to just
pretend that that's not meaningful. I think it's gonna change the way--well,
you know, it's hard making a living as a musician, in the first place. So it
seems like it's kind of dreary to make it even harder but, you know, we have
very mixed emotions about it because, as a band that's been giving away music
for 20 years, like, we're very comfortable with the idea. So it's been kind
of a boon for us.

Mr. FLANSBURGH: Right. The standard line up through now has been that, you
know, we're benefiting more from people downloading our stuff illegally than
we have been hurt by it, you know.

Mr. LINNELL: Right.

Mr. FLANSBURGH: But I don't know if that's generally--or even if that'll
always be--this morning I actually walked by two guys pulling New York Posts
out of a newspaper box, obviously, had paid only once. So maybe--I don't
know, maybe this kind of crime just dovetails into...

Mr. LINNELL: Right, right.

Mr. FLANSBURGH: ...the general.

Mr. LINNELL: You know, the oddest thing is, you know, burning CDs is a big
fad and that we often do, like, in-store performances where we'll do a little
show and then sign stuff for people. And people have, you know, started
coming up to us with, like, burned CDs of our music, like their favorite mix
of They Might Be Giants' songs they've gotten off the Internet and just want
us to autograph that. So they're very--people are very casual about, you
know, their behavior.

GROSS: That they've gotten off the Internet without paying for it?

Mr. LINNELL: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

GROSS: And do you lecture them? Or is that OK with you?

Mr. LINNELL: No, you know, I mean, all...

Mr. FLANSBURGH: We glare at them.

Mr. LINNELL: Yeah.

Mr. FLANSBURGH: We scowl.

Mr. LINNELL: Just silent stares. No, it's really hard to even get into, in a
way. I mean, I feel like, you know, we have a very strange--we don't have a
consistent point of view about it.

GROSS: Right.

Mr. LINNELL: We like people to hear our music. You know, being a musician,
there's nothing greater than, you know, playing your song for somebody. It's
not like you got into it to make, you know, .5 cents per play, you know.

GROSS: Do you copyright your songs before putting them on Dial-a-Song?

Mr. LINNELL: No. We don't even tell people. We don't tell our office or
management or anything. We're incredibly...

Mr. FLANSBURGH: Can you keep a secret?

Mr. LINNELL: We don't...

GROSS: That's what this show is about.

Mr. LINNELL: Yeah, we don't worry about any of that stuff, you know. You
know, probably the most successful song we ever did, "Birdhouse in Your Soul,"
was, like, on Dial-a-Song for a couple years before it ever was released in
any other form. And we were pretty sure that, you know, Elton John was not
gonna be stealing "Birdhouse in Your Soul" too soon.

GROSS: Well, say I stole it and said it was mine. What recourse would you
have?

Mr. LINNELL: I'm sure, you know, there'd be a bunch of lawyers that would be
happy to come to our defense. But, you know, good luck with that, Terry,
that's all...

GROSS: One of the things I was thinking about Dial-a-Song is it must be
really liberating, you know, as a songwriter to have this venue where you can
just, like, toss something off if you wanted to, put it on there...

Mr. LINNELL: Yeah.

GROSS: ...and see how you like it, live with it a while.

Mr. LINNELL: It's super exciting.

Mr. FLANSBURGH: Yeah.

Mr. LINNELL: Although there is this aspect of the phone machine that's
really deadly which is that when you put the cassette in the machine, like,
people start calling in and if they don't like the song, they'll hang up in
the middle. So you're immediately reminded of whatever--you know, you might
be just really digging yourself and the song you just did. And then, you
know, you pop it in and you think, `They are gonna love this.' And then, you
know, it's like, click, you know.

GROSS: How do you know that they've hung up in the middle?

Mr. LINNELL: 'Cause you can hear the machine rewinding...

Mr. FLANSBURGH: The machine stops, yeah.

Mr. LINNELL: ...before it finishes the song.

Mr. FLANSBURGH: Yeah. We run the risk of--if we take that kind of thing too
seriously, of trying to make more and more spectacular-sounding music that
maybe would get away from what we were trying to do in the first place, you
know, so become more like, you know, "FOX News" or something.

Mr. LINNELL: Right.

Mr. FLANSBURGH: All the explosions right at the top.

Mr. LINNELL: That would be good. (Makes exploding sound) They Might Be
Giants (makes exploding sound) Dial-a-Song. Twenty-six hours a day, nine
days a week.

Mr. FLANSBURGH: Right.

Mr. LINNELL: Oh, my God (makes exploding sound), unfiltered. My arms and
legs are on fire. Unfiltered music (makes exploding sound) if you can handle
it. Yeah, there's all sorts of things you can do with...

Mr. FLANSBURGH: Look forward to that.

Mr. LINNELL: ...recordings. You know, I mean, I don't know. We try not to
pay too much attention to the front row and, you know, too much attention to
people hanging up in the middle. I think, you know, we recognize that what we
do is kind of fragile, in a way, so...

GROSS: John Flansburgh and John Linnell of the band They Might Be Giants.
They have a new book for children that comes with a CD. It's called "Bed,
Bed, Bed." They'll be back in the second half of the show. Here's one of
their early recordings.

I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of song)

THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS: (Singing) I'm not your only friend but I'm a little
glowing friend but really I'm not actually your friend but I am. Blue canary
in the outlet by the light switch, what watches over you? Make a little
birdhouse in your soul, not to put too fine a point on it. Say I'm the only
bee in your bonnet. Make a little birdhouse in your soul. I have a secret to
tell from my electrical well. It's a simple message and I'm leaving out the
whistles and bells. So the...

(Announcements)

Coming up, rock historian Ed Ward on the weird humor of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah
Band, film critic David Edelstein reviews "In America," and we continue our
conversation with John Linnell and John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR.

I'm Terry Gross, back with John Linnell and John Flansburgh of the band They
Might Be Giants. They're known for their clever wordplay and catchy melodies.
In addition to an avid following of adults, they have a lot of fans who are
children, and now they have a new children's book called "Bed, Bed, Bed" that
comes with a CD.

How did you both meet?

Mr. LINNELL: We went to the Lincoln Public School System together, about 20
miles west of Boston, and we--I guess we really got to know each other in high
school. We both wound up in the staff of the school newspaper, which was
pretty much universally loathed by the student body and became this kind of
clique that one of our teachers suggested we rename `Vanity Fair' because we
were the only ones who actually read it. But--and it was also our sort of
clubhouse, this little newspaper office. So that was how John and I got to
know each other.

GROSS: What were you doing on the paper?

Mr. LINNELL: Well, you know, we wrote about whatever we felt like, and you
know, a lot of us liked writing record reviews and stuff like that.

Mr. FLANSBURGH: Yeah. Yeah. You know, it was--you know, John was the
editor, I was the photo editor at some point. You know, I actually went to
football games and took photographs of football players, not knowing what that
was, but you know, in some ways it was--there were a lot of people in the
room, you know. You know, working at The Promethean was probably not that
different than, you know, writing a sitcom, you know. It was like a mob of,
like, 12 people...

Mr. LINNELL: Smart-alecky high school kids.

Mr. FLANSBURGH: Yeah. And it was--but you know, in some ways, that was a
very formative time for us because, you know, so many conversations kind of
played into the aesthetic of They Might Be Giants as a band. I mean, you
go--you know, when you're a teen-ager you see a rock concert and like they
bust into the, you know, endless drum solo, you get back to the school and you
talk about the concert, and you just realize how much no one likes drum solos.
And you know, I think that when we started the band, you know, in some
abstract way we were thinking that that group of people is sort of our--was
sort of our ultimate audience, not so much people we wanted to please, but
more like people we didn't want to disappoint by becoming, you know...

Mr. LINNELL: That's a good way of putting it, yeah.

Mr. FLANSBURGH: You know...

Mr. LINNELL: And it started with, you know--we started with, you know, by
keeping one another in mind when we were working, but I think we always had
sort of the clique that we hung out with in high school in mind as well.

GROSS: What were the first songs you started doing together? Were they
originals, or covers?

Mr. LINNELL: Most of what we were doing was kind of sound pieces and stuff,
you know, I think we both liked just playing with tape recorders and cooking
up stuff and finding things around the house to make noise with. So you know,
we really kind of eased our way into actually writing songs. We started out
doing much more just experimental stuff and goofing around.

GROSS: Well, I thought this might be a good time to play what was, I think,
like your first, you know, hit. This is "Don't Let's Start." John, can you
talk about writing the song?

Mr. LINNELL: Well, this is one of those songs that is kind of in the
clothing of a pop song. It's got this sort of rockin' arrangement, but the
problem I've often had is I write songs starting with the music and the
melody, and then I have this job of trying to fill in the words to a melody
that's already written. So I end up having to sort of cram words in because
the syllables fit, and that I think accounts for a lot of the lyrics in this
one, which seem--they're not exactly on point all the time. It's a song that
has a, you know, sort of a strangely meandering lyric, and actually it was for
that reason, you know, when we put it our first record out, I just felt like
the lyrics were so oddball that we originally talked about putting it first on
the record, and at the last minute swapped it out for another one, because I
thought "Don't Let's Start" was just too confusing.

GROSS: You know...

Mr. LINNELL: But people still wound up liking it, and I think it was because
the music was sort of, you know, appealing.

GROSS: You know how you said you write the music first and they you have to
find lyrics that...

Mr. LINNELL: Often, yeah.

GROSS: ...fit the rhythms. Is that why it's `Don't--don't--don't let's
start'...

(Soundbite of laughter)

GROSS: ...as much as it is `Don't let's start'?

Mr. LINNELL: Yeah, I think that's probably--you hit the nail right on the
head, Terry.

GROSS: Because that really works, don't you think?

Mr. LINNELL: Sure. Absolutely.

GROSS: No just rhythmically but it gets to like the frustration?

Mr. LINNELL: Well, that's an interesting point, yeah. That's something I
haven't--you know, I don't think too hard about this stuff when we're cooking
it up, but yeah. I mean, that's certainly a way of looking at it.

GROSS: That's why I'm around, to analyze it to death.

Mr. FLANSBURGH: Yes.

Mr. LINNELL: Thank you. Thank you for that.

GROSS: So why don't we hear "Don't Let's Start"? Anything else you want to
say about it?

Mr. LINNELL: No.

GROSS: OK. This is from the first They Might Be Giants recording.

(Soundbite of "Don't Let's Start")

THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS: (Singing) Don't don't don't let's start. This is the
worst part. Could believe for all the world that you're my precious little
girl, but don't don't don't let's start. I've got a weak heart and I don't
get around. How you get around? When you are alone you are the cat, you are
the phone. You are an animal. The words I'm singing now mean nothing more
than meow to an animal. Wake up and smell the cat food in your bank account
but don't try to stop the tail that wags the hound. D, world destruction,
over and overture, N, do I need apostrophe T, need this torture? Don't don't
don't let's start. This is the worst part. Could believe for all the world
that you're my precious little girl. Don't don't don't let's start. I've got
a weak heart and I don't get around how you get around.

GROSS: That's "Don't Let's Start" from the first They Might Be Giants
recording, and my guests are the founders of the band, John Linnell and John
Flansburgh.

Mr. FLANSBURGH: I love being founders. It's a great feeling.

Mr. LINNELL: That's right.

GROSS: Oh, as if like populations have become members of the band.

Mr. FLANSBURGH: Yeah.

Mr. LINNELL: Well, also, it sort of suggests, yeah...

Mr. FLANSBURGH: That we're an institution.

Mr. LINNELL: ...that we'll carry on when we're gone as well...

Mr. FLANSBURGH: Yes.

Mr. LINNELL: ...you know, that there will be statues of us...

Mr. FLANSBURGH: In `They Might Be Giants Hall.'

Mr. LINNELL: ...to remind--right.

GROSS: Well, that's something to all look forward to.

Mr. LINNELL: No, no, it's a good way to describe it.

GROSS: Since you didn't really set out to be performers--at least that's how
it sounds hearing you talk...

Mr. LINNELL: Yeah. It's supposed...

GROSS: ...and it sounds like your goal in life wasn't to like be on stage.
What was it like for you when you were on stage early on and you had to find a
way to be?

Mr. FLANSBURGH: It was really mind-blowing. I think both of us were, you
know, kind of--it was just a very different sort of responsibility and a
different kind of response than we were anticipating. I mean, I remember our
very first gig very vividly. We had, you know, put the show together. We
were working with a drum machine so everything had to be kind of very tightly
rehearsed with this, and our sort of gimmick as a band was that we had these
very tricky arrangements that were very fast-paced and the tape didn't stop so
it just was like this one long performance of very short songs. And so it was
a real memory test.

Mr. LINNELL: There was a reason for that, too.

Mr. FLANSBURGH: We...

Mr. LINNELL: Because we had this idea that if we stopped the tape or had
blank spots in the tape, that people would realize that no one was clapping.

Mr. FLANSBURGH: Right.

Mr. LINNELL: So we decided to do a show that had no breaks whatsoever.

Mr. FLANSBURGH: It was a real defense mechanism. And we went up there and
did the show, and immediately, you know, people started kind of like laughing
in a very happy...

Mr. LINNELL: That's right.

Mr. FLANSBURGH: ...you know--I mean, they weren't like laughing at us. They
were sort of--I think they felt like they were laughing with us, but it was
just very unexpected for us. We really didn't think it was going to be that
way. You know, the bands I had been in before were kind of--you know, we were
kind of like sex bands, you know. I mean, we just did our little rock 'n'
roll teen-age thing and, you know, it was like there were girls dancing and
all that stuff. So this was like a bit of a departure. But, you know, we
kind of got over that and we sort of took it at face value, and we didn't say
like, you know, the audience is wrong, you know. I mean, I think what we were
doing actually probably--that was about as, you know, the best thing to do
with that show, was just kind of laugh at it. And we sort of kind of evolved
as, you know, showmen since then. And now we're like actually shockingly
comfortable on stage.

Mr. LINNELL: And blase.

Mr. FLANSBURGH: Right.

Mr. LINNELL: No. I got the sense that it was this kind of laughter of
recognition, that people--for the first time, we got the sense, like people
were actually completely identifying with the stuff we were doing.

Mr. FLANSBURGH: Yeah.

Mr. LINNELL: You know, that was a completely new experience for us, because
up until then, we'd just been making recordings, and we'd play them for
people, and it didn't have that quality...

Mr. FLANSBURGH: Yeah.

Mr. LINNELL: ...of a group of people all going, `Oh, yeah, I know what this
is about.'

Mr. FLANSBURGH: And, I mean, I've said this before, but I felt like people
related to us like they related to like their brother or their cousin. Like
there's something very direct. I mean, it wasn't like they were relating to
us like we were, you know, the next Mick Jagger or something, but they
definitely got it in a very immediate recognizable way.

GROSS: John, you used the express `sex bands,' that the band you used to play
with was like a sex band. That's...

Mr. FLANSBURGH: Well, we weren't like that like sexy, but, you know...

GROSS: No, but that's such a great expression. Do other people use that? I
haven't heard that before, but it seems like a perfect description of what a
certain type of band is about.

Mr. FLANSBURGH: Well, you know, when you're in a band like us, you are
constantly reminded that there is a whole big part of like the music business
that is basically just, you know, about, you know, pushing, you know, very
pretty people in front of very large crowds. I mean, that's a very successful
way of doing it. But, you know, I mean, rock 'n' roll music--I mean, when we
were talking about, you know, being in a garage band or being in a cover band,
you know, that's like teen-age stuff. You know, there's a social component to
that that it's like a lot of musicians--you always hear musicians go, like,
`Oh, I got into music to play in front of girls and, you know, it was like I
was shy and it was a way for me to meet girls.' And I don't know. I mean, we
were kind of the opposite of that. You know, we ran away from the girls and,
you know, we ran into our, you know, living rooms and bedrooms and just, you
know, worked with tape recorders.

GROSS: Well, John Flansburgh, John Linnell, it's been great to talk with you.
Thank you so much for talking with us.

Mr. LINNELL: Nice talking to you.

Mr. FLANSBURGH: Thank you.

Mr. LINNELL: Thanks for having us.

GROSS: John Flansburgh and John Linnell of the band They Might Be Giants.
They have a new book for children that comes with the CD called "Bed, Bed,
Bed." The documentary about the band, called "Gigantic," has just been
released on DVD.

Coming up, rock historian Ed Ward on the weird music of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah
Band. This is FRESH AIR.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Profile: Music group Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band
TERRY GROSS, host:

Imagine "Monty Python" with no pictures, "The Goon Show" set to music or
the wackier parts of the Beatles' songbook and you still won't have a
handle on the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, a group that could only have been
successful in the days of swingin' London but which has influenced plenty of
performers in the year since they broke up. Rock historian Ed Ward has their
story.

(Soundbite of music)

Unidentified Man #1: Hi there. Nice to be with you. Happy you could stick
around. Like to introduce Legs Larry Smith, drums...

(Soundbite of music)

Unidentified Man #1: ...and Sam Spoons rhythm pull--and Vernon Dudley
Bohay-Nowell bass guitar...

(Soundbite of music)

Unidentified Man #1: ...and Neil Innes, piano.

(Soundbite of music)

Unidentified Man #1: Come in, Rodney Slater, on the saxophone...

(Soundbite of music)

Unidentified Man #1: ...with Roger Ruskin Spear on tenor sax.

(Soundbite of music)

Unidentified Man #1: Hi, Vivian Stanshall trumpet.

(Soundbite of music)

ED WARD reporting:

If there ever was a band so British that it was fated to have members named
Vernon Dudley Bohay-Nowell, Roger Ruskin Spear and Vivian Stanshall--a man--as
members, it was the one that evolved from a bunch of art school cut-ups in
London and first played together in 1962. Dressed as dandies out of a
Woodhouse novel and playing vo-dee-oh-doh music and with a great affection for
George Study's cartoon dog Bonzo, they originally called themselves the Bonzo
Dog Dada Band, but somehow `Dada' got corrupted to `Doo-Dah.' Singing turn of
the century novelty tunes--the weirder the better--they got to be pretty
popular as mid-'60s London got more colorful.

The next thing they knew, they had a recording contract. Their first two
singles were novelty songs from the past, "My Brother Makes the Noises for the
Talkies" and The Hollywood Argyles' "Alley-Oop," done in an oddly fey
manner. But in 1967, their record company decided they'd do better with an
album, and thus was born "Gorilla."

(Soundbite of "The Equestrian Statue")

BONZO DOG DOO-DAH BAND: (Singing) There once was a very famous man, on his
famous horse he'd ride through the land. The people used to see him
everywhere. When he died, they put a statue in the square. Here comes the
equestrian statue, prancing up and down the square. Little old ladies stop
and say, `Well, I declare.' Once a man from the...

WARD: "Gorilla" was a weird record, and not just because the Bonzo Dogs were
a weird band. It caught them just as some of their earlier members were
leaving to join triad jazz bands and as Neil Innes, who played guitar and
piano, was discovering he could write straight pop material like their third
single, "The Equestrian Statue." This tension between campiness and deranged
pop would mark the band's entire career.

Their stage act, too, became filled with odd props and pieces of art, and soon
they were the `in' band to go see in swinging London. John Lennon came down
one night and heard them, and the next thing they knew, they were performing
one of their songs in The Beatles' "Magical Mystery Tour" film.

(Soundbite of "Death Cab for Cutie")

BONZO DOG DOO-DAH BAND: (Singing) Let my cutie call a cab. Uh-huh. Baby,
don't do it. She left her East Side room so drab. Uh-huh. Baby, don't do
it. She went out on the town knowing it will make her love frown. Death cab
for cutie. Death cab for cutie. Someone's gonna make you pay your fare.

WARD: "Death Cab for Cutie" was as typical of what they did as anything.
They were all over the map, and it illustrated Viv Stanshall's knack for
turning newspaper headlines into songs.

Their next album, which came out a year later in the fall of 1968, was even
more ambitious. "The Doughnuts in Granny's Greenhouse" asked `if blue men
could sing the whites, or are they hypocrites,' has two mini-rock
operas--"Rockaliser Baby" and "Rhinocratic Oaths"--and, in a rock 'n' roll
first, Roger Ruskin Spear playing a trouser press.

(Soundbite of "Trouser Press")

BONZO DOG DOO-DAH BAND: (Singing) We're doing the "Trouser Press," baby.
One, two, three. Trouser press, baby. Whoo! Do the trouser press, baby.
Whoo! Wow. Trouser press, baby. Whoo! Yeah. Ha, ha. Trouser press, baby.
Whoa! Ha, ha. Give it all you can. It's much better than the prefabricated,
concrete, cold bunker. Whoo! Ha! You're so savage, Roger. Oh, press those
trousers. Ecstasy boost. Ecstasy.

(Soundbite of music; trouser press)

WARD: John Lennon wasn't the only Beatle who liked the band, and apparently
it didn't take much for Vivian Stanshall to convince Paul McCartney to come
down to the studio to produce a song Neil Innes had written.

(Soundbite of "Urban Spaceman")

BONZO DOG DOO-DAH BAND: (Singing) I'm the urban spaceman, baby. I've got
speed. I've got everything I need. I'm the urban spaceman, baby. I can fly.
I'm a supersonic guy. I don't need pleasure. I don't feel pain. If you were
to knock me down, I'd just get up again. I'm the urban spaceman, baby. I'm
makin' out. I'm all about.

WARD: "Urban Spaceman," produced according to the label by Apollo C.
Vermouth, became a top 10 record in England. And although it hadn't charted
in the US, the band's albums had been released here so they began to consider
touring here. They could have stayed home. They were getting work on
television and their shows were becoming legendary, but they went.

The first tour was short and there were problems. The second tour was much
larger, but the problems were still there. The record company refused to
promote them, and they'd arrive in city after city to find their albums
unavailable. Unwilling to go further in debt, they cut the tour short,
canceled TV appearances and went back to England.

Even though "Tadpoles," the album with "Urban Spaceman" on it, had done
well, the group was falling apart. Although there were six people on the
album covers, the dominant figures were Neil Innes and Viv Stanshall; one
inclining toward zany pop material and the other a true British eccentric.

(Soundbite of song)

BONZO DOG DOO-DAH BAND: (Singing) Hello! Hello...

WARD: Their next album, "Keynsham," was to be their last although they didn't
realize it at the time. You can always tell when a band's had it when they
record a song about themselves anyway.

BONZO DOG DOO-DAH BAND: (Singing) We arrived at the gate looking rough. Not
happy, we've all had enough of eight hours on the road. Legs Larry said he.
Yep, yep. Yes, indeed. ...(Unintelligible). Get sacked like a rhino house.
Mr. Slater said: ...(unintelligible). Oh, really? ...(Unintelligible).

(Soundbite of music)

WARD: After this record, they took a break never intending to make it
permanent, but that's how it turned out. Neil Innes joined a succession of
pop groups, and Stanshall had a short-lived band with Eric Clapton followed
quickly by a nervous breakdown. They still owed the record company one more
album, and in 1972, they released "Let's Make Up And Be Friendly." But except
for a very long recitation by Viv Stanshall, "Rawlinson End"--which later
formed the basis for a film--it sounded like a lot of filler.

Roger Ruskin Spear became an art lecturer, Legs Larry Smith is a designer and
Neil Innes has done everything from commercials for chocolate to children's
television. Oh, he's best known for his appearance as one of The Rutles.
Vivian Stanshall became increasingly odd, although he remained a beloved
figure, and he burned to death in a still-mysterious fire on his houseboat on
the Thames in 1995.

GROSS: Rock historian Ed Ward lives in Berlin. He wants to thank Sue Suttle
Taggart(ph) for her help on this piece.

(Soundbite of song)

BONZO DOG DOO-DAH BAND: (Singing) That's ...(unintelligible) on harp. And
representing the choir people, Quasimodo on bells. It's wonderful to hear a
brainiac on banjo. We welcome ...(unintelligible) as himself. The very
appealing Max Jaffa. Mmm, that's nice, Max. What a scene, Zebra Kid and
Horace Batchelor on percussion. A great favorite and a wonderful performer to
all of here, J. Arthur Rank on ...(unintelligible).

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: Coming up, David Edelstein reviews the new film "In America." This is
FRESH AIR.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Review: New movie from director Jim Sheridan, "In America"
TERRY GROSS, host:

"In America" is a new film by the Irish director Jim Sheridan, who's best
known for his films "My Left Foot" and "In the Name of the Father." Now he's
collaborated with two of his daughters to tell a semiautobiographical tale of
an Irish family that moves to New York's Hell's Kitchen to escape the poverty
of their homeland and the memory of a dead child.

DAVID EDELSTEIN reporting:

`When you have a holy thing happening, you don't mess with it.' That's what
the Irish director Jim Sheridan has said about the filming of "In America,"
and watching the movie, I knew what he meant. The film has its clunky notes,
and once or twice it edges into a sort of dopey mysticism. But I didn't mind
the flaws because "In America" captures the essence of a loving family in a
way I've never seen on screen. This is, at times, a very bleak portrait of
economic struggle, of cruel illness and death. And yet, that bleakness is
transfigured by the Afro-centric colors and the joyous filmmaking and the
radiance of these actors.

The movie is Sheridan's love letter to his own family, who came with him to
America in the early '80s where he tried to make it as an actor and a
playwright. In the first scene, the father, played by Paddy Considine, the
mother, played by Samantha Morton, and the two daughters, played by real-life
sister Sarah and Emma Bolger, slip over the border from Canada. They tell
Customs they're on holiday, and the oldest girl uses one of three magic wishes
she claims she has to get them into the country. Then they take a tunnel
under the water into Hell's Kitchen, New York City. They find an apartment
building full of junkies and poor people, and the father tries to find work as
an actor. The Manhattan of Sheridan's movie is neither a magical paradise nor
a brutal hell; it's more like an exotic jungle. When the family enters, the
sprawling but trash-strewn apartment full of pigeons, the girls want to know
if they can keep the birds.

Although the father and mother try desperately to keep them fed and happy, the
girls are lonely and without a community. And they're carrying their parents'
burden of grief over the death of their younger brother, who fell down a
staircase and died of a brain tumor a year earlier. Reportedly, Sheridan
wrote a draft of the story and gave it to his now-grown daughters for advice;
they'd been there, after all. The daughters rewrote it and gave it back to
him, with the character of the father reduced to almost nothing. So Sheridan
decided to split the difference, and that's one of the things that makes the
movie so special, that is has so many distinct points of view. It even has
another eye: the videocamera of the older girl, a budding filmmaker, who gets
closer to people than the more objective camera of the movie's director.
Here's a scene from the middle of the film, after the two girls have been
given a prize at a school Halloween fair for the best homemade costumes;
actually, the only homemade costumes.

(Soundbite of "In America")

Mr. PADDY CONSIDINE: Ah, you can't throw away your prize for best homemade
costume.

Unidentified Girl #1: They made it up because they pity us.

Mr. CONSIDINE: You got it 'cause you're different.

Unidentified Girl #2: We don't want to be different. We want to be the same
as everybody else.

Mr. CONSIDINE: Why would yous want to be the same as everybody else?

Unidentified Girl #2: 'Cause everybody else goes trick-or-treating.

Ms. SAMANTHA MORTON: What's that?

Unidentified Girl #1: It's what they do here for Halloween.

Mr. CONSIDINE: What do you mean, like help a Halloween party?

Unidentified Girl #1: No, not help a Halloween party. You don't ask for help
in America; you demand it. `Trick or treat.' You don't ask; you threaten.

Ms. MORTON: You can't do that in our street.

Unidentified Girl #1: Why not?

Ms. MORTON: Because you can't threaten drug addicts and transvestites,
that's why.

Unidentified Girl #2: What are transvestites?

Unidentified Girl #1: It's a man who dresses up as a woman.

Unidentified Girl #2: For Halloween?

Unidentified Girl #1: No, all the time. All the time.

Unidentified Girl #2: Why?

Unidentified Girl #1: It's just what they do here. OK?

EDELSTEIN: Sheridan has said that on every shot, he let one of the Bolger
sisters call `Action!' and the other `Cut!' and that the two little girls
moved around the backstage world of the movie as if they ran the show. So
it's fitting somehow that the dad in the story comes to seem peripheral. The
father here is sullen and closed down. He's learning from his daughters just
as Sheridan must have learned from his own daughters; learned to let go of
defenses and tricks and to go with the flow. The father on screen learns to
let go of the son who haunts him, because this wife and these girls are here,
irrefutable, pressing endlessly for his attention.

I wish that "In America" didn't get so new agey in spots. There's a sequence
in which Sheridan cuts back and forth between the parents making violent love
during a thunderstorm while their downstairs neighbor, an artist named Mateo,
played by Djimon Hounsou, destroys some of his work and dribbles blood from
his sliced-up hand onto a canvas. He's terminally ill, and we later see the
sequence as the beginning of a transference of his rage for life entering the
couple's new baby, who doesn't look like she's going to make it. That's a
stretch, to say the least, but as Sheridan has said, `There are holy things
happening on screen. In America,' he implies, `anything is possible.' And
through the magic of his filmmaking, he makes it possible in "In America,"
too.

GROSS: David Edelstein is film critic for the online magazine Slate.

(Credits)

GROSS: I'm Terry Gross. All of us at FRESH AIR wish you a happy
Thanksgiving.
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.