Join Us: My favourite tracks (so far!)

Join Us has been on almost continuous play on the iPods of many fans including my own (when I can wrestle it back from my Mum - see last 'Pinwheels' blogpost!) since it came out last month.


I've so enjoyed seeing other TMBG-oholics lists of their favourite songs from the new album in order from favourite to least favourite. I'm never that good deciding between things I enjoy - typical dithering Nine-with-a-one-wing! It can vary from day to day. I see all sides to every argument. And then weigh it all up again!


This album certainly seems to me to be the best of the lads' albums to date for listening to all the tracks right through without being tempted to skip any (comparative!) turkeys. John Flansburgh's songwriting has improved endlessly over the span of their career, and he can certainly now hold his own in the company of John Linnell's fantastic melding of lyrics, rhythms, melodies and harmonies, evident from their earliest days.


So here goes. No tracks I dislike or skip. Many that are stuck in my head and bring a warm glow when ever the opening notes strike up.


I know this list is quite different from many others I've seen from other fans. For instance, I've yet to hear anybody raving about one of my very favourites 'Let Your Hair Hang Down'. It actually brought a lump to my throat and tears to my eyes for the sincerity and yearning in Linnell's voice at some points, the first time I heard it. It has a similar effect on me to "Broke in Two" and "Withered Hope" for some reason. Linnell insisting none of the songs reflect him in any way, but my gut somehow telling me there are tiny crumbs of him hidden deep in certain songs, that make them almost unbearably moving to a softie like yours truly.

Anyway, here are the tracks in the order I love them at this moment (please feel free to wade in with your own comments and points of view if you want to!):


JOIN US: Favourite track through to least favourite (for now!)


1. Canajoharie


2. The Lady and the Tiger


3. Let Your Hair Hang Down

4. You Probably Get That A Lot


5. Can't Keep Johnny Down


6. Cloisonné


7. When Will You Die?


8. Celebration


9. Spoiler Alert

10. Never Knew Love


11. Protagonist


12. You Don't Like Me

13. In Fact 

14. Judy Is Your Viet Nam

15. Three Might Be Duende


16. Old Pine Box


17. Dog Walker


18. 2082




Mmmmm! Now again I'm not so sure! How can those last few find themselves at the bottom of any list? It feels wrong already! 


A Linnell song at the bottom? Well, for the record I LOVE '2082'. It's just that I wonder if Linnell took his foot off the pedal just that tiny squidgeon with it, the way I feel about "Stalk of Wheat" (do I really feel that?????)
IDEK!


I love this album from start to finish and back again, so it's irrelevant really what order I put them in. None of them is ever going to be far from my heart!


Hope you enjoy it as much as I do and are already debating over your own personal favourites! Or if you're not yet a fan, maybe contemplating giving the album a spin?

They Might Be Giants' "Tubthumping" cover brings a smile to my day!

They Might Be Giants covers Chumbawamba


No apologies for blogging today about my favourite band who can always bring a smile to my day.


TMBG always put life's craziness into perspective for me with their integrity, sense of the absurd, fascinating and irresistibly earwormish musicality, combined with their ethos of fun, exploring the fine line between sadness and joy, laugh and scream.


 And so much more, as fans already know! All this, as well as new generations of kids being taught the alphabet, numbers and science singing along to their amazingly catchy and informative children's songs.


Can't wait for their all-original new album "Join Us" out on the 19th. Tubthumping won't be on it, of course, (this is just them having a blast enjoying the challenge of covering a song they didn't have to write themselves!) but their own wonderfully intricate, clever, funny, thoughtful, life-enhancing stuff will!


Previews, to give us a taster of treats to come can be heard here, courtesy of Amazon.com:


30 sec previews of TMBG's new album "Join Us" out July 19th


Hope this brings a smile to you today also! Enjoy!

*By the way, 'Pinwheels', which was my first experimental blog, has become a real mix of stuff over the years. That's why slowly, I'm trying to start new bloglets to focus on the many different passions in my life! For those who are happy to share my unrepentant fangirling, (too late to hope I'll grow out of it, folks!) most of my TMBG/music/comedy etc obsessive stuff for pure light relief appears now on Tumblr:
http://cardedfolderol.tumblr.com/ 
There I'm aka "(Dis)carded Folderol", a nom de plume which,  for the (lamentably) uninitiated, is taken from a line in John Linnell's sublime TMBG song "Metal Detector" from their album "Factory Showroom". Fair warning: Here be allsorts!