Bob’s Jukebox: Lincoln

I decided to pull out something random for this week, and I guess it’s true what they say – be careful what you ask for. Strap in kids, it’s gonna get a little bit weird. Our selection for this week is They Might Be Giant’s Lincoln.

I first heard this album back in high school, although it wasn’t the first album I heard by TMBG. That would be Flood, which we’ll get to eventually, I’m sure. I vaguely recall at least some people giving me a rash of shit about not having heard of Lincoln when I was listening to Flood one time, and I don’t know to this day if they actually thought it was a superior album or if they were just proto-hipsters determined to make a big deal about the fact that they liked the band before they were cool. Personally, I preferred Flood then and now, but that’s neither here nor there.

The first thing I notice about Lincoln is that it involves a lot of word play, and not particularly clever word play, so much as weird word play. Not to say there’s isn’t a certain cleverness in the word play, and it does have the quirky rhythm and flow that is unique to TMBG, but the oddity of it seems to lean into “weird for the sake of being weird” rather than “weird because we’re trying to make an artistic statement” or “weird because metaphor be like that, yo”. And I am fully willing to acknowledge two things: first, that not all of the weird word play misses its mark of being satire: “Purple Toupee”, “Pencil Rain”, and “Kiss Me, Son of God” are not exactly subtle satire. But a lack of subtlety does not excuse an overabundance of inanity (and that’s ME saying that).

Before it sounds like I’m trying to completely poo-poo all the “weirder” songs on the album, I enjoy some of the more “out there” songs specifically because they are doing something different, but they aren’t trying to do too much at once. Which is to say, they nicely balance their lyrical explorations with a musical joi de vive and lightness that is missing from those other songs. In particular I’m thinking of “Where Your Eyes Don’t Go”, “The World’s Address”, and “Snowball in Hell”.

“Santa’s Beard” seems to be mean for the sake of being mean. “Ana Ng” and “They’ll Need a Crane” are the stand out songs that are about as close to approachable as I think you’ll find on this album, which honestly isn’t saying much. It seems to be telling that both of these songs are about troubled relationships.

Here’s the thing I’ve found about They Might Be Giants: they’re not the kind of band I can really just sit down and listen to cold. I have to listen to them several times, either all at once or (preferably) over the span of several days or a couple weeks. The first time I hear them I find them annoying and try-hard, college radio holdovers who had a couple of catchy songs that hit big. After I’ve listened a few times, they start to infect my brain, the different musical styles they range across keeping me from comfortably boxing them away and ignoring them long enough to hook me. That gives the lyrics and the music time to remind me that I actually do like them, at least somewhat. They’ll never be my favorite band, nor will I ever understand the fascination some people seem to have with them, but I can still enjoy their music.