John Flansburgh: They Might Be Giants Memories

TRANSCRIPT BEGINS

I Couldn't Throw It Out podcast
Season 2, Episode 1 - They Might Be Giants' John Flansburgh

Michael Small:
Hello, I'm Michael Small, co-host of the podcast I Couldn't Throw It Out.  We are so lucky to kick off our second season with a very special guest -- John Flansburgh of the band They Might Be Giants.  I've been saving lots of stuff about them since 1985, when I reviewed the Giant's first demo tape in People Magazine. So John agreed – very generously -- to help me throw it all out.  Until we hit a problem.   

John Flansburgh:
I like how your show about throwing things away is really just affirming that you're not gonna get rid of anything.

Michael Small:
Uh oh.  I'm lucky that guy is brilliant.  Because he did find a way to reduce my stash.  Just a little bit.  And you'll hear about it starting now…

[Song excerpt starts]

I couldn't throw it out
I had to scream and shout  
Before I turn to dust
I've got to throw it out
Before I turn to dust 
I've got to throw it out

[Song excerpt ends]

Michael Small:
Hello, John Flansbergh.

John Flansburgh:
Hello, Michael Small.

Michael Small:
I want to welcome you and I am so happy to see you.

John Flansburgh:
I'm so happy to see you too. I have nothing but fond memories of all our exchanges in the mid-80s. 

Michael Small:
And that reminds me that when I first heard your first demo tape, I was listening on a Walkman

John Flansburgh:
Sure.

Michael Small:
And people were like, whoa, what's that? What's that machine you're listening on? You are so young and advanced.

John Flansburgh:
Yeah, well, you were, it sounds like you were kind of a, like a hip-hop kid yourself. So you were rocking drum machines in every direction.

Michael Small:
Well, all I was doing was appreciating other people doing it.

John Flansburgh:
Uh-huh. In a very timely fashion, it should be said though.

Michael Small:
Well, I want to get to how we first met. But first I have to tell you what we need to do today. And I'm a little bit afraid of it because what we have to do is often quite painful for me. Usually I'm joined by my co-host Sally Libby and she couldn't make it today. Alas. So I'm begging you to stand into her role. 

John Flansburgh:
Oh,okay,

Michael Small:
And you have to help with this wicked process, which is that this is a podcast where we try to get rid of the very special treasures I've saved for decades.

John Flansburgh:
So this is like, this is the art of Michael Small's death cleaning.

Michael Small:
Yeah, kind of. 
John Flansburgh:
I'm ready to chip in.  Let's go.

Michael Small:
Now there's one other thing I dread, full of dread today and joy -- and that is that your presence in all of its inspiring beauty makes me think that I am ashamed of a few things that I did or said and I would like to beg for your forgiveness during this hour and see if you will absolve me of these things. It was at the point where when your sideband Mono Puff put out a song called Backstabbing Liar...

John Flansburgh:
Mm-hmm.

Michael Small:
I thought it was about me.

John Flansburgh:
Oh my goodness.

Michael Small:
Not really.

John Flansburgh:
We can talk about who it was about.

Michael Small:
Well, that will be interesting at some point. You'll see there are things that I did that I just am not proud of and I want to be proud of everything in front of you. So we'll get to that. 

John Flansburgh:
Okay.

Michael Small:
Because this is so challenging, I want to delay for a minute and, and I want to put the focus on you for a minute and on They Might Be Giants, your band with John Linnell. And I think you know what you have done, but I want to wallow in it.

John Flansburgh:
Okay.

Michael Small:
And I want to go through it. And if you hear anything that's inaccurate, you need to correct me. I have studied this a little and I want to say it because I don't know if you'd be too modest. So.

John Flansburgh:
Well, I don't think I've been accused of being too modest too much in my life. It might be a refreshing change of pace.

Michael Small:
Here we go. Now it's been 38 years I believe since your first demo tape.

John Flansburgh:
I guess that's right.  Yep, yep.

MMichael Small:
And They Might Be Giants has released more than 40 albums. 

John Flansburgh:
Yeah, yeah.  Well, I'm not trying to be modest here. If one just counts like, you know, regular studio albums, I think we have 19 proper albums. And then there's some compilations that are like B-side compilations but and then live stuff, EPs. Yeah, we got a ton
of albums. We got a ton of albums.

Michael Small:
If anyone doesn't understand this, I don't know what other bands released so many albums. I looked at Elvis Costello, and I think that you have about the same or more. And remember, he started his career seven years before you. 

John Flansburgh:
Right.  Why is he being so  slow? Why is he working so slow? Let's get Elvis on the phone.  I mean, this brings just this to me brings up an interesting topic, which is I don't think it's that important that people put out a lot of stuff. I don't even know what the victory of it is.

Michael Small:
See? I told you you were modest. You just didn't know it. We're revealing new things about you. There are I believe 450 songs of yours on Apple Music. 

John Flansburgh:
Wow.

Michael Small:
450! Along with that - not just volume. You've written award-winning albums for kids about science, numbers, and the alphabet. 

John Flansburgh:
Yep.

Michael Small:
You won a Grammy for the theme song to the TV show, Malcolm in the Middle.

John Flansburgh:
Yep. 

Michael Small:
You wrote a song for SpongeBob, the musical on Broadway. You've been on Broadway,

John Flansburgh:
And got a Tony nomination for that.

Michael Small:
Whoa. Okay, I didn't have that on my list.

John Flansburgh:
Got to sit next to TI at the Tony's.

Michael Small:
Okay. There you go. That's just the songs that you've put on albums. You you you had a Dial-a-song phone line with a new song every day for I don't know how long. How long did that go? 

John Flansburgh:
Oh, forever. We were too scared to stop it at the point that it was of very marginal cultural interest.

Michael Small:
And a podcast where you also sang new songs. Why did you stop the podcast?

John Flansburgh:
I think we were going out on tour for a really long time and it was just too hard to keep up with. That tends to be the reason that things end in our lives is that the touring takes over.

Michael Small:
Also, you've been probably classified, I think people call you indie rock. But you've actually from the start recorded in an endless number of styles. Jazz, country, electronica. I thought I heard a hip-hop song, kind of. 

John Flansburgh:
Well, we work with drum machines a lot. So the hip-hop... I mean, in a way our production has always been very informed by hip-hop production. I mean, John and I both landed back in New York City. John's from New York originally, but like we both ended up, started in New York in the early eighties. And the sound of drum machines was just everywhere. And it was just the most interesting kind of place to be culturally. So... Yeah, I think especially when we started, everything was informed by drum machines. So yeah, there's a hip-hop crossover.

Michael Small:
Now you play the guitar. What else do you...

John Flansburgh:
I program a lot of drums and program a lot of stuff. So it's like I'm doing a lot of digital music production.

Michael Small:
And John Linnell. Is it bass saxophone? Is that right?

John Flansburgh:
He plays a lot of saxophones and accordion and keyboards. He's like one of those guys who can like, just jump up on the bandstand start playing the drums really well and it's like very intimidating.

Michael Small:
Okay, so then I'm also blown away by your fascination with words and with  the sounds of words. Some of the words I learned by listening to your songs include... cloissonne, cephalophores, duende, apophenia.

John Flansburgh:
Right. 

Michael Small:
Wow,  your ability with language blows me away. But you're also a graphic designer. You contribute to the design of your many album covers.

John Flansburgh:
Mm-hmm.

Michael Small:
So you got the music, you got the words. You got the visuals. You got the package. I mean, unbelievable.

John Flansburgh:
Michael, we gotta have dinner with my mom sometimes.  So she can...

Michael Small:
I'm not done because you and your friends created extremely imaginative music videos.

John Flansburgh:
Yeah.

Michael Small:
And Rip Torn was in one of them.

John Flansburgh:
Yes, he was!

Michael Small:
Okay. I would say one of my all-time favorite music videos, you may not, this may surprise you because it's not one of the most famous ones, is the video you did for the song Older.

John Flansburgh:
Oh right. For ABC.

Michael Small:
Oh. Everyone who is listening to this should go to YouTube. They Might Be Giants. Older. Watch that. You will not regret it.

John Flansburgh:
Oh,interesting.  Wow. You've been tracking us.

Michael Small:
Now, meanwhile, I haven't even gotten to your fans. I like to think of myself more as a friend than a fan because it soothes my ego. 

John Flansburgh:
Mm-hmm.

Michael Small:
But you have a truly astounding and huge online wiki. with details about every single word or note you ever wrote. And I'm assuming fans contribute to that.

John Flansburgh:
That's all fan stuff, yeah.

Michael Small:
Oh my God.

John Flansburgh:
It's so helpful for us, because we have so much, it's so hard to keep track of how things have gone, and it's very nice.

Michael Small:
These people are geniuses, some of them. I read it and I'm like, whoa, I missed the whole thing. 

John Flansburgh:
Yeah.

Michael Small:
I think that all of this adds up to the fact that your career is un-freaking believable. Not just because you accomplished so much in one lifetime, and in a single lifetime, not more than one lifetime. You only had one so far. But that you and John Linnell never gave up on quality. I tried to prepare today by listening to every song on Apple Music. 

John Flansburgh:
Oh my God.

Michael Small:
It took me awhile. There was one album I didn't like as much as the others, and I'm not even gonna say what it was. But there was no bad phase.

John Flansburgh:
Oh, interesting.

Michael Small:
What there are is inventive new directions, year after year. Daring to try new things, to say new things, to have new insights. Do you want to argue with that?

John Flansburgh:
You know, I want to just bask in the glory that is this kind of praise because the truth is we started the band as an experiment and I think that is an ambitious thing to do and it has drained us. You know, it has been a never-ending challenge to keep up with our own kind of abstract idea of what a band could be. And it's just been a huge challenge. So like, it feels nice to think that it's been fruitful. I'm very curious about this album you didn't like. Did you not like it because it was kind of harsh? Did it seem like sort of brittle or did it seem like drinking coffee grounds?
 
Michael Small:
No, no, no, no, no, it just didn't...

John Flansburgh:
Because there's one album of ours that I feel like is very bitter sort of sonically and it's very edgy, it's just hard on the ears.

Michael Small:
I'm willing to tell you which one it was, although any fans listening to this will probably stalk me...

John Flansburgh:
Well, no no.

Michael Small:
But this didn't have those catchy things for me in it. And the album was Nanobots.

John Flansburgh:
Oh, interesting. 

Michael Small:
I'm sorry. 

John Flansburgh:
Yeah, there's gotta be one thing that doesn't connect in there. Or it wouldn't be real.

Michael Small:
So anyway, now it's real. Let's get to the present. Your 2021 album called Book...

John Flansburgh:
Yes.

Michael Small:
...is not only one of the best of the albums you made, and by the way, two songs, Moonbeam Rays and I Broke My Own Rule. Everyone go to Apple Music or wherever you go, Spotify, Moonbeam Rays, I Broke My Own Rule, listen to those. But it also comes with this 140 page book, which I've only seen pictures of...

John Flansburgh:
Mmm.

Michael Small:
...designer Paul Sahre, photographer Brian Karlsson. They illustrate your lyrics. It looks amazing. And it was nominated for a Grammy for best box set.

John Flansburgh:
The honorary Rhino Records Grammy.

Michael Small:
And now you had a sold-out US tour this summer, which included opening for Sparks at the Hollywood Bowl. And where are you touring this fall?

 John Flansburgh:
Australia and across Ireland and across the UK.

Michael Small:
After summing all that up, my question is, is there a secret to how you keep at it and stay so productive? Like how do you do it? Do you ever get exhausted?

John Flansburgh:
Oh, I'm exhausted almost all the time. I'm a little bit exhausted right now. It's a good question. I have to say, I did go to art school and I learned a lot in art school. I really took a lot of what I learned there to heart in terms of how to apply yourself and how to focus. I went to Pratt in the very early 80s. 

Michael Small:
I remember, that's when I knew you.

John Flansburgh:
Yeah, you would take these drawing classes that would be all day drawing classes, you know, and the second half of the class would be a two-hour, two-and-a-half hour, three-hour drawing, where you would just be working on one drawing for three hours. And for somebody who was raised on television and kind of raised in the sort of attention-deficit culture that we all grew up in, it's almost like art school taught me that if you want to be struck by lightning, maybe you just have to sit on the hill, wait for the clouds to come, and then the lightning starts and then you'll get hit by lightning. You know, so it's like, it just makes you realize it's not gonna take forever. Like the clouds will come, the storm will start, the lightning will happen, and then you'll get hit by lightning. You just have to wait it out. And like a lot of things just take time. Like writing a song, this doesn't necessarily take forever. If you know how to do it, you can write a song. And part of it is, you want to write songs that are good songs. So it's like you kind of have to work on that too. You know, I'm lucky that my musical partner and I are not like, drug addicts, or like have like huge personality disorders that have kind of taken us away from what we're doing.  

Michael Small:
That leads to a few other questions.Do  you have any tips for other people or anything to say about how you and John Linnell have worked together so many years and been able to keep the collaboration going?

John Flansburgh:
I think the part that's impossible to measure is that we had a shared history as friends. We had seen rock shows together as teenagers and all this stuff that might be more typical of people who are like brothers or sisters share. So we came at what we were doing with a shared aesthetic and also in some ways like a shared cultural sensibility. It might be hard to imagine the guys in They Might Be Giants as being like DIY punk rockers, but we saw a ton of small-time bands in Boston play. And then with, you know, sort of interjected with a lot of small-time bands out of CBGB that were coming on their first shows outside of New York, and all those bands would go on to become legendary New Wave bands. But at the time, you're just sitting in the Rat with like 40 people watching these bands. Going through that with John kind of informed a lot of decisions we made later on. We bicker in the way that people bicker who've been around each other for a long time, but we don't really argue about big stuff because we tend to agree on  all the big stuff, which is nice.

Michael Small:
Going back to another thing you said, songwriting. I'm assuming there's a variety of ways you write songs, but do you tend to do lyrics before music, music before lyrics, or just 50-50?

John Flansburgh:
You know, this sort of circles back to what I was saying about the experimental nature of, and maybe kind of for me, the art-school-informed nature of our endeavor. Both John and I kind of come at things from as many different directions as we can possibly imagine. At times we'll like, you know, solicit the other one for something -- lyrics or sounds or chord progressions or bass lines or drum beats or whatever, just to kind of see what happens. There isn't just a way to write a song. Ultimately it's that even in spite of all those experimental prompts or starts, it ends up kind of being the same process because the end result is like what you want to write is like a durable, interesting, hopefully memorable song.

Michael Small:
I'm assuming once again that the lyrics come from a lot of different sources. Is it accurate to say that sometimes the lyrics come from a word that interests you?

John Flansburgh:
Oh, sure. I mean, I did a song with John called, Hate the Villanelle. The lyric is in the form of a villanelle, which is a very odd, I guess, "don't go darkly into that strange..."  What is it? \

Michael Small:
Oh, "Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

John Flansburgh:
Yes, yes, is that Dylan Thomas?

Michael Small:
Uh, sounds like it.

John Flansburgh:
I'm looking it up, fact checking myself. Yeah, Dylan Thomas.

John Flansburgh:
That's probably the most famous villanelle but because the word villanelle is so extraordinary in what it suggests. And the fact that it's an actual poetic form was just too hard to resist. And so I sort of set to writing a villanelle in that form. And it was, you know, there were times when it felt a little bit like homework, because it's a fully structured set of syllables and a fully structured set of rhymes that you can't just go like, "Oh, this is the way I'd do it." You know, it's like writing a sonnet or writing any kind of set form of poetry. You got to stick to the rules. There's no skipping out on the rules. But that was definitely like the genesis of it. 

Michael Small:
Liking the sound of the word villanelle.

John Flansburgh:
Oh, exactly. But then when I finished the actual poem,  it was kind of more than I could handle. And then I just handed it off to John. Because I was just like, "Can you just do something with this? Because it's sort of overwhelming to me." And then  the first thing he'd ever seen was this completed verse in a very complicated form. And he's like, "Oh, this isreally interesting. I could do this."

Michael Small:
Do dreams ever come into your lyrics?

John Flansburgh:
Not that often. I think we talk about dreams more than we actually use the content of dreams.

Michael Small:
And is one of you really into sci-fi,  or both of you?

John Flansburgh:
I don't think either of us are really into sci-fi.

Michael Small:
Oh that's weird. I feel like there's a sci-fi element in some of your songs. What about cats? One of you into cats?

John Flansburgh:
I have two cats that I love to bits, and John has two dogs that I think he has mixed feelings about.

Michael Small:
"Beat up the cat if you need someone else on the mat..."

John Flansburgh:
Oh, that's straight up John Linnell. 

Michael Small:
I feel like despite the fact that you are gregarious and open, that you're both somewhat private. I mean, you're protective of your privacy. At least that's what I picked up.

John Flansburgh:
Mm-hmm.

Michael Small:
Yet you're constantly in the public where you chose a career that's in the public. How do you make that work? Is that a struggle for you? Do you have rules that the two of you agreed on?

John Flansburgh:
Well, you know, in the beginning when rock music was very different, in a pre-rock video age, we were talking about essentially being a faceless band. Like we didn't put our photographs on our records too much. And I think, I think our, initially we were thinking like maybe we would never put our pictures on the records. But then when rock video came along, it was like rock personas were a really important part of just branding or whatever identifying an act and kind of just having an identity as an act. So we got sort of dragged into that but um... we made that we made the best of that. I don't know. Our biggest protective strategy is that we we kind of pretend we live in a world where They Might Be Giants doesn't exist at all. To me, like, I have a very hard time thinking of us having any place in the culture. When people describe us, it doesn't seem like that's what we're doing. I don't... I'm always surprised when anybody knows who we are. 

Michael Small:
Ha ha.

John Flansburgh:
And then at a certain point what's weird is that you kind of become like Burl Ives, or something. For a lot of people, we've been around their entire lives. There's a whole generation of people who grew up with our children's music and then got into our adult music, and it's just like this background.

Michael Small:
Another thing that I love about They Might Be Giants is despite the fact that there's this sort of Ogden Nash kind of just the beautiful sound of words, all that stuff, there are some touching and very intimate songs that are about the challenges of relationships. The most famous one is "Don't Let Start."

John Flansburgh:
Mm-hmm.

Michael Small:
"I've Got a Match," "Unrelated Thing" I love. I'm just curious, did these songs just come out of the air? Or is there some, do you occasionally, either of you, reveal personal things?

John Flansburgh:
Well, I mean, the songs you're talking about are really like these early, there's a clutch of early songs from the desk of John Linnell that really introduced sort of a next level personal aspect to our discography. And they're incredible songs. I mean, the song "She's an Angel" is like one of the... is such a beautiful song that John wrote years ago. And it kind of opened the door to a kind of songwriting that I don't think I would have necessarily felt confident enough about. And I've just been sort of drafting in off of his lead since then. And, you know, hopefully, held my own in that department. And what's
interesting is when you get a songwriter like John, you really get the impression like, it's not his first impulse to share.

Michael Small:
No.

John Flansburgh:
So you feel like you're really kind of being let in on the inside of something, you know, a fair bit more important and intimate. 

Michael Small:
That's a wonderful way of putting it. Thank you. That's exactly what I felt, and you validated me.

John Flansburgh:
Ah.

Michael Small:
I feel wonderful. Now, there's a lot of humor in your songs.

John Flansburgh:
Yep.

Michael:
I've laughed a lot. But the biggest belly laugh that I got was when I listened to the children's albums. And you did a song that I think got heard a lot, which was a cover of a children's song called "The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas."

John Flansburgh:
All right, yeah.

Michael Small:
And then I laughed, like I mean really, like I could not stop laughing when I heard that you released a sequel to that song called "Why Does the Sun Really Shine?"

John Flansburgh:
Right.

Michael Small:
And can you talk just a little bit about that scientific controversy?

John Flansburgh:
I think the main takeaway from our whole experience with that is that science is an endless, ever- expanding inquiry. And there's really no end to it once you kind of open that door. 

Michael Small:
Did you get people pushing back when you released the first song?

John Flansburgh:
When you do anything that's fact-based, whether you mean to or not, you're sort of the de facto expert. And of course, when other people know much more about something that you're talking about, it's really hard for them to listen to some phony expert say something that they clearly don't know very much about. In the case of "Why Does the Sun Shine?", the lyrics -- it's a cover song from an educational record that was made for children in the early sixties by a folk artist and a professional songwriter. And it was sort of like if you were a progressive, MIT dad or mom, you would get these records for your kids. They made an album of science songs. "Why Does the Sun Shine" is on that record. And we covered it essentially as kind of a piece of camp early on in our career, because we knew so many people would maybe recognize it. And they would certainly recognize the tone. You know, the Baby Boom stuff, they kind of invented that nutrition-added children's entertainment idea. And the song is kind of tortured in that way. It's a tuneful song, but it keeps on feeding you information whether you like it or not. And of course, the lyrics of the song are stolen directly from like the Golden Book Encyclopedia.

Michael Small:
Ahhh.

John Flansburgh:
Half the science in it is essentially out of date. So people would always 
be saying, "Well, that song you're singing, you say those are the facts, but it's actually... those are the facts from 1955 and we know a lot more about it now.

Michael Small:
I want to quote your lyrics which you wrote. You wrote in your new song that made me laugh so hard, you wrote, "Forget that song, they got it wrong, that thesis has been rendered invalid."

John Flansburgh:
Yes, that is a hard thing to...

Michael Small:
...to put into a song!

John Flansburgh:
Yes.

Michael Small:
And it's a great song.

John Flansburgh:
We've got a healthy shoehorn to shove those lyrics into a melody.

John Flansburgh:
But you know, the truth is, it's like even that song is not quite right. I mean, there's like the second verse of that song sort of skitters off and starts hitting the guard rails of legitimacy, so.

Michael Small:
Oh, you're destroying the minds of young children. Now...

John Flansburgh:
I know.

Michael Small:
I want to make sure we get to throwing things out, but I wanna say, I'm glad you're alive and here. If you could just briefly tell us what happened to you a year ago.

John Flansburgh:
Well, I mean, long story short, I got hit by...  I was coming home from our very first show after COVID. We'd done this beautiful show. It was really extraordinarily life-affirming playing at the Bowery Ballroom in New York City. And the band was, everyone was there and the audience was all masked up and it was feeling very safe and kind of like a beautiful time. And I'm driving home. in like the slowest, most serene Uber of my life. The driver's actually driving the speed limit in New York, which is 25 miles an hour. W e came out of a blind intersection and our car got t-boned by a drunk driver. I had no idea how fast his vehicle was going, but it was going fast enough to actually, it hit us, he T-boned us as we were coming through the intersection and flipped our minivan on its side and then pushed the minivan all the way across the street into the sidewalk and me and the driver were just like, tumbling around like cucumbers in a salad. And I broke all the ribs on one side of my body and had like multiple fractured ribs. It's been explained to me that it was actually a much more serious accident than I realized. You know like when it happened at first. I was I was like, "Well, I'm okay. I'll just, you know, I'm a little sore, but I'll do the show in DC tomorrow, you know, I'll be fine. And like the doctor was like, "Yeah, I don't think you're really gonna be going anywhere. And so I was in the hospital for a week and I was in bed for a couple of months, but you know, I'm alive.

Michael Small:
Are you okay now?

John Flansburgh:
I'm okay, you know, I'm like so many people who have accidents, that part of the struggle is sort of living with pain. T hat's one of those things that's just like a little bit more tedious than you wish it was. 

Michael Small:
And you still have pain?

John Flansburgh:
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Michael Small:
Oh man.

John Flansburgh:
E very day it's a little bit, a little less crummy. 

Michael Small:
Uh.

John Flansburgh:
Listen, I'm very grateful to be alive. And, you know, it was a weird, very weird interval in my life, for sure.

Michael Small:
You aren't kidding.

John Flansburgh:
I appreciate your empathy.

Michael Small:
I am very happy you're here and sorry you went through that. And, and now I'm sorry about what you're going to have to go through now.

John Flansburgh:
Let's do it.  I'm looking forward to it.

Michael Small:
Okay. So I can't delay any longer. Here is a treasure. The idea is that if we tell the stories behind these things that maybe the objects can be passed on.

John Flansburgh:
Of course.

Michael Small:
And I don't have to cling to them.

John Flansburgh:
Yep.

Michael Small:
Here's a treasure. Now you see it's framed.

John Flansburgh:
Oh my goodness, there you go.  Beautiful.

Michael Small:
My wife Cindy, who is a wonderful artist, got me a They Might Be Giants calendar in 2017.

John Flansburgh:
Uh-huh.

Michael Small:
And we were writing in things like Book Group at Janny's, you know, things like that. And then we came to June 30th. 

John Flansburgh:
Mm-hmm.

Michael Small:
And this is what we saw, written permanently on every single calendar for that date.  It said:  "The 1985 demo tape is reviewed in People Magazine by Michael Small. The review is often cited as the band's first large-scale exposure, earning them the attention they needed to secure a record deal with Bar None.

John Flansburgh:
Right .

Michael Small:
You put this on the calendar or somebody did, that was so incredibly nice. And this is our treasure. Cindy added sparkles and stars and fireworks around that date. We hang it on our wall and don't even start in with me, we're not throwing it out. So go away about that one. 

John Flansburgh:
I would never throw that out if I were you.

Michael Small:
While we're at it, Cindy was doing some book art, and she made this book, and it turns out that it's a Kurt Vonnegut book and she inserted a little wooden bird in a wooden birdhouse on the cover and it says Little Birdhouse in Your Soul.

John Flansburgh:
Oh,that's beautiful.

Michael Small:
So it was inspired by the They Might Be Giants song with that title.  And then she illustrated the inside, writing over the text, painting over the text, and it's a sort of journal of our lives -- often with birds, 'cause it's the "birdhouse in our soul." And this also hangs on the wall. And, you know, no way, no way is that gonna be thrown away ever.

John Flansburgh:
I like how your show about throwing things away is really just affirming that you're not gonna get rid of anything.

Michael Small:
You've figured out my secret.

John Flansburgh:
Yes, yes.  Well if it brings you joy, I think it's...

Michael Small:
Okay. I'll put this on for a second. This I'm also not throwing away. This is a They Might Be Giants hat, green, yellow-striped with a pom pom. And it says Person Man on it. Cindy gave me this for a birthday.

John Flansburgh:
You're killing me, man. It's beautiful.

Michael Small:
It's been used a little over much. It a little bit needs washing, but I don't want to wash it because it's my treasure. And I was walking through the suburbs. And I walked past a girl who looked like she was about 12.

John Flansburgh:
Uh-huh.

Michael Small:
And she said, "Like your hat!" And I said, it's from the band, They Might Be Giants. You need to go online and watch. And she looked at me like, "You old man, go away!"

John Flansburgh:
"You seem a little crazy, sir."  Well, you know, first of all, that hat is synthetic, so there's absolutely no problem.

Michael Small:
Oh.

John Flansburgh:
Just put it in the sink, put a little Woolite or even a little dish soap in warm water. You can wash that out and it'll be dry in 15 minutes.

Michael Small:
Hmmm...

John Flansburgh:
But you know, about the Kurt Vonnegut, my high school friend, Jimmy Mack, he lived in his parents' attic. And when you were talking about book art, making art with books... in his attic, he had some of his father's stuff, and including this collage. It was probably the size of a paperback, or just a little bit bigger than a paperback. And it  was a piece of collage art that was the actual art, not a reproduction of the collage, that somebody had put together and we didn't really know what it was. And then we figured out it was a friend of Jimmy's dad who had worked for a New York publisher as an illustrator. And he had done the covers to all the Kurt Vonnegut books. And this piece of artwork actually was the cover of God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. So when you pulled out a Kurt Vonnegut book, I was like, "Now I have like two connections to Kurt Vonnegut."

Michael Small:
And that was somewhat coincidental.  Cindy picked Kurt Vonnegut because she liked the look of the binding.

John Flansburgh:
Oh.
Michael Small:
Anyway, this is where we get into the semi-weird. Do you see this tape?

John Flansburgh:
Oh yeah, I recognize that stamp, yup.

Michael Small:
This is the demo tape that I reviewed in People Magazine in 1985.

John Flansburgh:
Oh, excellent,

Michael Small:
This is the tape. That's the way I save things.

John Flansburgh:
Oh yeah.

Michael Small:
Over here, this is the actual review that I wrote in 1985, which I saved.

John Flansburgh:
Right.
 
Michael Small:
I don't want your head to get too big. I've saved every review I ever wrote.

John Flansburgh:
Does that have a photograph oof us on the other side?  Or is it just a straight review?

Michael Small:
Ah yes.  But there you are. There's the photo.

John Flansburgh:
Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. What is the date on that? 

Michael Small:
1985. It was June.

John Flansburgh:
I'm trying to think of... I had a really great job right out of college doing paste up at MacMillan,  in publishing. And then one of the articles in People, I'm not sure if it was the first
one or the second one... I had basically gotten let go from my first really good job and then like a lot of people, you know, when you lose a good job, you're kind of scrambling around. And I worked for, for Scholastic, which was terrible,
literally working in a closet. Worked for Simon Schuster, which was okay. And then I ended up working at Random House. And that was like the all-time nadir of my experience.

Michael Small:
Hahaha!

John Flansburgh:
But you know, I was just a freelancer. So like freelancing back then was kind of a tough thing. But I had a boss, she was  very cruel. She's very like a very cruel boss. F rom the jump, she was really mad at me. I told her I had a night job, which I don't think she believed at all. But in fact, They Might Be Giants was playing all the time and we were rehearsing every night. So I didn't want to be called on to do overnight last minute deadline things for Random House as a freelancer and not be able to do gigs or like have them interfere with my ability to do gigs. So I said like, I can only work days. It didn't seem like so unreasonable. And when one of your reviews came out, I came to my desk at Random House at 10 a.m. and on my desk was an open copy of the People magazine with the photograph of me like facing up and I was just like, what's this? And it was just on the newsstand that week. And then like my boss comes in and she's like, "John, we have to talk."  I basically lost my job. She was so furious.

Michael Small:
Because of me!

John Flansburgh:
Yeah.

Michael Small:
Ohhh.  I'm sorry!

Michael Small:
I'm sorry

John Flansburgh:
She was like, "You lied to me." And I was like, "I didn't lie to you." You know, it's like, "You said you had a second job." It's like, "I do."  And what's funny is that this is like, this is very much at the very end of my freelancing life. Like I only had one job really after that. So. And then I became like a full-time professional musician in a band that would become like my life's work. It's not like when I said like I had a second job, I wasn't really lying. Like I actually, I knew that there would be a penalty if I said I was in a rock band. I was definitely in the straight world and couldn't  just be upfront about it.

Michael Small:
Wow.

John Flansburgh:
But she was not having it.

Michael Small:
Wow. I ruined your...

John Flansburgh:
Well, you know, one door closes, another one opens, Michael.


Michael Small:
I guess so. Did you ever, when you were younger, think, I'm going to be a musician, that'll be my career? 

John Flansburgh:
No, no, I thought maybe I'd be a DJ.

Michael Small:
Well, you can DJ your own music endlessly. So do you think there's any fan groups who might want these?

John Flansburgh:
I think you could get $100 in one hour putting that on eBay.

Michael Small:
I don't want $100. I want it to go to somebody who, I mean, of course, you want to send me $100, I'll take it. But I want it to go, like, is there anybody who would preserve it? The Wiki people?

John Flansburgh:
I'm sure the Wiki people have other, they seem to have other copies of it, but I would love to, I would love, love, love to take a photograph of that before you get rid of it.

Michael Small:
Can I send it to you? Would you take it?

John Flansburgh:
Please, absolutely.

Michael Small:
Okay, that's the best. 

John Flansburgh:
I'll do everything I can with it.

Michael Small:
Okay.  I'm sending that. I'll get your address later.

John Flansburgh:
Yeah, yeah.  Send it Fedex.

Michael Small:
Yeah. I also have this cassette where you wrote to me, "To Michael, Thanks for the start in show business. You are rockin', John Flansburgh, TMBG." And this is a copy of an advanced cassette of "John Henry."

John Flansburgh:
Oh sweet!

Michael Small:
I can't throw... I don't know, I don't think this can go to anybody else.

John Flansburgh:
Personal messages from me, those can't be thrown away. Ha ha

Michael Small:
I'm being cremated. So this will go with me. Okay, so look, I'm sending one thing to you, that's progress.

John Flansburgh:
Do you have a storage space, Mike?

Michael Small:
We have an attic now. But, you know, someone's gonna come in and throw it all out. I don't, I can't take that. Now here we get to an apology. Okay, we're at apology level where  I'm gonna reveal the secret sauce behind record reviewing. It was on my third They Might Be Giants review. And the editor said to me, 'We're not in the business of being a publicity firm for They Might Be Giants. Either write a review where you say what's good and bad. Or stop."

John Flansburgh:
Oh wow. Tough love.

Michael Small:
But I was such an amateur. I didn't have confidence or knowledge about what a reviewer should do. So I put in something mean because I was told to.

John Flansburgh:
That's great. Let it rip, let it rip.

Michael Small:
Okay, here's what I wrote.

John Flansburgh:
"Not as funny as they think they are."

Michael Small:
"Flansburgh's vocals can slip into a slightly grating stray cat mode." And here's the thing, here's the worst part of it:  I could not really tell your voices apart. Even though your voices are different, there's a quality where there's a similarity.

John Flansburgh:
Mm-hmm.

Michael Small:
And I am not sure that I was referring to you. I think I might have been referring to John Linnell.

John Flansburgh:
I'm  trying to think of the straight cat part. Do

Michael Small:
(Stray cat noise)

John Flansburgh:
Oh no, no, no, I get it, I get it.

Michael Small:
Will you accept my apology?

John Flansburgh:
I'm just trying to process all this. Of course I'll accept your apology. You don't need to apologize. There's nothing to apologize for.

Michael Small:
But that was terrible to put it in because an editor...

John Flansburgh:
That's not true. You know, if you're writing critically, you should just like let it rip. Let it rip. I think it's good to be, just be as mean... everybody loves it when people are real.

Michael Small:
But I wasn't being... it's so amateurish to put it in because an editor...

John Flansburgh:
It's weird that it was imposed by the editor, but you know, they just wanted to keep you going.

Michael Small:
And I selected you. But anyway, next, we have this review I wrote for Mademoiselle.

John Flansburgh:
Uh huh.

Michael Small:
They called you goofballs. I did not use the word goofballs.

John Flansburgh:
Right.

Michael Small:
And... and they put the word "silly" in front of synthesizers. I did not put the word "silly" in there. After that, I called Glenn Morrow. Do you remember him?

John Flansburgh:
Sure, of course.

Michael Small:
And I said, "How do I get in touch with John Flansburgh?" He told me the only way to find you was to fax you.

John Flansburgh:
Uh-huh.

Michael Small:
I don't know if you received this fax, but in case you didn't I want to say this to you now. Ostensibly, the fax was meant to tell you how much we enjoyed your San Francisco concert. But at the end, I get to the real purpose.  This is what I wrote:

I hope you didn't see my Mademoiselle review of your new record. I was between editors and the in-between editor cut some details  and added some adjectives that I don't want to claim. And furthermore, my dog ate it.

John Flansburgh:
Ha ha! Michael, it's all good, it's all good.

Michael Small:
Oh, this is such a relief. 

John Flansburgh:
I think you should throw that fax away. What does that say, Michael?

Michael Small:
It's a note from John Flansburgh. It

John Flansburgh:
Uh-huh.

Michael Small:
And it's beautifully written by like, a graphic artist.

John Flansburgh:
Uh-huh.

Michael Small:
And it's got a nice signature. It says, "How are you? I hope this actually gets to you. We are doing great. Hope to see you this fall. John F."

John Flansburgh:
Well, that's super nice. Clearly, the silly synthesizer thing did not stick.

Michael Small:
Okay, so this and the cassette will go into the cremation with me.

John Flansburgh:
Okay.

Michael Small:
Now here's an invitation to Mono Puff Syndicate, Thursday, February 5th. It says: "Hello, Michael."

John Flansburgh:
Oh yeah, there you go.

Michael Small:
Do the Wiki people want this?

John Flansburgh:
you go, there you go. Probably. Oh, look at that. And opening with Double Dong. That was an extraordinary act. Double Dong. See, you've collected, like, sweet things. This is like all very tasty. I mean, like, some of them are personal, but also... Do you have? Is your attic filled? Are you a hoarder? Is it a crisis?

Michael Small:
No it's curated, greatly curated. There's someone I live with who happens to be my beloved wife. We act like I'm the person who collects the most and I can't believe I'm saying this on the podcast, but I believe that her art supplies take up more space than what I've saved.

John Flansburgh:
Right.

Michael Small:
And Cindy, I didn't really say that. But anyway. One reason why I hate to give these things up is that you went out, you created all these songs with John Linnell, you created all this beauty, this fascinating mind-bending stuff. And my big claim to fame is that I spotted you first. 

John Flansburgh:
But it was a very, very, you know, just speaking as somebody who was there, like I gotta say, like it was a life-changing career-altering kind of recognition in part because you had a very clear idea of what we were doing and framed us in a very smart way with what you said about us. But also that you were working for such a high visibility national magazine, ended up being... it was like lashing a Saturn V rocket onto the back of a very small and stoppable force.

Michael Small:
One of the things I wrote in that review was this pop rock duo is bound for greater glory, which was correct. And the worst thing though is that I had to, you know, I was really into puns. At the end of Elvis Costello's "King of America," I said, "He may not be the King of America, but he's the most honored knight of our round turntable."

John Flansburgh:
Ah!

Michael Small:
I was into those things. But with the end of yours, I put, "These guys should definitely change their name. It won't be long before they really are giants."

John Flansburgh:
Well, that's another first.

Michael Small:
Amateur.

John Flansburgh:
Well, people have been playing on the name forever, so it just  comes with the territory.

Michael Small:
So now I've got more apologies. Do you have five more minutes?

John Flansburgh:
Yes, absolutely.

Michael Small:
In 1996, you came to San Francisco. I interviewed you for Hotwired, the website for Wired Magazine. 

John Flansburgh:
Right, right.

Michael Small:
It was really cool. Websites were new then. We had an online audio interview.  I have the tape. Of course, you're not surprised. And I might put it up where people can hear it, because you were really good. But at the time, this was a startup crazy internet environment. 

John Flansburgh:
Right.

Michael Small:
I gotta see if you remember this. We did a good interview, and then I was driving you somewhere afterwards, and I... broke into this huge rant about, "I can't do my editorial things I wanna do and it's all about money and they're not thinking about this. These people don't know what they're doing!" A nd I ranted like crazy. And you, I could see you recoil like, "Ooh, you know, okay, just, yeah." And afterwards I thought, "Oh my God, I'm such an idiot. This guy is gonna go on stage now. He does not need to hear my rant."   And so I want to say, I'm sorry if I scared you. I'm sorry that I get so wound up about stupid things. I never should have cared.

John Flansburgh:
Were we driving over like the bridge in San Francisco or something?

Michael Small:
I don't know, I was driving you to the concert or something. I don't know.

John Flansburgh:
Uh-huh.

Michael Small:
We then went to the concert and to top it off, you were so freaking generous in front of all those people, including people I knew from work. You said we dedicate not just this concert, but our career to Michael Small.

John Flansburgh:
Well there you go!

Michael Small:
After I was such an asshole.

John Flansburgh:
Oh, that's not being an asshole. Complaining about somebody, you know, that's not being an asshole. You know, people gotta vent.

Michael Small:
Wow, wow, that's generous. That is generous.

John Flansburgh:
It's not that generous. We're all just human beings, you know? Just doing what we can.

Michael Small:
I've been walking around with this weight. Okay, so I have one last apology for you.

John Flansburgh:
It's gonna be okay.

Michael Small:
Oh good! I made you laugh.

John Flansburgh:
Yes!

Michael Small:
I'm so happy,

John Flansburgh:
What are you talkin' about? I've been laughing the whole time!

Michael Small:
Okay. My biggest apology of all, this is a bad thing. I was getting into the internet. I did the internet for 27 years. 

John Flansburgh:
Uh-huh.

Michael Small:
And by the way, when I left NBC News which was my last job, they did a Michael Small exam where they said, "What is his favorite band?" And they all guessed They Might Be Giants.

John Flansburgh:
Oh, there you go.  Oh, that's beautiful.

Michael Small:
I know, it was beautiful. And they're
wonderful people that I worked with there. I miss them so much, but I'm glad I'm retired. So anyway, I was so wrapped up in all that that I stopped listening. I thought that They Might Be Giants was making kids music.

John Flansburgh:
Oh sure.

Michael Small:
And until I prepared for this interview, I stopped listening. And I want to say that, as I said, I tried to listen to all 450 songs. I might have missed a few. Every night when I did the dishes and when I was driving, whenever. But I've got to bring up to people, if you stopped listening to They Might Be Giants with the album Flood, you must listen to this playlist I put together that I'm putting on our website at throwitoutpodcast.com. I want to tell you the song, "The Cap'm" is one of my favorites, "The Mesopotamians," "Madam, I Challenge You to a Duel,"

John Flansburgh:
Nice.

Michael Small:
Love that title. "Let Me Tell You About My Operation," which sounds like Bobby Darin.

John Flansburgh:
Yeah, yeah.

Michael Small:
"Wicked Little Critta" -- which nobody gets Boston accents right. And you guys did. It's the best Boston accent. I played it for my whole family. And in "Nine Secret Steps" you even have lyrics about throwing things out.

John Flansburgh:
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I'm, you know, both John and I are big thrower outers in our families.

Michael Small:
Whoa,

John Flansburgh:
We run a clean ship.

Michael Small:
Whoa. Well, let me just quote what you wrote. You wrote, "Throw away the thing that tells you not to throw the thing away/You'll forget to rue the day you went ahead and threw the thing away."

John Flansburgh:
Yep.

Michael Small:
Love it. And I just really feel like you've done wonderful work. So I hope you'll accept my apology. I didn't listen. For years!

John Flansburgh:
This show should be, "Michael Small apologizes." It's like this has been more of a therapeutic apology session than throwing things out.

Michael Small;
And so I just want to say thank you so much, John Flansburgh, for being with us. Everyone, you can find that wonderful playlist of They Might Be Giant songs on the page for this episode at throwitoutpodcast.com. Please follow the podcast, if you will, on Instagram and Twitter at throwitoutpod. And if you go to Apple podcasts and give us a good review, a positive review, you will also be sort of, you know, giving a positive review...

John Flansburgh:
Five star!  Five star review!

Michael Small:
You will also be giving a positive review to John Flansburgh.

John Flansburgh:
Yeah, please

Michael Small:
We'd really appreciate that. And Sally will be back for the next episode. She is so sad she missed talking to John. However, she wants you to know her brother-in-law worked with your father, who's an architect, right?

John Flansburgh:
Oh really?

Michael Small:
Yeah, and he said your father's a wonderful architect and an inspiring person.

John Flansburgh:
Oh, fantastic.

Michael Small:
So your generosity in taking time off from your tour to talk to me and all of us is so greatly appreciated.

John Flansburgh:
Of course.

Michael Small:
And now we get to listen to our theme song performed by Boots Kamp, Jen Ayers and Don Rauf, who is the leader of another great indie band Life in a Blender.

John Flansburgh:
Oh yeah!

Michael Small
Thank you so much!

John Flansburgh:
Michael, always a pleasure.

Michael Small:
It was really fun.

John Flansburgh:
See you soon, Michael. Bye-bye.

[Theme song begins]

I Couldn't Throw It Out theme song
Performed by Don Rauf, Boots Kamp and Jen Ayers
Written by Don Rauf and Michael Small
Produced and arranged by Boots Kamp

Look up that stairway
To my big attic
Am I a hoarder
Or am I a fanatic?

Decades of stories
Memories stacked
There is a redolence
Of some irrelevant facts

Well, I couldn't throw it out
I had to scream and shout
It all seems so unjust
But still I know I must
Before I turn to dust
I've got to throw it out
Before I turn to dust
I've got to throw it out

Well I couldn't throw it out
Oh, I couldn't throw it out

I'll sort through my possessions
In these painful sessions
I guess this is what it's about
The poems, cards and papers
The moldy musty vapors
I just gotta sort it out

Well I couldn't throw it out
Well I couldn't throw it out
Oh, I couldn't throw it out
I couldn't throw it out

[Theme song ends]

END TRANSCRIPT