kung fu grippe

They Might Be Giants - “They’ll Need a Crane” (Lincoln, 1988)

Inarguably, a fantastic song. But, wow. Talk about some candy-coated misery.

Linnell has such a genius for writing these incredibly sad songs that, at least on the surface, don’t sound incredibly sad.

But, once you actually listen, of course, you can see they’re ironic little short stories about a life falling apart.

Seems to me that, with Linnell’s adenoidal crooning as the perfect presentation medium, the distant tone and absence of mawkishness make everything feel twice as brutal.

The truth is, no one finds sad people all that interesting. But, sad robots and sad puppets and sad night lites — all of whom have no idea how sad they really are?

Man, that is Literature.¹

Viz.:

Don’t call me at work again
No, no, the boss still hates me
I’m just tired and I don’t love you anymore
And there’s a restaurant we should check out
Where the other nightmare people like to go
I mean nice people—Baby, wait!—
I didn’t mean to say, “nightmare”

Lad looks at other gals
Gal thinks Jim Beam is handsomer than lad
He isn’t bad.

Call off the wedding band
Nobody wants to hear that one again
Play that again

They’ll need a crane
They’ll need a crane
To take the house he built for her apart
To make it break
It’s gonna take
A metal ball hung from a chain

They’ll need a crane
They’ll need a crane

I mean, come on. Fucking ouch.

Addendum @ 2010-08-22_12-02-03

valerie2776:

“As far as I’m concerned, for what we do, it’s not interesting just to publicly cry, you know? It’s not—it doesn’t even have the effect of making me sad if somebody else is doing that. I think the thing that’s really sad is when somebody represents some kind of inner sadness in some other way.” - Linnell

And, there you have it. Thanks, Valerie!