For the benefit of Jeri, even though it's definitely not dedicated to her

In a Twitter exchange, it seems that poor Jeri has somehow missed the awesomeness of They Might Be Giants. So this one is for her, but not really. See, while I'd like to put up something from the new record or an intermediate classic like "Why Does The Sun Shine" or "Ana Ng" or "XTC vs. Adam Ant" or even "Man, It's So Loud In Here," given a recent topic of conversation here at Shoulders Of Giant Midgets there's absolutely only one song I could possibly pick. And although it's here for Jeri, it's actually dedicated to Glenn Beck fans.

I think some of you know what this is going to be.

From an '80s episode of Letterman and the album Flood, it's "Your Racist Friend":




Comments

Jeri said…
::blushing:: Thanks for the nondedication. :)

Interesting song - I'll have to listen to more of their stuff. They definitely have a way with words.
Cool stuff. David is holding up an LP, right?
Eric said…
Yeah, it was funny to see him holding up that 12" sleeve. Also funny that he gets the album name wrong--it's just Flood, not "The Flood." It's been such a long time, I'm used to Letterman (or whomever) holding up a little CD case and maybe asking the cameraman to zoom in on it.

The big album sleeves may be the thing I miss most about vinyl, really. You'd open up, say for instance, a Pink Floyd record (e.g. Animals) and there'd be this big gatefold with these nice, visible glossy photos (e.g. of Augie the flying pig over Battersea Station), and an entire inner sleeve of lyrics or credits or more pictures or whatever. Sure, CDs have booklets, and some of them are quite intricate. But there was something more tangible, tactile, somehow, in the experience of peeling cellophane off a 12" disc and opening and unfolding and pulling out the various bits and pieces. I don't think it's just nostalgia, either: I was of the generation in which cassette tapes were an established medium that the labels tried to push really hard, and there was never a tactile experience in opening up a cassette box and possibly unfolding the little insert if the tape came with one of those big accordion-fold lyrics inserts. Cassettes were really less tactile than CDs, even. Opening a cassette was somehow like opening one of those little jars at the doctor's that they give you to put a urine sample in, somehow sterile and dirty at the same time.

Hm. Anyway....

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