Won't You Take a Ride With Me?

August 29, 2010 10:48 AM

They Might be Giants geeks out about electric cars in a new song (slyt)
posted by Glibpaxman (34 comments total)

Don't miss the making of.
posted by buriednexttoyou at 10:50 AM on August 29, 2010

That was very lovely, thanks for posting.
posted by lauratheexplorer at 10:58 AM on August 29, 2010

Interesting. I could have sworn that Here Comes Science had been discussed on the Blue before, but apparently mostly in AskMe threads and buried in this discussion. Not as a main post, however.
posted by hippybear at 11:00 AM on August 29, 2010

Yikes, really? It's an awesome album. There's a ton more videos from it on their youtube channel. Could have made for a real meaty post.

Of course, the fans already knew that. I guess if you're not a fan... check it out?
posted by buriednexttoyou at 11:08 AM on August 29, 2010

"Here Comes Science" - released September 8, 2009. Buy it for you and your kids. Comes with a companion DVD.

I took my kids to the "family" concert last spring. Kinda surreal since the last time I saw them in concert, I was a teen in the 80's. Will the cycle begin anew when their children reach teenage years? I hope for funny songs about borrowing the car and college tuition.
posted by pashdown at 11:22 AM on August 29, 2010

I knew it looked familiar! It's made by the same group who made Something Left, Somthing Taken.
posted by fermezporte at 11:25 AM on August 29, 2010

Much respect to the Johns for not pussyfooting around on that album. The first track makes it very clear:

Science is real
From the Big Bang to DNA
Science is real
From evolution to the Milky Way
I like the stories
About angels, unicorns and elves
Now I like those stories
As much as anybody else
But when I'm seeking knowledge
Either simple or abstract
The facts are with science
Science is real

A scientific theory
Isn't just a hunch or guess
It's more like a question
That's been put through a lot of tests
And when a theory emerges
Consistent with the facts
The proof is with science
The truth is with science
Science is real

Kids need to hear that, not this "teach the controversy" crap.

"Q: Your lyrics talk about evolution being real and how stories about angels and unicorns are just that, stories. Did you worry that this might alienate some listeners?

A: John Flansburgh took the bull by the horns by writing that song and addressing that situation, which is that religion cannot take the place of science. It's not something you can tiptoe around. It's important that everybody gets what the discussion is about. If we're talking about the history of Earth, we can't rely on religious tradition to tell us all the information. He says it in the song: as beautiful as the stories are, they don't tell us everything we need to know. It's an old complaint on the part of scientists, but it bears repeating."

- excerpt from an interview in Nature, 8/27/09

posted by Robin Kestrel at 11:58 AM on August 29, 2010 [3 favorites]

I have this DVD, and my 2-year old loves it. Her favorite song is Roy "G. Biv", because they mention her name.

"Science is Real" gently explains why a "theory" is more than a guess. "I am a Paleontologist" is probably the best song about paleontologists written in the last few years. "My Brother the Ape" takes on evolution in a catchy, lighthearted way. "Why does the sun really shine?" corrects an earlier song in which they assert the "sun is a mass of incandescent gas," noting that it's more like a miasma of plasma. The original is from the 1950's, actually, so they're not entirely to blame.
posted by swift at 12:04 PM on August 29, 2010

More on topic, Here Comes Science is the best thing I ever got my son, and it amuses me to see a song from the album referred to as "new". It feels like we've been listening to it for years now, although that might be because we *have* been listening to Here Comes the ABCs, Here Comes the 123s, and No! for years.
posted by crawl at 12:20 PM on August 29, 2010

Yeah, when I saw their t-shirt for "Science is Real" and saw that it was based on the old Louvin Bros. album cover, it took me a minute to look past the cheeky pop culture reference and see that it was actually kinda genuinely subversive. I'm really impressed by their approach to the issue.
posted by anazgnos at 12:30 PM on August 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

"Oooh look at me, I'm still all cutesy wacky despite the fact that I've been doing this for decades"

I'm a big fan of TMBG (and still am), but I have to admit that their music for kids seems pretty boring and apparently now also preachy-boring, which is even worse.
posted by washburn at 12:49 PM on August 29, 2010

[A couple comments removed. If you dislike a band so much that you feel like exhorting people to light them on fire, you may just want to like skip threads about them and stuff, yeah?]
posted by cortex at 1:06 PM on August 29, 2010 [3 favorites]

Well, that song's gonna be stuck in my head for a few days now.
posted by TDavis at 1:23 PM on August 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Well, that song's gonna be stuck in my head for a few days now.

If you really want to get rid of that earworm, I have an alternate I can suggest to drive it out.
posted by hippybear at 1:32 PM on August 29, 2010

My favorite TMBG Kids earworm: The Seven Days of the Week

See also: the End Theme to their thoroughly charming Friday Night Family Podcast (RSS) which includes videos from all their kid releases with wraparounds from John & John in puppet/cartoon form.
posted by unsupervised at 1:57 PM on August 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Cute overload Robot Parade.
posted by Splunge at 2:08 PM on August 29, 2010

We sing Meet the Elements to our one year old every night as we put him to bed.
posted by JonahBlack at 2:56 PM on August 29, 2010

My three year old woke me up once by poking me and repeating "Science is real, daddy, science is real..." and even though he just wanted to listen to the song, as opposed to having an actual epiphany, it was pretty jarring to hear.
posted by umbú at 3:28 PM on August 29, 2010 [2 favorites]

Y'all are missing what is by far the best video from that album, far better than "Science is Real," Put it to the Test. (Scott Pilgrim eat your retro heart out.)
posted by straight at 3:29 PM on August 29, 2010

I found it to be boring and sounds a lot like a commercial.
posted by Malice at 3:36 PM on August 29, 2010

That's a great video, but far from the best song on the album (or even the best album of the 3 intended-for-kids ones so far).
posted by DU at 5:22 PM on August 29, 2010

We sing Meet the Elements...

PLANTS, BUGS,
BIRDS, FISH,
BACTERIA,
AND MAN
ARE MOSTLY
CARBON,
HYDROGEN,
NITROGEN,
AAAAAND OXYGEN
posted by DU at 5:24 PM on August 29, 2010

I found it to be boring and sounds a lot like a commercial.

Maybe it's not obvious: this music is meant for children, not sad and jaded old people.
posted by swift at 5:35 PM on August 29, 2010 [10 favorites]

Great memories of bopping along to TMBG in the car with my ex. She was a huge fan and put me onto them. But I have to side with Malice on my reaction to the song.

The other one I listened to, Science is Real, sounded way too forced. Like a cheesy jingle for a pro-science advertisement, or worse.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 6:25 PM on August 29, 2010

Maybe it's not obvious: this music is meant for children, not sad and jaded old people.

Woops and sorry. Not sad and jaded - I'm claiming the "not obvious" defense. As someone has said above, the FPP could have been a lot meatier. Maybe included the line "have released a children's album," hmm?
posted by uncanny hengeman at 6:28 PM on August 29, 2010

Just taking a mental note of the 6 dickheads who favourited swift's overly nasty over reaction.

Woops, on preview, 7 favourites.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 10:57 PM on August 29, 2010

old people

I should have mentioned it was also an ageist comment. Awesome post. Totally awesome, swift.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 10:59 PM on August 29, 2010

I was never a big TMBG fan back in the day, but my son (now five) LOVES them to the point that when they played a 16+ show at a venue right by his pre-K, I had to travel there by a different route when TMBG's name was on the marquee so he didn't get sad that he couldn't go.

We got 'Here Comes Science' last summer, when he was four, and as a lover of dinosaurs and the solar system, he glommed onto it even more than the 'ABCs' and '123s' albums. I think it was directly responsible for him becoming totally fascinated by the periodic table. And it's party because of that that we decided to apply for him to go to the local science magnet school, where he starts kindergarten in a few weeks ... so TMBG changed his life! (Maybe.)
posted by lisa g at 11:27 PM on August 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Our son is three and has already been to two They Might be Giants family concerts with us. He went through a phase where we had to listen to "I am a Paleontologist" on repeat whenever we were at home. Despite that, I still think that song and "Meet the Elements" are the jewels of Here Come Science.

Electric Car is not my favorite song on that album, but I think it subliminally convinced my wife to buy a Prius.
posted by Jugwine at 6:29 AM on August 30, 2010 [1 favorite]

Here Comes Science was in my top 50 albums of 2009. And I am a jaded hipster.

When I no longer want to relisten to my TMBG archive, you all have the right to put a bullet in my brain because life will officially not be worth living.
posted by Theta States at 8:00 AM on August 30, 2010

Just taking a mental note of the 6 dickheads who favourited swift's overly nasty over reaction.

Who wants a hug?
posted by swift at 8:05 AM on August 30, 2010

As far as the songs on the album go, "What is a Shooting Star?" is the most fun to sing in a round with your kids, and "I Am a Paleontologist" is the one my kids most want to listen to over and over.

And coming back to videos, the official animated video they put on the album for The Bloodmobile is well done, but my heart goes out to this excellent pastiche of the old Schoolhouse Rock videos that seems to have been done for the Franklin Institute's heart exhibit.

And while I like this album, I agree that the ABCs and 123s albums are much better.
posted by straight at 9:06 AM on August 30, 2010

oops 123 was supposed to link to the song "Seven."
posted by straight at 9:09 AM on August 30, 2010

My kid (four yo) currently loves C is for Conifers. Yesterday we parked under a white pine, and I said, "hey, look! It's got needles for leaves and cones for seeds. What kind of tree is this?" He dutifully yelled out "It's a conifer!"

I shouldn't be surprised, I guess. I often sang "Mammal" to him while doing kangaroo care stints while he was still in NICU.
posted by norm at 9:22 AM on August 30, 2010