ARMS

They Might Be Giants - “Ana Ng” (from Lincoln, 1988)

It’s my birthday, and I’ll post what I wanna.

They Might Be Giants are one of those bands I like that I just assume no one else is going to like. It’s just me and TMBG, hangin out, no friends. The thing is, it’s very difficult to get into TMBG if you’re not a pre- or mid-adolescent boy - the older you get, the harder it becomes, until you’re basically lost to these guys if you’re over the age of 16. So I don’t blame you if this post weirds you out a little.

Anyway, I love this song. I tried to force my very first band in high school (made up of people, it should be noted, who didn’t actually play an instruments, but whom i thought would be, if they tried, so i asked them to join my band) to learn how to play “Ana Ng”, not realizing how formally and harmonically complex it is, and it was an utter failure. I listened to this song on headphones maybe a hundred times the year I finally got headphones. It’s upbeat and sad, with surreal, existentially fraught lyrics, an excellent chorus, and a little swell of accordion in the second verse that always gets me a little misty.

Reading those last couple of lines, I realize that when I make music now, I’m kind of just trying to re-write “Ana Ng”.