Brian: No, that's not the Brian Lehrer Show theme there. It's a new single from Brooklyn band They Might Be Giants from their newly released book. Wait a minute, a song from a book? Well, it's not just a book. It's also an album of new music all aptly titled BOOK. It features photography and creatively arranged lyrics, and includes a CD of the accompanying songs. Much of the music was written, recorded, and produced during the pandemic lockdown.

The track you just heard, titled Super Cool, is one of the previously released singles off BOOK. Now you can check out the rest of the songs because BOOK is out today. It's big. It's orange. It's really cool. With me now are founding members of They Might Be Giants, John Linnell, and John Flansburgh. Glad you could join us, Johns. Welcome back to WNYC.

John Linnell: Hey, Brian.

John Flansburgh: Hello.

John Linnell: Hey, Brian. Great to talk again.

John Flansburgh: I have to say, going on right after Ask the Mayor is a total mind-blower.

Brian: Now it's Ask They Might Be Giants listeners.

John Linnell: I'm worried that you're going to be as hard-hitting with us.

Brian: Call in with your questions for John Flansburgh and John Linnell, probably not about how e-bikes and regular bikes share the road, but about their new album-

John Flansburgh: What about composting?

Brian: You can ask them about composting or not composting their new album, I would not recommend that anytime soon. Album/ Book or anything else you always wanted to ask They Might Be Giants, but never have them over for dinner. 212-433 WNYC 212-433-9692. Do you want to start for the completely uninitiated, either of you, I'll let you sort out who answers what question, to describe BOOK for our listeners who haven't seen this big, beautiful orange thing yet?

John Linnell: Well, I can start-- Or you can start, John.

John Flansburgh: No, you start, John. I'll start.

John Linnell: We've come out with a new album, and in order to make it tangible to people of all ages, but particularly the elderly like us, we've put it out in physical form so that you can hold it in your hands. It's a 12 inch by 12-inch hardcover book, which is the same size as a vinyl album, I guess.

Brian: I didn't get that. It's like a vinyl album like an album cover. If you have an old Vinyl 33, you can slip it right in there, theoretically.

John Linnell: You could totally fit it. In fact, I think we’re -- Are we not selling a version that has vinyl, Mr. Flansburgh? I think we are.

John Flansburgh: We're selling vinyl that saddles up alongside it, but actually figuring out how to get vinyl made at the same time as a book made was more than we could handle. Basically, the simplest explanation is BOOK is a musical album that has an accompanying book that is like an art book or a coffee table book with beautiful graphic designs, spectacularly weird graphic design, and a photographic folio of a Brooklyn street artist by the name of Brian Carlson, who does really interesting work as well so it’s a collaboration. The book was a collaboration between some very strong New York artistic voices, and They Might Be Giants.

Brian: Let me ask you about the graphic design. Is the design a Paul Sahri? Is that how you say his name?

John Flansburgh: Paul Sahre.

John Linnell: Paul Sahre, yes.

Brian: Sahre, okay, sorry that I said Sahri. It's S-A-H-R-E, so Sahre, Paul Sahre, and it displays your lyrics in the style of concrete poetry, I guess you might call it. It's all one typeface. I also thought it was really cool that it includes, what’s the word, an index of every word that appears in the book, or every word that appears on every song on the CD listed alphabetically. That's really fun. Then you listen to the songs, I've had this experience, then you listen to the songs and some of these words come up and, "Oh, yes, abandoned. That was one of the A words I read that right at the-- There's that word, abandoned, coming up in the song, et cetera, et cetera."

It's all set as if from an early 1970s IBM Selectric typewriter. Why that typeface?

John Linnell: Well, in fact, I guess he used an IBM Selectric typewriter. I think we went and got one off of eBay or something, and he laboriously typed everything out, all Jack Torrance in The Shining in these lovely cascading forums. I think he started to feel like he was Jack Torrance in The Shining at a certain point because he was spending so long doing this basically, crazy thing.

Brian: If I had to pick one cultural reference I thought would not come up in this segment, it would probably have been The Shining. Some of the lyrics on the album reflect the downtrodden and isolated feeling of the pandemic taking place when much of the album was recorded. Let me play a few seconds from the track, I Broke My Own Rule.

[music]

This is as bad, as bad as it gets.

I lost the high ground, lost the high ground

I broke my own, I broke my own rule.

I’ve got not one, no one.

Brian: What rule did you break? What inspired that song?

John Linnell: Well, I feel like we all have little internal rules that other people don't necessarily respect or even know about, that it's very disappointing to realize that you've let something fall away that formerly -- maybe it's a personal thing, I don't know. But I feel like I've spoken to other people who share this weird disappointment, not living up to their own.

Brian: You remind me of things from the bad old days of early in the pandemic when people would form in their pods, like, "Okay, these are the friends and family members we're actually going to hang out with, and we're all going to stay safe, and we're not going to hang out with anybody else." Then somebody goes and picks somebody up at a bar and then has to come home and say, "Well, I had another exposure," that kind of thing?

John Linnell: Yes, we've been going back and forth on this because we were in the studio this week and the whole discussion just broke out where we'd all been wearing masks, and suddenly, somebody was pointing out we've all not only been vaccinated but we got tested that morning because we were being as scrupulous and careful as we can, so why are we needing to wear masks? He was basically voted down, a member of our band, and everyone else just peer pressured him into keeping the mask on.

Brian: You'll be happy to know that John Hodgman just tweeted, “You can ask They Might Be Giants about their new BOOK album or composting on The Brian Lehrer Show right now.”

[laughter]

Brian: Let's see what Mike on the Upper West Side wants to ask you. Hi, Mike. You're on WNYC with They Might Be Giants. The two Johns.

Mike: Morning Johns, and Brian. Thank you for taking my call. Johns, I saw you both for the first time in the late '80s in South London, where I was living then, and I've appreciated your music since then, and wanting to know how you've managed to sustain not only creative working together, but just being together. You've been together longer than I think most marriages and how has that worked?

John Linnell: Well, I suppose a clue is that we stay out of each other's hair. We are actually speaking-- Actually, where are you, Mr. Flansburgh right now? Are you Upstate?

John Flansburgh: I'm in East Harlem. I'm calling from East Harlem, and I will be performing the role of the Ghost of Telephony Past in the segment.

John Linnell: Anyway, we're about 10 miles apart now, which, that works for us. We do a lot of work remotely with one another. On this new album, we've done a lot of collaboration but it's been mostly long-distance. We send materials back and forth. I cannot shower for example and not risk offending my partner.

Brian: Yes, you can do that because you're recording separately. I guess you figured out technology that allowed you to sync up without too much of a delay as you were playing remotely from each other and recording unified track?

John Flansburgh: We're not jamming at the same time. We're really putting songs together on computers and trading off files and things like that. It's a real deep-end collaboration, but--

John Linnell: It's not synchronized.

John Flansburgh: Yes, we're not synchronized with one another. I think in some ways, John and I have always been a little bit like -- It’s I think we’re just a little bit shy of one another in a certain way. I think a little bit of distance makes -- we can do bolder moves when the other one isn't staring at us.

Brian: Yes.

John Linnell: I pass John little notes sometimes.

Brian: Yes. It's like that joke about the retiree who leaves his job and suddenly he's at home all day. His wife has already been at home and she says, "I married- -you for better or for worse, not for lunch.”

John Flansburgh: Correct.

Brian: You try to maintain that standard with each other it sounds like. Let's hear another-- Go ahead.

John Linnell: I would say we miss each other actually. At this point, we've been so isolated that we've gone beyond even our usual shy standard. The whole band is-- we've been complaining that we still hang out on the bus together and complain about culture and politics and stuff and we haven't gotten to do this in more than a year. We're really in withdrawal from that [unintelligible 00:10:37]

Brian: Let's hear another excerpt from the album. This is from the track titled I Lost Thursday.

[music]

I lost Thursday, like it was nothing

That fact is uncontested

I am sleepy

I'm not strong but it--

Brian: Was that about working remotely, and every day was like the same, I Lost Thursday?

John Flansburgh: Yes. That song is actually like a fully direct expression of just the blur that was 2020 for the most part. It's a full-on collabo between me and John. Basically, John gave me a whole bunch of MIDI files, which is this kind of, a file that can trigger musical instruments on your computer. I put a track together and made a song out of it. That was really the best we could do in that moment.

Brian: David in Woodbridge you're on WNYC with John Flansburgh and John Linnell from They Might Be Giants, and their new album and book called BOOK. Hi, David.

David: Hello, all three of you. I respect all three of you to know and for a variety of reasons. [unintelligible 00:12:02] anyone ever do that before? My question for you is do you have any plans for Palindrome day considering your I Palindromes I song from many years ago because there is one coming up on 12/02/2021.

John Linnell: No, actually I wasn't even aware of Palindrome Day coming up.

Brian: Well, I get it. Palindrome Day because 12/02/2021 is the same forwards and backwards.

John Linnell: Exactly. The answer is no, no plannings.

David: Well, start planning now.

Brian: Well, then I guess we'll go right on to Lee in Brooklyn. You're on WNYC. Hi, Lee which backwards is Eel, which is not a palindrome but hi Lee.

[laughter]

Lee: That's true but it is a word at least.

Brian: At least that’s a word.

Lee: I can't believe I'm on air with all three of you. I am in awe of all of you. Brian, I've been thinking about calling your show for a long time. You're an absolute gem. I was just in an argument with somebody talking about you, as an example of journalistic integrity. The John's--

Brian: I don't want to hear the other side of the argument I guess but go ahead.

[laughter]

Lee: I've been a fan for a long time. I guess the personal thing I've always wanted to share with you guys is that growing up, my older brother who unfortunately passed away when I was a kid was really into you guys. He was a very smart, nerdy kid. He, I think like I ended up doing invested, in the fact that you have this playfulness but intricacies at what you do that's really incredible. Now when I'm remembering him often it's through listening to your music and just thinking about how much he loved it and how much I love it.

I have a weird, very niche question if there's time for it, which is probably really silly. I got really into the Then: The Earlier Years compilation. the van, the earlier years compilation. I have this strange theory that the Greek #3 at the end and then a few of the other songs make the whole album a palindrome but that might be a totally-- I think a lot of people, because there's so much weird intricacy and hidden details in your music make some stuff up. I was just curious, do you remember anything about structuring that out? Do you do that kind of thing where the whole album has a certain structure to it or is that--? I don’t know.

John Linnell: I always really appreciate and enjoy hearing the completely unexpected interpretations of how we put our work together. It makes me think, wow, we are so lazy, that we never consider all of the secret hidden messages that we could be putting into what we do, that people are obviously looking for. I feel like a little bit almost like we're letting everybody down.

John Flansburgh: Yes, there Wikipedia that a fan run, Wikipedia site tmbw.net, I think is what it is that has song interpretations. You write a song about a character and you try to make it as colorful as you can. Then you'll read a song interpretation and it's doing this whole Animal Farm second level thing that you're just wondering how they got there exactly. It's like, "Oh, clearly person man is Khrushchev. It's like, "What?"

John Lindell: “I never thought of that but they're right.”

Brian: Hey, you want to say before we went at a time, a little bit about photography because it's really three elements here. We talked a little bit about the typesetting with the IBM Selectric. Of course, there's They Might Be Giants music, but also the Brian Carlson photography. Where does that fit in?

John Flansburgh: Well, yes. Brian Carlson is-- Paul Sahre and I had a couple of very long conversations about how to put this book together. Like a lot of things regarding They Might Be Giants, I think, the things that people have done wrong in the past loomed large in our imaginations. Doing a messy book of rock lyrics was something that did not appeal to us. We knew we wanted photography in the book, art photography in the book. Paul reached out to a friend of his and found a bunch of young Brooklyn photographers. Really Brian's work was the stuff that really spoke out to us the most immediately and directly.

He's a street photographer and there's something about street photography in general, that's egoless, that's interesting. The subject is really, very much in front of you. It's not about the person doing it. Brian obviously spent an incredible amount of time just waiting for things to happen around him. Fortunately, living in a place like Brooklyn, that you probably don't have to wait that long but when you see what he does, and the moments that he captures, it's remarkable. He was very generous and we worked with essentially his entire portfolio of work, putting the book together. He's just a very talented young man.

Brian: With that very talented young man with an up inflection we leave it with John Linnell and John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants. Their new book and album titled BOOK is out today. They've also got a mostly sold-out tour I'm told coming up in 2022. So much fun to have you back on the show. Thank you, guys. Congratulations.

John Linnell: Great to speak to you again, Brian. Thanks for having us.

John Flansburgh: Thanks.

 

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