Racking Up Plays: “Canajoharie” by They Might Be Giants
These are the posts where I gush about some song that I’ve got a huge crush on at the moment, and you put up with it and listen because you’re a good friend.
“Canajoharie,” They Might Be Giants
Twenty-nine years. That’s how long They Might Be Giants have been making absurdist nerd rock, beginning back when I was still in my formative geek stage. And if you’re wondering whether the Johns still can still write a popular anthem for the unpopular crowd, look no further than “Canajoharie” off the band’s 15th album, Join Us.
Canajoharie is a small town near the Catskills where John Flansburgh and John Linnell both have vacation homes. The lyrics are classic TMBG, toying with scientific concepts and introducing a narrator who has to reassure his audience, “I’m not insane.” In what I think is a reference to the fossil-rich Canajoharie Gorge, Linnell describes a vision—revealing that this spot in upstate New York is where the first prehistoric amphibian crawled out of the ocean—so vivid that it manifests itself as a giant fin that grabs a hold of his arm. “It was right through those trees … ,” he sings. “That’s where the thing tried to drag me in. Don’t look at me. Look at where I’m pointing”—which is such a hilariously evocative scene: You can’t help but imagine yourself there in the song, glancing at Linnell with a skeptical, cocked eyebrow. Given this is TMBG, it’s no surprise that the song is full of such absurd, amusing little lyrical moments:
- “And if you squint, if you squint your brain … “
- “Where a front flipper first evolved on the day, when a daring mudskipper dragged itself away”
- “I get the creeping feeling all my old friends are gone, and that this baby tooth no longer fits in my skull”
And yet that’s not what I first noticed about the song. It was the music that grabbed me. Linnell has written one damn hooky pop song, full of gratifying chord progressions, a soaring chorus, power chords that recall the band’s best hard-rocking moments on John Henry, and a curious synth solo that’s all ascending dissonance and suspensions—a stirring fit for the song’s epic subject matter.
