They Might Be Giants
Why?
(Lojinx)
IF your knowledge of 1980s indie oddballs They Might Be Giants starts and ends with their 1989 hit Birdhouse In Your Soul then you still know pretty much all you need to: a ludicrously catchy pop song, its apparently whimsical lyrics cover a deceptively complex conceit, and the same can be said for pretty much everything else they've written since.
As well as their “adult” albums they've also been churning out songs for children for the last decade, a fact which brought them to Celtic Connections last month for one of their “family concerts”. Why? is the latest such collection.
Some songs cater to childlike flights of fancy, such as I Am Invisible (self-explanatory, really) and Omnicorn, which presents us with a beast rarer than a unicorn and possessed of every possible type of horn. Others, like Oh You Did, are parent-child conversations and some, like And Mom And Kid, are subtly educational (it relates the many and varied kinds of family unit and was written for a TV programme about diversity). But whatever the approach, they're all clever, funny, tuneful and heartfelt. Sure, it helps if you have kids of your own, but there are plenty around who do - more than enough to keep the Brooklynites in work for many years yet.
Barry Didcock
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