✁⋯✃⋯✁ keep the nightlight on inside the birdhouse in your soul ✰

make a little birdhouse in your soul 💤

MAKE A LITTLE BIRDHOUSE IN YOUR SOUL

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26.

more bands should be making songs from the point of view of a child's nightlight. the music scene really died when bands stopped making songs from the point of view of a child's nightlight

make a little birdhouse in your soul

im your only friend im not your only friend but im a little glowing friend but really i'm not actually your friend but i am

I’m your only friend I’m not your only friend but I’m a little glowing friend but really I’m not actually your friend but I am

reposting on account of the anniversary coming up

There's a picture opposite me / Of my primitive ancestry / Which stood on rocky shores / And kept the beaches shipwreck free! / Though I respect that a lot, / I'd be fired if that were my job / After killing Jason off and countless screaming Argonauts!

i know it's a song about a nightlight shaped like a canary but the lyrics "i'm your only friend/ i'm not your only friend/ but i'm your little glowing friend/ but really i'm not actually your friend/ but i am" from birdhouse in your soul by they might be giants are about ghosts to me

Comment section of Birdhouse In Your Soul music video

Elderly British Man: I remember when they played this in morning. BBC radio. Never understood the lyrics but The wife loved it. good old times. ..not a phone in sight. back when men were men

Tiktok user: this sounds like tally hall 💀💀💀

Tmbg pfp: I need to gnaw on John Linnell's twinkish arm until I reach marrow

three differently stylised Black Hole Princes with birdhouse in your soul lyrics

Album ask: Flood by They Might Be Giants. :)

best song on the album: birdhouse in your soul. it's an obvious answer but it's a classic for a reason and it sets the tone for the whole record. i love the sudden dark turn it takes in the last half but the overall gentle and hopeful tone of it. and musically it's basically the platonic ideal of an indie rock song to me.

my favourite song on the album: i'm really partial to 'someone keeps moving my chair'. the lyrics have that whimsical darkness to them that i always love hearing from TMBG. and they're just so funny! so funny in such a banal miserable way.

my least favourite song on the album: why is hot cha on this album.... wait i changed my mind why is letterbox on this album

most overrated song on the album: i like istanbul (not constantinople) but it's criminal that it's the band's big identifying hit for most people

most underrated song on the album: road movie to berlin is a really beautiful love song and nobody ever talks about it. for such a silly band it is genuinely affecting

banger of bangers: they might be giants (boy!) they might be giants (boy!) and what are we gonna do unless they aaaaaaare!

I HAVE A SECRET TO TELL, FROM MY ELECTRICAL WELL!

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@yay-im-a-catgirl

went to see tmbg yesterday and there was someone in front of us wearing a taylor swift tour tshirt; so me and gill are having fun with the hypothetical question of: if Taylor Swift were to cover a They Might Be Giants song, which one would she pick?

so far we have considered:

Twisting- Gill suggested this one on account of it being a bitter break up song; my argument against it was that it feels too rockin’

Narrow Your Eyes- briefly considered for the same reasoning as Twisting, then vetoed because it’d be a lot of work for her to switch the pronouns to be from the perspective of a woman, and we didnt think she’d be up for not switching them

Another First Kiss- this is a pretty saccharine one that doesnt seem hard to change the pronouns on; its biggest problem is being kind of a deep cut on account of Mink Car being a less popular album. Maybe she’d end up there if she told her assistants or producer or whoever helps her make her music to pick a song for her. Around this point was when we started working under the assumption that she is being forced to cover a They Might Be Giants song- her “okay, english major” comment to someone asking her about potential literary allusions in her lyrics makes me pretty sure TMBG would be too nerdy for her tastes. Also im just now realizing that if you switch the pronouns, the song now has a line about the boy walking around wearing all of the girl’s clothes. Taylor feels like more of a “im very heterosexual but i support LGBT people, love is love!!” type ally than a “im comfortable enough in my sexuality to sing a song with a line about appreciating my partner crossdressing”. she cares too much about what other people say about her online to take that kind of risk

Birdhouse In Your Soul - just cover their most famous, poppiest song. easy peasy. i feel like this is the true answer

anyway feel free to contribute to this thought experiment. i know a lot about TMBG and very little about Taylor, so there’s only so much i can really speculate

i respect birdhouse in your soul by they might be giants so much because looking at the lyrics without analyzing them it really feels like it should MEAN something deep, something real, something raw. but it doesn’t. it’s about a nightlight that happens to be a blue canary and that’s literally it. i love that for it

oh my GOD PBS MAKING ME GO INSANE WHAT!!!!!! ok the segment i’m watching called ‘cultivated eccentricity’ (thank you @/vimbry) puts subtitles on their live concert clips of songs and they formatted it “blue canary in the outlet by the lightswitch / who watches over you?” WITH A QUESTION MARK !!!!!

i’ve NEVER thought of it like that…. i always just thought it was phrased like “blue canary….COMMA, [THE ONE] who watches over you” because of the demo that goes “HE watches over you” but oh my god asking who keeps the nightlight while it keeps you makes it mean something entirely else…. like then the little birdhouse in your soul is for the nightlight to find itself a keeper within itself instead of the person making a home for it in their soul…. idk if any of that makes sense but like that’s such an interesting way to phrase the lyric and put a different spin on it