So last month we were about to post this little fun They Might Be Giants song when world events cast a bit of a pall on stuff. So we did a different TMBG song instead. Anyway, one month and a bit on, perhaps there’s enough headspace for us to indulge in this little bit of nonsense for a couple of minutes. So join us as we go on down to Cowtown – a song that dates back to something like 1977, according to writers John Linnell and John Flansburgh, and predates They Might Be Giants as a band! It was released in 1988 on the album “Lincoln”, where we did not go to film the video (boooo!). However, the video was filmed in quite a few places – see if you can figure out all the wheres!

For the technically curious, the scream sound in the original is apparently “SCREAM2” from the Fairlight CMI library – we only had “SCREAM5” to hand, so that’s why it’s different. 😉

Also, see if you can spot all the things that are not cows.

For your delectation, we had a super-cheerful They Might Be Giants cover ready to go this month (Nov 2024), but then suddenly the atmosphere in the room changed, and it didn’t seem to fit the mood any more. Unfortunate, but maybe another time. Coincidentally, one of us went to see TMBG live in Glasgow on 5th November and they closed their show with a song from their 2011 album, “Join Us”. Knocked it out of the park.

This song was just the thing to fill our TMBG-shaped hole. Recorded a couple of days ago, and filmed last night and this morning, it’s a bit of a rapid-fire offering. Under those circumstances we’re sure you’ll forgive us. Musical arrangement by O; vocals by A & O. Putting it off no longer, please join us as we ask the important question first posed by Messrs Linnell and Flansburgh over thirteen years ago.

This one’s been a long time coming – recorded last year, we finally got a video made last week after managing to be in the same place at the same time for the first time in nearly a year. In a nod to the original, it’s a one-take video with two cameras (the original used three!), but features no dungarees.

Please join us in sunny Massachusetts for our cover of this classic duet originally sung by Elton John and Kiki Dee, and written by himself and Bernie Taupin.

It’s 1986 and this Andy Partridge-penned number, inspired by a series of children’s books of the same name which he considered exploitative, appeared as the B-side of the band’s single, “Grass”. He wasn’t completely happy with the lyrics, and didn’t include it on the album “Skylarking”, however when college radio in the USA picked up the B-side (with perhaps predictably controversial consequences over there) it was rapidly added to the album’s pressings.

Nearly 40 years on, it’s great to see that all the arguing, fighting and forcing of ideals upon others is now a weird anecdote of history, right?

Our cover was started a year or two ago – we finally got to the vocals earlier in the summer; enjoy (or take offence at) our take on this rant from XTC!

A song about how things change and nothing’s quite how it was before – and no matter how we want to turn back time, and return to the normality we once knew, more often than not we have to make the most of where we are now. It’s been a mad few months for us, which have had us wishing we could find our way back to the ordinary world! Started in October last year (which might give some indication of how mad it’s been), here’s our take on Duran Duran’s 1992 comeback hit.

There was a meme going around last week that pointed out how the maximum length of totality for yesterday’s North American total solar eclipse was roughly the same length as the Radio Edit of Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart” … and that “you know what to do!” So we did!

However, the “Radio Edit” is only 4 minutes-odd long, and the full song tops out at over 7 minutes. So naturally, we had to go for the full audio experience with our hastily crafted cover of the 1983 smash, written by Jim Steinman, and originally sung by Bonnie Tyler. We also made the shorter mix for those who don’t have the time for all those other verses! 😉

In 2007, a new edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary omitted forty words, all names of common plants and animals, that had apparently fallen so far out of use by children that they no longer warranted inclusion. The “lost” words included acorn, fern, heron, kingfisher, newt, otter, wren, and willow. New words were included in their place: blog, broadband, bullet-point, cut-and-paste, and voicemail.

This inspired author Robert MacFarlane and Illustrator Jackie Morris to create the book “The Lost Words,” a book of “spells” intended to restore these words to our collective vocabulary by restoring their names and forms to our collective consciousness. That book, in turn, inspired a collective of musicians to create the album “Spell Songs,” all featuring the lost words.

This song, “The Lost Words Blessing,” takes its form from traditional Scottish Gaelic folk songs, in particular a type of Scottish incantation called Carmina Gadelica, and it struck us as the perfect benediction for the new year. Each year incurs loss, forgetting, leaving or being left behind. So here’s a song of restoration, of calling back to you what has been lost, of allowing yourself to remember that outside the gray box, there is simple magic that is always available to you, as a creature who is both in this world, and of it.

Here’s to a peaceful new year.

Those who saw our cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Boxer” will recall Andrea’s star turn as Paul Simon at the end – well we’ve scooted forward a decade and a half or so for her to reprise the role in this cover of “You Can Call Me Al” from his solo album Graceland. And if you’ve seen the original video for this song, you can probably predict what’s coming visually. If you have not, then … this will be confusing, and references to Chevy Chase will be lost on you. Anyway, come along and be our long-lost pals as we attempt our living-room version of this 1986 classic.

(Stick around for the bloopers!)

Hallowe’en nearly-frights in this cover of They Might Be Giant’s short and scary “Aaa”. Who is that hiding underneath the blanket? What does that button do?