John Henry is the fifth studio album by American alternative rock band They Might Be Giants. It was released in 1994. It is the first album by They Might Be Giants to include a full band arrangement, rather than synthesized and programmed backing tracks. The album's name, a reference to the man versus machine fable of John Henry, is an allusion to the band's fundamental switch to more conventional instrumentation, especially the newly established use of a human drummer instead of a drum machine.. Retrieved 2012-08-10.
John Henry is TMBG's longest record and was the band's highest-charting adult album, having peaked at #61 on the Billboard 200, until 2011's Join Us, which peaked at #32.[ Billboard.com TMBG chart history]. Retrieved 2012-08-10. In 2013, the album was reissued across a double LP by Asbestos Records.
Lyrical themes The lyrics to the song "AKA Driver" refer to a "NyQuil driver". John Flansburgh offered an explanation of the legal issue with the inclusion of a brand name:tmbg.com John Henry track information.
"I Should Be Allowed to Think" excerpts the first line ("I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving, hysterical") of the poem Howl by Allen Ginsberg. The song is also, according to its author, John Linnell, an example of the use of an "unreliable narrator".Gigantic (A Tale of Two Johns), 2003. Dir. AJ Schnack. "Meet James Ensor" refers to an eccentric Belgian expressionist painter whose works excited John Flansburgh. In an interview, Flansburgh explained that "the line 'Dig him up and shake his hand' is actually very specific – a parallel idea to a lot of his paintings which involve resurrections, skeletons and puppets being animated. [...] With the song, I'm trying to encapsulate the issues of his life – an eccentric guy who became celebrated and was soon left behind as his ideas were taken into the culture and other people became expressionists."Consumable Online interview with John Flansburgh. "Why Must I Be Sad?" is a string of references to Alice Cooper song titles and lyrics, involving several titles from the Billion Dollar Babies album including "No More Mr. Nice Guy," "I Love the Dead," and others.
Appearances in other media Instrumental excerpts from "No One Knows My Plan" and "The End of The Tour" were used as the opening and closing themes, respectively, during the first season of the animated variety show Cartoon Planet in 1995. "No One Knows My Plan" was also used in a 30-second PBS Kids web promo in 2005.
Track listing
Personnel John Henry is the first album credited to They Might Be Giants as a full band, rather than a duo: John Flansburgh – vocals, guitars John Linnell – vocals, keyboards, accordion, saxophones Brian Doherty – drums, percussion Tony Maimone – bass guitar, ukulele Graham Maby – bass guitar on tracks 11 & 14
Additional musicians Robert Quine – guitar solos on tracks 3 & 11 Robin Goldwasser - screaming on track 9 Hudson Shad – vocals on track 10 Steven Bernstein – trumpet
Charts +Chart performance for John HenryChart (1994)Peakposition Australian Albums (ARIA) N.B. The High Point number in the NAT column represents the release's peak on the national chart. 132
References
External links John Henry at This Might Be a Wiki John Henry HyperCard Stack Emulator - A web-based recreation of the band's HyperCard promotional tool