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I'll get around to Christmas soon enough, but I did want to close out reporting on the Santa Train visit. Actually, I had pretty well finished the Santa Train visit apart from some small bits of business. For example, when my niece named her snowman ``Blondie'' I pointed out the carrot of his nose, and told her in very brief form the story of how carrots used to be purple, but patriotic Dutch farmers grew orange ones in a burst of patriotic pride. I figure it can't hurt her to sometimes hear from me a story that's utterly ridiculous and yet reasonably true. Plus it gives credence to other odd assertions I might make. I remember also telling her about the Hungry Tiger of Oz, although how we got onto the subject of Oz I don't remember. I do remember my sister-in-law's insistence that I not be too scary. I think the Hungry Tiger has to be maybe less scary than the Cowardly Lion; my niece seemed to like the idea.
Driving back we got to talking about ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
bunny_hugger since that's a very easy subject to get me to talking about. Actually, we moved on to her brother's band and the new album --- they wondered why she hadn't visited when she was out in early November, and I explained that she was only out for a couple days, and one of them was for the album release --- and my sister-in-law wondered what they sounded like. I'm too fantastically illiterate in music to describe A Big Yes And A Small No. In desperation I fell back on: ``they don't like the comparison but do get referred to as sounding like They Might Be Giants, from having intricate lyrics and a generally upbeat sound''. My sister-in-law, it turns out, has no idea what They Might Be Giants sounds like. Possible future music gift: all those children's songs they make.
So. We got around to trying to find their songs through what parts of the Internet mobile phones could access. ``I'm Always Manic When I'm Around You'' was easy to find, and I thought that'd make a fair introduction. My sister-in-law thought it was nice but silly with all that talk about flowers and spinning around and all. (I think she didn't hear the lyrics, really.) The other song we could find was, ah, their one tune with an explicit lyrics warning, and I was hesitant to play that around my niece, since she is at the age to pick up anything modestly inappropriate and repeat it forever.
But my sister-in-law was fearless, and observed that the song calmed her daughter down to napping. She's normally a hard one to get to sleep when there are things like anything to look at, especially in the car. So she proclaimed that A Big Yes had two more fans, and that if they can write songs which calm young children they could win the devotion of every parent ever.
I do not understand parenting at all.
Trivia: The French Academy devoted its 1811 prize to a proof that the five Platonic solids and four recently-noticed shapes were the only three-dimensional shapes which could be built out of identical regular polygons. Source: Symmetry: A Journey Into The Patterns Of Nature, Marcus du Sautoy.
Currently Reading: Fantasy And Science Fiction, January/February 2012, Editor Gordon van Gelder.
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(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-29 06:24 am (UTC)No, no, no! Do not repeat that slander! It's terribly wrong.
"Manic" is not among my favorite Big Yes songs, but it does have this interesting set of lyrics...
When you're born, you cry,
And when you die, you'll find out why.
But I'll laugh next time around:
World without end, I'll live to love you again.
Back before I trailed off and forgot to finish, I was writing a song by song review of the first Big Yes album and here's my post about that song (http://bunny-hugger.livejournal.com/233367.html).
(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-30 04:28 am (UTC)I just want it on the record that I didn't say they sound like They Might Be Giants, but that they get referred to as sounding like They Might Be Giants. Even granting the comparison to be wrong, it communicates something multiple people find useful in giving an understanding of the music's feel. (That said, I don't know what They Might Be Giants song sounds actually close to any A Big Yes And A Small No song, but I have hardly got a full knowledge of Giants songs. Mostly I find them when I need a sciencey song cue for an essay and figure 'lyrics tmbg science-word' will turn up something.)
``Manic'' feels like the most accessibly catchy of their songs, and the lyrics you quote there are a good part of why. They really stick, at least in my head. (So does the opening line, about robbing the bank.)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-31 05:56 am (UTC)That's quite a Wikipediac hair-split you have there.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-01-01 07:55 am (UTC)Well, it is hair-splitting. Can't deny it.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-29 06:59 am (UTC)I thinky ou hit on the two points that AMYAASN have in common with TMBG, but they're rather different in sound to me. I'd roll into "Marimba-infused alt-rock". But I have trouble explaining TMBG to people, except to note "You'd probably know them from the Malcolm in The Middle Theme Song."
(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-29 11:14 am (UTC)That's actually a vibraphone, not a marimba. >:)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-30 04:30 am (UTC)Hm. Well, I'll use ``chamber pop'' in future, although if someone asks me what that term means I'm going to be in trouble all over again.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-30 07:20 pm (UTC)Of course, this requires your audience to know what Pet Sounds is, let alone have heard it.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-01-01 07:57 am (UTC)Hey, even I've got Pet Sounds, so normal people should have no excuse not knowing what it is.
Do you suppose ``Sloop John B'' would be the better-recognized reference, though?
(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-30 04:39 am (UTC)It's worth probing them as a niece gift. I'll pick one or two and see what my sister-in-law thinks of them on YouTube. Have to pick things she won't get really, really, really tired of on the 35th repetition of the day.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-29 01:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-30 04:29 am (UTC)Ah .. wow. BunnyHugger? Don't follow that link. Just trust me.