Lie Still, Little Bottle
From This Might Be A Wiki
| song name | Lie Still, Little Bottle |
| artist | They Might Be Giants |
| releases | Lincoln, Ana Ng (Single) [UK 12" Release], Then: The Earlier Years |
| year | 1988 |
| first played | February 3, 1987 (331 known performances) |
| run time | 2:06 |
| sung by | John Flansburgh |
Trivia/Info
- John Flansburgh at a 1992 show at the Norddeutscher Rundfunk in Hamburg, Germany:
This song has been commonly misunderstood, this song is called "Lie Still, Little Bottle" and people seem to think it's about alcoholism, but we are family entertainment, and this song is about, uh...amphetamines and barbiturates, actually, so please, don't get the wrong idea. It's fictitious.
- John Linnell would also confirm the song's subject matter in a 1998 interview[1]: "'Lie Still Little Bottle' is a drug song, about pills, which John Flansburgh wrote. Based on research he did in the laboratory, I think - not from any personal experience."
- This song was first introduced live between circa. 1986 and 1987[2], and was performed with Flansburgh banging an amplified tree branch on the stage while Linnell played saxophone. The branch became known as "The Stick" and would be brought out for performances of the song until the 1990s, with it making sporadic appearances until 2024[3], when Flansburgh would bring it out regularly for performances of the song once again.
- The recording of the song heard on Lincoln contains an alternate arrangement not performed live, which was "dissected" from the arrangement of "Sixteen Tons" by Tennessee Ernie Ford. Flansburgh would discuss the construction of this arrangement in 2023 for Everything Sticks Like A Broken Record, a track-by-track breakdown of the Lincoln album featured in Bandbox Issue #103:
When it came time to record it, we knew that the minimal presentation that we did live would not necessarily carry it for the whole song. We actually dissected the arrangement of "16 Tons" by Tennessee Ernie Ford, which is also a song that's essentially wrapped up in a very repetitive bassline and a very slow, unwinding kind of production. We just listened to that song and took sonic elements from it.
- Flansburgh would also discuss this arrangement in response to a Tumblr ask in 2021:
[It was] not based on the groove [of "16 Tons"] − it was the evolution of the instrumentation (starting with just a vocal, a finger snap and walking bass into a brush snare, "shock" clarinet and piano events jumping in) We had previously just done it with the sax and the stick live so the idea was to organize the arrangement into something more dynamic, and "16 Tons" provided that template. (It’s way too fast on the album. What were we thinking!)
- The album recording features Dr. Kenneth Nolan on the drums[4], making it the only song on Lincoln that does not mainly feature a drum machine. Bill Krauss on this choice[5]: "The drum machine worked, and we needed it for almost everything [on Lincoln], but [it] was just gonna be too sterile for ['Lie Still']. I think we really wanted it to feel intimate."
- This song's bridge arrangement is similar to the bridge heard in "I Need Some Lovin'", which was one of the first songs to enter rotation on the Dial-A-Song service[6].
Song Themes
Addiction, Compulsion, Body Parts, Coffee, Colors, Drinking, Drugs, Friendship, Hands, Mind Control, Hypnotism, Recycled Material, Size, Swing Feel
Videos
- Watch it on
- official video
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