Rhythm Section Want Ad
From This Might Be A Wiki
| song name | Rhythm Section Want Ad |
| artist | They Might Be Giants |
| releases | They Might Be Giants, Then: The Earlier Years, Podcast 52 |
| year | 1986 |
| first played | March 1, 1985 (90 known performances) |
| run time | 2:22 |
| sung by | John Linnell; John Flansburgh provides harmonies and backing vocals |
Trivia/Info
- The bridge of this song interpolates Raymond Scott's 1937 instrumental "Powerhouse". The composition is best remembered as the "assembly line" motif often used in Carl Stalling's musical scores for Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. John Linnell explained in a 1994 TMBG Info Club newsletter: "The melody is from Raymond Scott's "Powerhouse," which was employed by Carl Stalling in many Warner Brothers cartoons, usually as the soundtrack to machines gone berserk. We got the melody wrong, to our embarrassment."
- John Flansburgh wrote of the "Powerhouse" interpolation in a 2024 Tumblr post: "It is entirely from the brain of John Linnell. Powerhouse made quite the impression in our formative years. More recently, JL has insisted on a more musically correct take on it, which of course is his prerogative!" When asked in 2013 if the band had considered recording a cover of the full song, Flansburgh stated: "No – it's a super tricky song – we didn't even get that little part right!"[1]
- John Linnell spoke about the song's lyrics in a 1998 interview: "Those questions in that song — the idea was that they were irritating questions that people asked us. So they're obviously not meant to be answered in a serious way."
- The song namechecks three bands; MDC, an American hardcore punk band, Menudo, a Puerto Rican boy band, and Eurythmics, a British new wave duo. In 2021, Flansburgh confirmed that the reference to Eurythmics was inspired by "a real conversation, had in the dressing room of the Pyramid Club [with] a very short lived manager who probably meant well, but the remark was as confounding as it sounds."[2] Linnell explained the lyric in a November 1988 interview with Rock Australia Magazine:
That specific remark came from a guy who was interested in managing us, but didn't really know precisely what to make of us. We were still handling it all ourselves at that time. And he must have thought that, because we were two people with tapes − which was like real avant-garde, y'know? − the Eurythmics must have been a huge influence on us, and we were just completely stopped short by that remark. We just thought, "What had he missed?" "Why does he like us?" Which was a pity, because he was really doing very well up to that point.
- In the band's earliest years, before committing to performing as a duo, Flansburgh and Linnell actively sought to hire a drummer and bass player for They Might Be Giants.[3] They are known to have auditioned a few different drummers, and it is possible that they placed literal rhythm section want ads in local publications. This experience may have served as an inspiration for the song. In 2025, the band shared on social media a flyer they had created in the early 1980s as part of their search for a drummer. John Flansburgh spoke about the flyer at a 2025 show:
John [Linnell] has been shoveling all his stuff into a dumpster somewhere and found a poster that we put together, looking for a drummer in 1984. [...] It's a remarkable document. I think one of the requirements was "blinding ambition," which I thought was kind of exciting. And among the musical influences, or drummers that we liked, were Ethel Merman and Mario Cuomo... and so our work with the drum machine began.
- This song is among the few tracks on the band's debut album that did not appear on the 1985 Demo Tape, although an early version was included on various other promotional demo cassettes. Early live performances of the song included a humorous, sound-effect-filled introduction of fictional band members during the bridge, instead of "Powerhouse".
- John Linnell might have joined his previous band, the Mundanes, after responding to a want ad they placed in The Boston Phoenix in November 1978.[4] John Andrews of the Mundanes recalls Linnell spontaneously singing this song one day while they were working in a New York A/V house together shortly after the formation of TMBG.
- The line "laugh hard, it's a long way to the bank", a play on the expression "laughing all the way to the bank", is sung several times in Modest Mouse's "Paper Thin Walls". Isaac Brock, lead singer and writer of Modest Mouse, vaguely acknowledges this in his band's guest commentary track for the Home Movies episode, "Camp" (which featured TMBG as guest stars).
Song Themes
Ads, Bones, Cartoons, Clothes, Drinks, Drums, Eyes, Hair, Heads, Love, Money, Music, No, Numbers, Oblique Cliches Or Idiom, Oxymorons, Paradoxes, And Contradictory Statements, People (Imaginary), Poetry, Presidents, Puns, Questions, References To Other Songs Or Musicians, Rhymes, Self-Reference, Skulls, Transportation
Videos
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