They Might Be Giants: “The Mesopotamians”
I beg of you, do not expose your children to this video, particularly on long car trips, lest they sing it obsessively all weekend.
Then again, if you want your kid to be able to name three or four Mesopotamians, this song may not be the worst way to do it. Witness:
There is a big connection between TMBG and UCSB for me since they played Santa Barbara the week of my 21st birthday. I saw them in a club somewhere in front of about 20 people. The next day some other friends took me to see them in a club in L.A. in front of a couple hundred people. They carried their own equipment out the front door of the club when they were done. We’d been obsessing over their first album for months and we told them “you guys kick ass”. They said “you do too”. Twenty years later I get a very special sense of parental happiness when I can turn my kid on to more of their goodness. Their two DVDs for kids are tremendous and their Friday night video podcast is awesome too. My two-year-old refers to the band simply as “Fwiday” because he associates them with Friday nights. “Mo’ Fwiday, Daddy! Mo’ Fwiday!”
Sweet JESUS that Mesopotamian song is catchy. CATCHY. I remember listening to Birdhouse in my Soul in Junior High School.
See? Did I not warn you?
Brilliant song!
Quite a few friends are TMBG fans, but I hadn’t found a tune that really sung to me. This does!