''John Henry'' is the fifth studio album by American

alternative rock Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from mainstream or commerci ...

group

They Might Be Giants They Might Be Giants (often abbreviated as TMBG) is an American alternative rock band formed in 1982 by John Flansburgh and John Linnell. During TMBG's early years, Flansburgh and Linnell frequently performed as a duo, often accompanied by a ...

. It was released in

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea; Nelson ...

. 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. ''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 ''Join Us'' is the fifteenth studio album from the rock band They Might Be Giants, released on July 19, 2011. It is the band's first adult album in four years since '' The Else'' in 2007. Following the success of their 2009 children's album, ''He ...

'', which peaked at #32. In 2013, the album was reissued across a double LP by

Asbestos Records Asbestos Records is an American independent record label in Stratford, Connecticut, United States, founded in 1996. It was established as a business to release albums and compilations for local bands, and to book shows at the Newtown Teen Cente ...

Lyrical themes

The lyrics to the song "AKA Driver" refer to a "

NyQuil Cold medicines are a group of medications taken individually or in combination as a treatment for the symptoms of the common cold and similar conditions of the upper respiratory tract. The term encompasses a broad array of drugs, including a ...

driver". John Flansburgh offered an explanation of the legal issue with the inclusion of a brand name: "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 Howl most often refers to: *Howling, an animal vocalization in many canine species *Howl (poem), a 1956 poem by Allen Ginsberg Howl may also refer to: Film * ''The Howl'', a 1970 Italian film * ''Howl'' (2010 film), a 2010 American arthouse b ...

'' by

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...

. 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) ''Gigantic (A Tale of Two Johns)'' is a documentary profiling the alternative rock band They Might Be Giants, featuring interviews with Frank Black, Sarah Vowell, Dave Eggers, Mark Hoppus, and others. It was directed by AJ Schnack and premiered ...

'', 2003. Dir. AJ Schnack. "Meet

James Ensor James Sidney Edouard, Baron Ensor (13 April 1860 – 19 November 1949) was a Belgian painter and printmaker, an important influence on expressionism and surrealism who lived in Ostend for most of his life. He was associated with the artistic g ...

" 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."West Net interview
with

John Flansburgh John Conant Flansburgh (born May 6, 1960) is an American musician. He is half of the long-standing Brooklyn, New York-based alternative rock duo They Might Be Giants with John Linnell, for which he writes, sings, and plays rhythm guitar. Commo ...

. "Why Must I Be Sad?" is a string of references to

Alice Cooper Alice Cooper (born Vincent Damon Furnier, February 4, 1948) is an American rock singer whose career spans over five decades. With a raspy voice and a stage show that features numerous props and stage illusions, including pyrotechnics, guillot ...

song titles and lyrics, involving several titles from the ''

Billion Dollar Babies ''Billion Dollar Babies'' is the sixth studio album by American rock band Alice Cooper, released on February 25, 1973, by Warner Bros. Records. The album became the best selling Alice Cooper record at the time of its release, hit number one on t ...

'' 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.

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 Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or withou ...

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...

* John Linnell – vocals,

keyboard Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Musi ...

, accordion,

horns Horns or The Horns may refer to: * Plural of Horn (instrument), a group of musical instruments all with a horn-shaped bells * The Horns (Colorado), a summit on Cheyenne Mountain * ''Horns'' (novel), a dark fantasy novel written in 2010 by Joe Hill ...

* Brian Doherty – drums, percussion *

Tony Maimone Tony Maimone (born September 27, 1952) is a bassist, producer, and recording engineer, who lives in Brooklyn, New York. He was a member of Pere Ubu from the mid-1970s to the early 1990s, often playing with drummer Scott Krauss. The duo were dubb ...

–

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

, ukulele *

Graham Maby Graham Maby (born 1 September 1952), is an English bass guitar player. He has recorded and toured with Joe Jackson since his first album, appearing on most of Jackson's albums and tours. He has continued to record and tour with Jackson even w ...

– bass guitar on tracks 11 & 14 Additional musicians * Robert Quine – guitar solos on tracks 3 & 11 * Hudson Shad – vocals on track 10

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 HyperCard is a software application and development kit for Apple Macintosh and Apple IIGS computers. It is among the first successful hypermedia systems predating the World Wide Web. HyperCard combines a flat-file database with a graphical, f ...

promotional tool {{DEFAULTSORT:John Henry (Album) 1994 albums Elektra Records albums They Might Be Giants albums Albums produced by Paul Fox (record producer)