After 35 years of Flood, They Might Be Giants’ Best Album Keeps Its Head Above Water

This story starts in a bedroom in St. Louis County in January 1990, but it really started in January of 1937. As water levels of the Ohio River began to rise, a man grabbed some rope and fashioned a crude boat out of several washbasins. As flooding killed hundreds and destroyed the homes of over one million Americans from Pittsburgh down to Cairo, Illinois, photographer Margaret Bourke-White snapped a photo as the man paddled his way to safety. It’s an image that I endlessly studied some 53 years later, while laying on a hand-woven rug on the floor of the upstairs room in my grandparents’ home in a room shared by my twin uncles.

When I was the ripe age of four, the twins gathered my younger sister and me in front of the stereo to hear a new album they bought by a band called They Might Be Giants. One of them hit the eject button on their massive—at least to my adolescent eyes—stereo and gently dropped the disc onto the tray before pressing play. Suddenly, erupting from the speakers was a chorus of men and women, accompanied by a little synth horn section. The voices sang: “Why is the world in love again? Why are we marching hand in hand? Why are the ocean levels rising up? It’s a brand new record for 1990. They Might be Giants’ brand new album: FLOOD!”

I wasn’t sure what any of it meant, but it sounded important and it felt grand—like some magnificent overture that plays as the curtain parts at the start of a classic film, or a proclamation to the audience that it’s time to shut the hell up and pay attention because something outstanding was about to happen. For They Might Be Giants, it was likely a bit of a tongue-in-cheek way to kick off their third full-length album and major label debut. But to the ears of a child bursting with imagination, it felt like I was about to experience something life-changing. Dramatic, I know, but it was also true.

Flood was the third full-length album from the Brooklyn duo made up of two Johns—Flansburgh and Linnell—a band already known for their smart, often unconventional rock music. The band’s 1986 self-titled debut, along with a follow-up, Lincoln, released two years later, showcased the Johns’ quirky songwriting and genre-hopping were what set them apart from their college rock counterparts. The latter was a surprise hit for the band and indie label Bar/None, with its first single, “Ana Ng,” becoming one of their most iconic tracks. It’s easy to see how they were perceived as a bit of a novelty act in the beginning, thanks to their habitually unusual lyrics (often more clever than funny), use different methods of wordplay, a tendency to blend genres and experiment with sound, and their implementation of the accordion, an instrument that, at that time, was typically reserved for polka, klezmer and “Weird Al” Yankovic.

The album’s first single, “Birdhouse in Your Soul,” was an instant hit, not just with the alt-rock college radio set but also with our little listening party at my grandparents’. Flood would continue to be a favorite in our household and throughout our family. It was a record for everyone, no matter what their age or background was. A few years later, it would also have the distinct honor of being one of only a handful of CDs in both of my parents’ CD collections after they divorced. Flood was full of fun, catchy tunes that, while not explicitly written for children, appealed to our boundless energy. We danced around their room to bright, brilliant and weird nerd rock until we got too rowdy, and our jumping made the CD player skip a few beats. Even then, it was clear that the songs I heard were essential, in all their home-recorded, sampled, Casio FZ-1-synthesized glory.

Through the rest of 1990, songs from Flood continued to invade the mainstream. “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)”—a cover of a 1950s novelty song by The Four Lads—and “Triangle Man” were both animated into an episode of the Steven Spielberg-produced Tiny Toon Adventures. I could mention They Might Be Giants on the playground at school, and most of my peers would have some idea of who they were. It proved that the band was not only extremely accessible to a larger, mainstream audience but also, even if their music wasn’t specifically for kids at this point in their career, they were kid-friendly, which would serve them well much later in their career when they released their first of many records geared to a younger audience, starting with No! in 2002. They Might Be Giants is the type of band where it doesn’t matter how they enter your life or what your entry point album or song was; the brilliance is in just how listenable their music can be.

My sister and I were fortunate enough to have uncles who supported us having a love for music, which meant they brought us with them to see They Might Be Giants perform live on the tour behind Flood’s 1992 follow-up, Apollo 18. I haven’t been able to track down who the opening act was, beyond remembering it was a quiet guy with an acoustic guitar that made my eyelids heavy. After what honestly felt like forever, They Might Be Giants played two songs before I ultimately passed out and missed the rest of the set. In eighth grade, I befriended a group of marching band girls after wearing a They Might Be Giants shirt with kaiju-sized praying mantises smashing buildings on it. One of them told me I sucked because my parents let me see them live. I had an instant crush on her.

By the end of high school, my They Might Be Giants concert count had reached the double digits, thanks to an extended tour for Mink Car. Half of my wardrobe was They Might Be Giants merch, making me insufferable to look at some days. During my decade of working at a record store, my love for those classic albums, everything before Apollo 18, endured. But, as the band continued, I found myself less interested. Once they signed to Disney Records for a series of children’s albums, they diverted from the path I’d first fallen in love with, even if the Disney connection allowed them to continue making records and touring consistently. I was all for them earning a living, but it was the first time I had to acknowledge that, just maybe, they weren’t for me—that I didn’t have to buy every record or download every free live show just to have a complete collection. I had the albums that made me, and I would enjoy Flood until the day I died.

Last year, I went to a karaoke party for a friend’s birthday. I was closing in on turning 39 myself, and it was my first time doing karaoke. I still haven’t forgiven myself for wasting decades not getting tipsy and singing R.E.M.’s “Strange Currencies” in front of strangers. I asked my friend Jeremy to accompany me on “Birdhouse in Your Soul,” knowing he has a great singing voice, an encyclopedic knowledge of music and is the right age to have seen that one episode of Tiny Toon Adventures. If he didn’t know the song, I would have been surprised.

As the album version of “Birdhouse in Your Soul” reaches a crescendo in the final rounds of the chorus, John Linnell sings backup over himself, layering the first section of the chorus over the second. Behind the karaoke machine, Jeremy took the harmonies while I sang lead without missing a beat or giving any signal. We ended the song with my life’s most satisfying and well-deserved high-five. Giving my friend some skin gave me a feeling equivalent to the one I felt the first time I heard the song, as I bounced around and danced with my sister and uncles. I will always consider myself a lifelong fan of They Might Be Giants, even if I don’t keep up with their endless stream of new music (they’re up to 23 studio albums now). It’s been 35 years since the dance party that started it all, and They Might Be Giants can still sell out whole tours just by playing Flood front-to-back for thousands of screaming nerds around the world. It might make you cringe, but few things are more rock ‘n’ roll than that.

Jack Probst is a writer and record collector from St. Louis. He appreciates the works of James Murphy, Wes Anderson and Super Mario. Send any and all complaints to his Bluesky. He enjoys writing paragraphs about himself in his spare time.