Music / Join Us

This truck is driving out of my mind
But this truck has a mind of its own

Outnumbered a million to one
All of the dicks in this dick down
Can't keep Johnny down
Men piled up in a towering mound
None of them once has found a way
To keep Johnny down

"Can't Keep Johnny Down"

Join Us is the fifteenth studio album by They Might Be Giants, released in July of 2011. Flansburgh was reported as saying he wanted the album to get in touch with the band's earlier "insane" sound from the late 1980s.

The Johns recorded over 30 songs for this album, but only half of them made it onto the finished version. Some of the scrapped songs ended up on the rarities compilation Album Raises New And Troubling Questions, released in October later that year.

It became their first album to make the top 40 on Billboard's album chart, peaking at #32. It's still their highest-charting album.

Tracklist

1. Can't Keep Johnny Down (2:22)
2. You Probably Get That A Lot (2:57)
3. Old Pine Box (1:53)
4. Canajoharie (3:39)
5. Cloisonné (2:40)
6. Let Your Hair Hang Down (2:31)
7. Celebration (3:48)
8. In Fact (2:20)
9. When Will You Die (2:32)
10. Protagonist (2:49)
11. Judy Is Your Viet Nam (1:26)
12. Never Knew Love (2:54)
13. The Lady and the Tiger (2:55)
14. Spoiler Alert (2:39)
15. Dog Walker (2:32)
16. 2082 (1:55)
17. Three Might Be Duende (2:25)
18. You Don't Like Me (2:57)

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My Tropes are Exploding, It's Like I'm Making Cloisonné:

• And There Was Much Rejoicing: Promised in "When Will You Die"
  On that promised morning
  We will wake and greet the dawn
  Knowing that your wicked life is over
  And that we will carry on
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: The "your" in "the afterparty has been moved to your house" in "Celebration" seems to be directed at the listener.
• Eye Beams: The Lady in "The Lady and The Tiger" claims to have "laser vision" she plans to use to break out of the hall.
• Flipping the Bird: Mentioned in "Can't Keep Johnny Down".
  Beneath my dignity
  To flip off the guy
  When he pulls up alongside to say
  My gas cap is unscrewed
• Hook Hand: The time-traveller's future self has one in "2082"
  As the ancient one cranes his neck to look
  You see his hand's been replaced with a hook
• Location Song: "Canajoharie", which is an actual town in New York State. According to the song, apparently a major moment in primordial physical evolution happened on the current townsite.
• Lyrical Dissonance: "When Will You Die", a cheery sounding upbeat song with horns about a mortal enemy the Johns want to see dead.
• My Future Self and Me: In "2082", a time-traveller discovers he's still alive countless centuries into the future, and eventually puts his future self out of his misery by smothering him with a pillow.
• No Ending: Much like the story the song is based on, "The Lady and The Tiger" ends without a resolution.
  The hall remains, it still contains
  A pair of doors, a choice
  Behind one door, a muffled roar
  Behind the other, a voice
• Perspective Flip: "The Lady and the Tiger" is a meta sequel to Frank Stockton's short story "The Lady, or the Tiger?", where the Lady and the Tiger are restlessly waiting in some sort of literary Limbo for an ending that will never come.
• Reading the Stage Directions Out Loud: "Protagonist" is about a struggling screenwriter whose lover has just left him, with the backing vocals done in the style of stage directions as if he's imagining what his ex and her paramour are up to.
  She stole my daydreams, she stole my air guitar
  (Exterior, man on lawn, alone at dawn)
  Packed the typewriter and drove off in her car
  (A battered automobile drives past state line sign)
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: "When Will You Die" is this in song form, telling an unnamed Jerkass why everyone hates them and is looking forward to their demise.
  You're insane
  You are bad
  You wreck everything you touch
  And you're a sociopath
  But there's one thing
  That everyone's wondering
  When will you die?
• Shout-Out:
  • "Celebration" mentions Banksy, Anonymous and Hieronymus Bosch. On a more obscure level, the spoken intro ("to play a record, select an album and put it on the turntable") is a collection of quotes from a bizarre video by conceptual artist Tom Sachs giving instructions on how a club DJ (played by a visibly pregnant woman) can simultaneously play music and sell and distribute marijuana via toy cars on a miniature racetrack.
  • "Cloissoné" makes a passing reference to second-story Sleestaks before going back to address it. "Sleestak? What's a Sleestak?"
  • The trope itself is played with in "You Don't Like Me". The viewpoint character seems concerned with not being liked by someone else, based on having a Long List of everything they do like, possibly gathered from social media.
• Singer Namedrop: As sung by Linnell on "When Will You Die".
  This is Dan
  And that's Dan
  And there's Marty on the drums to complete the band
  And I'm John
  And he is also John
  And all of us are wondering when you're gonna die
• Slasher Smile: In "Three Might Be Duende", Apocryphal Espadrille is described as having "a smile that would frighten the blind".
• Small Name, Big Ego: The narrator of "Dog Walker" is a humble dog walker convinced he's a tough guy and an unappreciated genius.
  I take the long way home
  Stay realistic and stay awake
  My mind is a wrecking ball
  And someday my mind's gonna wreck all y'all
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: In "Canajoharie", the narrator randomly says "I'm not insane" at several points.
• Torches and Pitchforks: Mentioned in "In Fact"
  In fact it's messier still
  That mess on the loose and leading the mob
  They march with pitchforks and torches now
  They have your old ID disavow
• Two Lines, No Waiting: "Spoiler Alert" is two songs in one about reckless driving, with Linnell singing about a writer distracted from driving by trying to come up with an ending to his latest book, and Flansburgh singing about a sleep-deprived trucker who thinks his truck can drive by itself.