Music / Mink Car

And the silver chauffeur says that it's all in your head
When you're 24-karat dead

Bangs
Above your eyes your hair hangs
Blow my mind, your royal flyness
I dig your bangs

— Bangs

Mink Car is They Might Be Giants eight studio album, released in September 2001 by Restless Records. The songs on the album were recorded between 1999 and 2001, and many of them were previewed on eMusic via TMBG Unlimited, or originally released on Long Tall Weekend.

Tracklist

1. Bangs (3:09)
2. Cyclops Rock (2:38)
3. Man, It's So Loud in Here (3:59)
4. Mr. Xcitement (3:36)
5. Another First Kiss (3:06)
6. I've Got a Fang (2:32)
7. Hovering Sombrero (2:13)
8. Yeh Yeh (2:40)
9. Hopeless Bleak Despair (3:08)
10. Drink! (1:49)
11. My Man (2:57)
12. Older (1:58)
13. Mink Car (2:09)
14. Wicked Little Critta (2:11)
15. Finished With Lies (3:18)
16. She Thinks She's Edith Head (2:37)
17. Working Undercover For the Man (2:19)

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You're Never Only Just a Trope, You Know:

• Bread and Circuses: "Man It's So Loud In Here" suggests a rather brutal version of this, which uses blaring techno music and garish disco aesthetics to drown out coherent thought and disorient the masses.
• Break Up Song: "Cyclops Rock"
  I taught you how to cyclops rock
  And then you go and turn around and break my heart
  And waste my cyclops time
  Mess up my cyclops mind
• Cover Version: "Yeh Yeh", first recorded as an instrumental in 1963 by Latin musician Mongo Santamaria, but their version was based on the 1965 With Lyrics version that was a hit for Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames.
• Department of Redundancy Department: "Older"
  Time is marching on
  And time... is still marching on.
• Exploding Calendar: Referenced in "Hovering Sombrero"
  Time is flying like an arrow
  And the clock hands go so fast, they make the wind blow
  And it makes the pages of the calendar go
  Flying out the window, one by one
• Hollywood New England: "Wicked Little Critta", sung in a heavy Boston accent, and full of regional slang and Shout-Outs to Boston sports legends like Bobby Orr and John Havlicek.
• The Infiltration: "Working Undercover for the Man", narrated by a law enforcement officer who poses as a rock singer as part of some kind of sting operation aimed at fans (presumably busting them for drug possession).
• In the Style of: "Mink Car" is an obvious homage to the jazzy music of Burt Bacharach.
• Lyrical Dissonance:
  • "My Man" is a peppy synth-driven song about coming to terms with paraplegia.
  • "Mink Car" is a mellow pop-rock tune about being run over and (possibly) killed by a garish-looking car.
• Now That's Using Your Teeth!: "I've Got a Fang" opens with a line about this, inspired by John Linnell's childhood memories of watching Fangface.
  Glistening white triangular tooth
  Open up a can of tomato juice
• Ode to Intoxication: "Drink!"
  Let's drink, drink, this town is so great
  Drink, drink, 'cause it's never too late
  To drink, drink, to no big surprise
  But what words rhyme with "buried alive"?
• Shout-Out: The lines about Chucky in "Cyclops Rock". In the early demo versions, instead of "I'm sick like Chucky was sick", the line was "I'm sick like Nixon was sick."
• Silly Love Songs: "Another First Kiss" is a relatively straight love song about an older couple who've been through a lot.
• Special Guest:
  • The bridge from "Cyclops Rock" is performed by Cerys Matthews of the Welsh band Catatonia.
  • Former Soul Coughing frontman Mike Doughty does the vocals on "Mr. Xcitement"
• Yank the Dog's Chain: In "Hopeless Bleak Despair", the narrator finally gets rid of the eponymous despair... when he dies, the despair goes to heaven, and he goes to hell.