I’ll admit it; I actually haven’t listened to They might Be Giants in quite a long time, probably not since high school. I originally got turned on to their music because I watched Tiny Toon Adventures (and I am not ashamed!) and there was an episode of it that was just animated music videos to songs off of Flood. I bought Flood and enjoyed it, but after that I got a little too caught up in being a teenager and listening to music that involved a lot of screaming and the sounds of people torturing electric guitars with dental instruments.
I heard that the band’s been putting out more kid-oriented music and then my friend Chelsea posted on Twitter that the Here Comes Science was really awesome. Since I’m a slave to anything that is about how cool science is, I bought the album from iTunes and just finished listening to it.
It is a really awesome album. Seriously. It’s also definitely kid-safe, kid-friendly, and something kids can enjoy. They may not get all the words, but particularly songs like “The Bloodmobile,” “Cells,” “Solid, Liquid, Gas,” and “Speed and Velocity” put the scientific concepts in to terms I think kids could easily understand. (Man, it would have been nice if someone had explained the difference between speed and velocity to me before I hit the evil brick wall of Physics I in college. Bonus points for in an upbeat song.) And man, are the songs upbeat! I can’t listen to “Why Does the Sun Shine?” and “I Am a Paleontologist” without bouncing around.
And of course, as a bonus to the fun tunes, the lyrics are most excellent.
The first song (“Science Is Real”) lays it out immediately:
I like the stories
About angels, unicorns and elves
Now I like those stories
As much as anybody else
But when I’m seeking knowledge
Either simple or abstract
The facts are with science
Squee!
And of course, for the budding skeptics out there, we’ve got “Put It to the Test:”
If somebody says they figured it out
And they’re leaving any room for doubt
Come up with a test
Yeah, you need a testAre you sure that that thing is true?
Or did someone just tell it to you?
Come up with a test
The essence of skepticism, in one cute, bouncy song.
Evolution is mentioned several times in the album, and gets a song all of its own as well, “My Brother the Ape:”
But I’ll admit that I look more like a chimp
Than I look like my cousin the shrimp
Or my distant kin the lichens
Or the snowy egret or the moss
And I find it hard to recognize
Some relatives of ours
Like the rotifer, the sycamore
Iguanas and sea stars
I love it! I think kids will love this to bits. And heck, I’m not a kid and I love it to bits too. I need to dig up Flood as well and put it on my iPod again.