They Might Be Giants Release New Single “I Broke My Own Rule”
As of June 1st, rock group They Might Be Giants released their latest single entitled I Broke My Own Rule, featuring a song of the same name and another song called “I Lost Thursday.” Since their start in 1986, the witty, comedic rock group has been creating music stretching across countless genres while still featuring a sound that is distinctly their own. The group has seen significant acclaim starting from their 1990 album, Flood, which featured some of their most popular songs like “Particle Man,” “Birdhouse in Your Soul,” and their cover of “Istanbul (Not Constantinople).”
On both songs of They Might Be Giants’s newest single, a different sound is created even though the band largely uses the same instruments in each song. Both songs feature guitar, bass, drums, and keys but the songs are not very similar at all. For “I Broke My Own Rule,” the tone of the song is very lighthearted from the acoustic guitar doubling the happy vocal melody. Meanwhile, “I Lost Thursday” features a driving, bass-heavy beat with an almost angrier and more distorted tone than the other song on this single.
Lyrically, like musically, “I Broke My Own Rule” and “I Lost Thursday” are quite different but follow a common theme. In “I Broke My Own Rule,” despite there being happy sounding music in the background and having the words be delivered in a similar happy fashion, the lyrics are much more dark and upsetting than what it seems. The song talks about the meaninglessness of everything, but not in a celebratory way, but in a defeated way. “I Lost Thursday” discusses how quickly time can pass people by even without doing anything. In classic They Might Be Giants fashion, this song about losing time or losing track of time is delivered in a manner that is anything but direct. The lyrics of both songs may not seem connected upon first listening, but there are definitely relationships between each of the lines.
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Words by Brendon Gardner
