They Might Be Giants for the Public Song Project
John Flansburgh and John Linnell of They Might Be Giants join to announce their cover of Irving Berlin's "Lazy" for the 2024 Public Song Project. The band will be releasing their song on streaming platforms later this month, and will be putting out limited edition 7" records. They join us with an exclusive preview of the song.
You can find more about the Public Song Project on our homepage, including how to participate: https://www.wnyc.org/story/public-song-project-2024/.
*This segment is guest-hosted by Kousha Navidar.
[MUSIC - Luscious Jackson: Citysong]
Kousha Navidar: This is All of It. I'm Kousha Navidar in for Alison Stewart. Thanks for spending part of your Tuesday with us. I'm so glad you're here. Coming up on today's show, we'll recap the NCAA women's basketball tournament and preview the Final Four, and we'll hear some of our recent Get Lit With All of It conversation with Xochitl Gonzalez and the special performance from poet Caridad De la Luz. That's the plan, so let's get things started with They Might Be Giants and the WNYC Public Song Project.
[MUSIC - Luscious Jackson: You and Me]
Kousha Navidar: This month, They Might Be Giants, Brooklyn's alt-rock stalwarts will release their first new music in three years, and today we're excited to share a sneak preview. The reason we get to have the first listen to this exclusive song is because the band recorded it for the Public Song Project. That's our ongoing project where we're inviting anyone to make a cover song or musical adaptation of something in the public domain and send it into us for a chance to be on WNYC. On April 19th, They Might Be Giants will release their version of Irving Berlin's 1924 hit Lazy, maybe most famously recorded by Marilyn Monroe in 1954. Here's a quick clip of that.
[MUSIC - Marilyn Monroe: Lazy]
I want to be lazy
I long to be out in the sun
With no work to be done.
Kousha Navidar: To debut their very different version for the 2024 Public Song Project which, side note, listeners, there's still time to get involved, I am joined in the studio by They Might Be Giants, John Linnell and John Flansburgh. Welcome to All of It.
John Linnell: Yow.
John Flansburgh: Hello.
Kousha Navidar: [laughs] First off, thank you for being a part of this Public Song Project.
John Linnell: Of course.
John Flansburgh: Oh, it's our pleasure.
Kousha Navidar: What made you want to get involved? John, let's start with you.
John Linnell: I guess somebody put out the call and we heard the word 1924 and we were already on board. I think it was just an open invitation to find any song from 1924 if I understood correctly. If not, that's what we did. We picked out this particular Irving Berlin song which really feels very personal to us, I think.
[laughter]
Kousha Navidar: Tell me why. Personal why?
John Linnell: Because we are incredibly lazy. I want to swear when I'm saying that we are effing lazy and so the song just spoke to us very much.
Kousha Navidar: John, what was the moment when you two decided that Lazy was the song that you wanted to go with?
John Flansburgh: You all sent a really long list of possible songs. I looked at it and I was like, "I don't know any of these songs." John checked it out.
John Linnell: Because you had stopped listening to music by 1924.
[laughter]
John Flansburgh: Were you familiar with Lazy before? Because even that Marilyn Monroe thing is a mystery to me.
John Linnell: I'm not sure if I did. I looked at a list of 1924 songs. I guess it wasn't yours, and I saw Irving Berlin. I just sampled stuff and that one just completely stuck out as the obvious one.
John Flansburgh: Our version of the song takes after, what was the--
John Linnell: The Brock Sisters version-
John Flansburgh: The Brock Sisters.
John Linnell: -which I think Berlin actually wrote additional lyrics for their version because it's a much longer version than a lot of the other ones. We have this whole long bridge that Flansburg sings and it was unusually long song for that period, I think.
John Flansburgh: Yes. They also seem sassy. They look like your grand--
John Linnell: Oh, the Brock Sisters.
John Flansburgh: Yes, your grandfather's favorite vocal group. [laughter] The photograph of them that was like a promo for the song is kind of--
John Linnell: It's kind of sexy.
John Flansburgh: Yes.
Kousha Navidar: I want to talk about that approach to the style that you guys took for a second, because when we listen, and we'll listen to it in just a second, but one of the cool things about your cover is that it uses what I think is one of the most underrated instruments out there, which is the toy piano.
John Flansburgh: Oh, yes.
Kousha Navidar: How did you think about approaching the style for this?
John Flansburgh: We put toy piano on everything pretty much. I think, if we can't figure out what to add, we go straight for the toy piano.
Kousha Navidar: Sorry for the toy piano.
John Flansburgh: It's like if we're playing the toy piano, it's like, "What can we add?" "How about some toy piano samples?"
[laughter]
Kousha Navidar: What else went into thinking about the stylistic approach once you had the toy piano all set?
John Flansburgh: I guess it was then a question of how faux old-timey it should sound. It was a question of, our guitar player could play acoustic. You play electric. I think we thought, electric is just less on the nose. We didn't want to just be like a pastiche old-timey sounding thing.
John Linnell: No straw boaters.
John Flansburgh: It's a little more contemporary indie musician.
John Linnell: The lyric of the song also has this funny inside quality to it because he's talking about being lazy, but the lyric is like he-- How would you explain it? He seems like he's living the life of a public intellectual-
John Flansburgh: Exactly.
John Linnell: -more than a lazy person.
John Flansburgh: It's not what people nowadays would consider lazy because what he or she wants to do is sit around reading books in a bucolic environment.
Kousha Navidar: Like a bon vivant.
John Linnell: It's a very WNYC.
John Flansburgh: Like a bon vivant, exactly.
John Linnell: It's very WNYC.
John Flansburgh: It's very WNYC.
Kousha Navidar: It's great that you joined it for this project. You're really speaking to the audience, I guess. That's great. You have some exciting release plans for the song, too, right? Can you go into that a little bit?
John Flansburgh: We're putting out a 7-inch of it and it's got a beautiful psychedelic yellow submarine meets Peter Max, which means it's the Venn diagram that's just one circle.
[laughter]
John Linnell: It's trying to keep people, throw them off the trail.
John Flansburgh: Yes, it's a reinterpretation of the original music publishing artwork by David Coles who sent a lot of illustration for us.
Kousha Navidar: If listeners want to see that cover art, they can go to the segment page on our website and they can check out that graphic, too. David Coles, as you mentioned, was the artist behind it. You're going to be on tour starting next month around the Midwest. Any other plans for 2024 that you're really excited about?
John Linnell: Yes. We're going to continue the tour overseas in Australia in the fall and also in the UK. I think we've got some yet more US shows at the end of the year.
John Flansburgh: In December, hopefully, we'll be playing big shows on the East Coast and nothing is announced or official yet, but our dream is just to barely get out of the house.
[laughter]
Kousha Navidar: Lazy.
John Flansburgh: Setting up gigs at holiday times nearby just seems like a really natural fit.
Kousha Navidar: It's got to fit the lifestyle that-
John Flansburgh: Yes, exactly.
Kousha Navidar: -you've grown accustomed to. Bon vivant. Before we play your submission to the Public Song Project, any other things you want to add about it?
John Linnell: No, I think the song speaks for itself once you--
John Flansburgh: I'm still trying to figure out what stalwart means.
[laughter]
Kousha Navidar: Oh, it is earned respect. Very well received.
John Flansburgh: Because I thought it was like dreadnought or something.
[laughter]
Kousha Navidar: Let's get to the song. We've been talking to John Lanell and John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants, the stalwarts of Brooklyn alt-rock.
John Flansburgh: Thank you.
Kousha Navidar: Thanks again, you two. Really appreciate it.
John Linnell: Oh, our pleasure. Thank you.
John Flansburgh: Absolutely.
Kousha Navidar: Here's They Might Be Giants with Lazy by Irving Berlin for the 2024 Public Song Project.
[MUSIC - They Might Be Giants: Lazy]
Every time
I see a puppy on a summer's day
A puppy dog at play
My heart is filled with envy
That's why
I'm in such a hurry to pass the time away
Like that pup
I'm all fed up
And though it's wrong to be
I long to be
Lazy
I want to be lazy
I long to be out in the sun
With no work to be done
Under that awning
They call the sky
Stretching and yawning
And let the world go drifting by
I want to peep
Through that deep
Tangled wildwood
Counting sheep
'till I sleep
Like a child would
With a great big valise full
Of books to read where it's peaceful
While I'm
Killing time
Being lazy
I hate to hurry
through life and worry
I'll be so glad
When I am among the chickens
with Mr. Dickens or Mr. Omar Khayyam
To keep me company
When I'm tired of poetry
I'm going to be there dozing
with birds composing
a pillowy, willowy melody
And when it showers
the bees and the flowers
will be my umbrella
Until it's over
then in the clover
I dream of Rockefeller
As busy as a bee
selling oil to you and me
I'll [unintelligible 00:10:28]
turned out to be
Lazy
I want to be lazy
I long to be out in the sun
With no work to be done
Under that awning
They call the sky
Stretching and yawning
And let the world go drifting by
I want to peep
Through the deep
Tangled wildwood
Counting sheep
'till I sleep
Like a child would
With a great big valise full
Of books to read where it's peaceful
While I'm
Killing time
Being lazy
Kousha Navidar: That was They Might Be Giants with a cover of Irving Berlin's Lazy for the 2024 Public Song Project. You can listen back to that song and more from Jonathan Coulton, Arturo O'Farrill, Valerie June, and other musicians on our website, which is wnyc.org/publicsongproject. Now is your time to get involved, too, for a chance to be featured alongside artists like the ones you've heard so far. Plus, Rhiannon Giddens, Béla Fleck, Rosanne Cash, and many, many more. It's so awesome. You can find resources on our website about how to get involved and record a song yourself with the chance to be interviewed on WNYC.
We've got links to help you explore the public domain and find songs and other works to adapt. We've also got links to spaces and equipment you can use for free to actually record your songs at local public libraries. That website is wnyc.org/publicsongproject.
[music]
Kousha Navidar: This is All Of It. I'm Kousha Navidar, filling in for Alison Stewart. As you heard in the last segment, we're six weeks out from the submission deadline for the 2024 Public Song Project. If you're listening right now and you're still on the fence, you're thinking about what to record, or how to do it, one great place to start is your local public library. Did you know that you can borrow instruments from the Brooklyn Public Library? That's exactly what last year's Public Song Project winner Alice Lee did for her version of The Prisoner's Song, which featured a banjo from the Brooklyn Public Library. Here's a quick clip.
[MUSIC - Alice Lee: The Prisoner's Song]
Kousha Navida: The Brooklyn Public Library and some other libraries also have recording studios that you can use for free. Hey, to be clear, your submission to the Public Song Project doesn't need to be more than a recording on your cell phone, but if you want to step things up, we want to help you learn how. We're going to do a quick round table of resources for your song submissions, and we're featuring people from the Brooklyn Public Library, New York Public Library, and the Westport Public Library in Connecticut. They're here to help you navigate your recording with the resources you need. Up first, Christine Schonhart, Director of the central library of the Brooklyn Public Library, welcome to the show.
Christine Schonhart: Thank you. Good to be here.
Kousha Navidar: Good to have you. I finally picked up my BPL library card a few weeks ago, so shout out to that. The Brooklyn Public Library's really unique resource is the musical instrument lending library. How does that work and where is it?
Christine Schonhart: It's located here at the central library at 10 Grand Army Plaza. We started it a few years back and we have over 100 items in the collection, including bass guitars, keyboards, a steel drum, little bit of everything. There is a bit of a waitlist on things, so get on the waitlist so that you can get your song recorded. Basically, yes, you just need a library card to borrow. You get three weeks with it. We also have books here that can teach you how to play. If you're new and need some of that, we can hook you up with that as well.
Kousha Navidar: Do you need to be a Brooklyn resident?
Christine Schonhart: No, you don't. You just need to have a Brooklyn card, and anybody in New York State is eligible for that.
Kousha Navidar: How would you get on the waitlist that you mentioned?
Christine Schonhart: There is on our website, bklynlibrary.org. You can search for the instrument you want, and there'll be a little button that says, "Place hold". If it doesn't say that, it doesn't mean it's available, but you still place a hold for it so that our staff can pull it for you. Then you come to a central library, go to our third-floor Arts Department, and they will get you the instrument for you.
Kousha Navidar: That's great. Christine, I understand that you also have resources to help people choose a song like sheet music and vinyl records. Is that right? What's in that collection?
Christine Schonhart: Yes, we do. We have thousands of books full of sheet music. Again, you can search them in our catalog or come in and a staff member will show you how to search the collection. We recently launched a vinyl collection as well. That's about 400 records right now across all genres. If you don't have a record player at home, don't worry, we have them here at the library so you can throw the record on and listen, get some inspiration from that, too, but you also can borrow those with your library card for three weeks.
Kousha Navidar: That's great. One stop shop.
Christine Schonhart: Yes.
Kousha Navidar: Christine Schonhart is the director of the central library of the Brooklyn Public Library. Thank you so much for coming on.
Christine Schonhart: You're welcome.
Kousha Navidar: Next up we have Jenna Li, the Lead Media Lab Specialist for New York Public Library. Jenna, welcome to All Of It.
Jenna Li: Thank you.
Kousha Navidar: Where is the NYPL's recording studio, and how does it work?
Jenna Li: Well, we actually have a couple of different recording studios at the New York Public Library. Our main location is Studio 40, which is at the newly renovated Mid-Manhattan branch on 40th Street and 5th Avenue right across from The Lions building, but we also have a couple other studios. Up in the Bronx, we have an Allerton Multimedia Studio and the Tremont Sound Lab. Allerton and Tremont branches for adults. Then we also have some teen recording studios. We have a studio downstairs at the Mid-Manhattan Library, which is for folks who are ages 13 to 19. We have some Best Buy Teen centers, which are located at Grand Concourse Parkchester and Mott Haven.
Kousha Navidar: That's great.
Jenna Li: Actually, I'm glad Christine mentioned the Brooklyn lending program, because we have a couple of our students coming in with musical instruments that they've rented from Brooklyn Public Library, and they're using them on projects over here. That's been fun to see that collaboration going on.
Kousha Navidar: That's great. All of these different spaces, are they all equipped similarly? Are there specific differences like in the teen recording spaces? Are there any special equipment there?
Jenna Li: Yes, the two recording studios at the Mid-Manhattan Library are probably our largest studios. We have a lot of industry-quality gear. We're mostly in the box studio, but we also have outboard gear like LA-2A, 1176 for compression and a patch bay to help folks figure out signal flow in the studio and a good learning environment. We run UAD console and Avid pro tools as well as Ableton and Logic Pro. A lot of studio quality microphones, U 87, TLM 102, stuff like that. A lot of really wonderful microphones and pieces of equipment here available at the central branches as well as we have workstations and MIDI keyboards, lots of different small recording booths like AKG 214 and stuff up at Tremont branches as well as access to various software including Logic Pro, the Adobe Creative Suite, Ableton Pro Tools, DaVinci Resolve.
Kousha Navidar: Wow, that's a really well-stocked set of spaces there. If somebody's listening right now, and they're thinking, "Well, that sounds great. What are all of those things?" Are there experts available to help somebody use the studio and edit audio?
Jenna Li: Yes, absolutely. Free studio space it's extremely popular, but I think one of the ways that we're really striving to serve public need and public request is with our educational programs. We teach folks how to run sound checks from basically zero to get a good solid recording, whether that's on your own with gear that you have or gear that you borrow from us as well as in the studio spaces, we do orientation class to the studio space. We teach you how all the equipment works if you're curious about all that mash-up of letters and numbers and what it does and how it can help you make your songs sound better, or how it can help you acclimate to a studio atmosphere if you're interested in going into that more professionally.
We have tons of classes that we offer online and in person both at the Manhattan branch for teens, for adults. We also have creative media open labs. If you are coming in and you're in the middle of your project and you're not really sure what the next step is, you can talk to us and consult with us. We have folks who can come one-on-one and help. We also have trained up a cohort of volunteers. These are folks who came in a couple years ago and they've been training with us for a while and they learned some of the lingo, picked up some of the workflows, and they are giving back to their community as well.
They are helping facilitate studio sessions alongside us and getting this apprenticeship training and will really help you navigate no matter what level you come in at. Even if you don't end up in a studio space with us, if you want to come to our classes, even from the comfort of your own home, we have a lot of different things that we could go over, including how to pick the right microphone for your sound or basics in mixing using all sorts of professional DAWs and free digital audio workstations. How to produce a beat using this various free or paid-for software, how to edit your videos, how to start a podcast A to Z.
Kousha Navidar: Oh, wow. That's great. Those folks are paying it forward, right? That sounds pretty cool.
Jenna Li: Yes, it's been really exciting. Our intern-- Well, sorry, they're not interns. Our volunteer program, we have students ages 25 to 72 who are volunteering and giving back to their community. It's a really beautiful multi-generational creative space-
Kousha Navidar: Oh, that's great.
Jenna Li: -and a lot of really invested folks.
Kousha Navidar: How would folks go and sign up for those spaces? Among many of the places that you mentioned, is there a central resource folks can go to online maybe?
Jenna Li: Sure. Our main website is nypl.org for adult services, if you go to nypl.org/computers, you'll be able to find all of our classes as well as information on the recording studios, what kind of stuff we have going on there. If you're looking for teen spaces, you can go to nypl.org/spotlightteen-center. You'll be able to find resources on the various teen locations that we have through our branches.
Kousha Navidar: Thank you so much. Jenna Li is the Lead Media Lab Specialist for the New York Public Library. Jenna, thank you so much for joining.
Jenna Li: Thanks for having me.
Kousha Navidar: Thank you. Lastly, we're joined by Brendan Toller who's the Marketing Manager of Verso Studios. That's the recording studio for the Westport Public Library in Connecticut. Brendan, welcome to the show.
Brendan Toller: Hey, lastly, but not leastly, how are you doing?
Kousha Navidar: Lastly, but not leastly, saving among the best for last, I would say. Everyone's great, so great to have you. Listeners can record, edit, mix, and master their song at Verso Studios all for free. Can you tell me, Brendan, how Verso Studios fits into the umbrella of the Westport Public Library?
Brendan Toller: Sure. Here at the Westport Library, it's like a spaceship. Verso Studios really is our production resource and media hub. We have a venue space where you can have concerts and film screenings. We have a three post-production stations here where you can edit and mix your songs and edit and mix movies and films and make illustrations and designs. We also have a recording studio with an SSL board that was designed by Rob Fraboni who famously designed Keith Richards studio and Bob Dylan and The Band studio in LA. Not too shabby.
Kousha Navidar: Not too shabby at all. Similar thing that I was asking Jenna, are there experts available to help somebody use the studio and edit audio if they're not super-familiar?
Brendan Toller: We're very high-end demand and popular, but yes me and two other professionals are roaming the building during certain hours to assist.
Kousha Navidar: Great. Who's it open to? Do you have to be a Connecticut resident?
Brendan Toller: You don't even need to have a library card necessarily, and I don't think you need to be a Connecticut resident. I think we'll accept anyone that comes in that is interested.
Kousha Navidar: That's wonderful. You also have some exciting programming coming up at the library starting tomorrow. It's called Verso Fest. That's a very cool name. Before we go, do you want to talk about what Verso Fest is and who's involved?
Brendan Toller: Absolutely. Verso Fest, April 3rd through the 7th. That's five days of music, media, and creativity. Tomorrow we're having a talk with Chuck D, then the Lemon Twigs are coming, Spin Doctors. Then Saturday and Sunday is a full-on conference. There's a record fair. David Bowie, Diamond Dogs, Exhibit, Tony Visconti will be talking with Paul Cavalcante, John Dinsmore, Audrey Golden, who just wrote Women At Factory Records. There really is something for everyone. I encourage everyone to go to westportlibrary.org/versofest. If you're interested in Verso Studios, that's westportlibrary.org/verso.
Kousha Navidar: We want to shout out Lemon Twigs who are a part of the Public Song Project. Brendan, I just want to point out, Spin Doctors is very cool. My first favorite song was The Spin Doctors song, so shout out to you. [laughter] We're having great musical taste there.
Brendan Toller: Come on out.
Kousha Navidar: Brendan Toller is the Marketing Manager of Verso Studios at the Westport Public Library. Brendan, thank you very much.
Brendan Toller: Thank you.
Kousha Navidar: New Jersey listeners, we haven't forgotten about you. The East Brunswick Public Library offers a recording studio with lots of equipment and audio editing software. Just go to ilove.ebpl.org to find out more. That's E-B-P-L. Newark Residents can check out the Newark Public Library and their Makerspace studio featuring an audio booth with pro tools, Audacity, other editing software for audio. For more info there, go to made.npl.com. You can also find links to all these resources and more on our own website at All Of It, along with instructions on how to participate, how to stream songs from our special guest contributors like They Might Be Giants who we just heard in the last segment.
To find out all of that, go to wnyc.org/publicsongproject. Listen, now is your time to get involved and for a chance to be featured on WNYC and alongside artists like the ones you've heard so far plus Rhiannon Giddens, Béla Fleck, Rosanne Cash, and many more. This is a party, we want you to be a part of it. Submissions are due May 12th. Again, the website, wnyc.org/publicsongproject. You can get all the info there. We're so excited to hear your songs.
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