They Might Be Giants Share the Story Behind Their Iconic 1989 Hit Song ‘Birdhouse in Your Soul’

Musicians John Flansburgh and John Linnell of They Might Be Giants sat down with Adam Reader, aka Professor of Rock, to talk about how their 1989 hit song “Birdhouse in Your Soul” came to be so popular.

You know amongst the songs that we’ve done I think there’s something very odd and kind of thoughtless in a way about the way that song was created that makes it sort of hard to reproduce. You know because it’s not…there’s no obvious formula for something like that.

Both Johns credited Elektra Records producers Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley with the song’s success.

It was really inspiring to work with people who weren’t afraid of, I mean part of it was that they were really into weird ideas, like they really felt like they were looking for things that stuck out. …They knew that part of making a popular song was having it be different and that is unusual. You know a lot of people are just trying to figure out how to fit in they were trying to figure out how to do something cool.

Here’s the original music video for the song.