Never Knew Love

Album: Join Us (2011)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • They Might Be Giants is the team of John Flansburgh and John Linnell, who started working together in 1982. Twenty-nine years later, they released Join Us, their 15th album.

    Regarding this song, Flansburgh told Songfacts: "That's a collaboration that John and I put together. I think the idea was to put together something that was split. Kind of the meat of the song is this very simple slow unwinding chorus with the phrase 'never knew love like this before,' and it's very pretty and kind of dreamy in an electronic kind of way. And then the verses are these raging rock moments and very dense with words and very dense with ideas. It's a lot of crazy, compressed thought in the verses. So it's like any kind of musical duet where the roles are really divvied up, like the part that I sing is very rapid fire. And I can't even explain the point of view in the lyrics, which is coming from a very odd place. But it is on the topic of new love, but it just makes it much more mysterious a topic than new love really is. I mean, the first verse is all about how it sort of makes love seem like it's mountain climbing or something, that it's like this crazy adventure that you might not survive. But that's the story with They Might Be Giants, making the clear and obvious difficult and incomprehensible."

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Early Days of MTV

Early Days of MTVFact or Fiction

If you can recall the days when MTV played videos, you know that there are lots of stories to tell. See if you can spot the real ones.

Boz Scaggs

Boz ScaggsSongwriter Interviews

The "Lowdown" and "Lido Shuffle" singer makes a habit of playing with the best in the business.

Evolution Of The Prince Symbol

Evolution Of The Prince SymbolSong Writing

The evolution of the symbol that was Prince's name from 1993-2000.

Jonathan Edwards - "Sunshine"

Jonathan Edwards - "Sunshine"They're Playing My Song

"How much does it cost? I'll buy it?" Another songwriter told Jonathan to change these lyrics. Good thing he ignored this advice.

Rob Halford of Judas Priest

Rob Halford of Judas PriestSongwriter Interviews

Rob Halford dives into some of his Judas Priest lyrics, talking about his most personal songs and the message behind "You've Got Another Thing Comin'."

Graham Parker

Graham ParkerSongwriter Interviews

When Judd Apatow needed under-appreciated rockers for his Knocked Up sequel, he immediately thought of Parker, who just happened to be getting his band The Rumour back together.