The Everybody dies frustrated and sad and that is beautiful. That's just one of the many majestic lines written by

the guests for this our 40th episode. The two gentlemen joining us today

formed a nucleus of one of the most creative, prolific and downright beloved alternative bands the US has ever produced.

Their career has spanned over 30 years and they've recently released their 16th studio album

entitled Nanobots. It's John Flansberg and John Linnell of They Might Be Giants.

It's John Squared, Brian.

I cannot wait to chatter the Johns.

Not only are they fantastic songwriters, but in terms of their singularity of vision

a class that output alongside other great bands like Steerly Dan and Sparks you know

granted stylistically they may not seem to have so much in common with those guys

but certainly in terms of their boundless

lyrical creativity and their willingness to write songs about people things and

topics other songwriters would never touch I think there's a distinct

similarity we were already fans of the band, you know, beforehand,

but during the course of research in this episode,

I think we've formed an even deeper appreciation of this stuff, haven't we?

Absolutely.

Hopefully after listening to this, you guys will follow suit. Well if we've done our job properly they will.

Firstly as is traditional we'll just take a few minutes to furnish you with some background info on our guests.

Johns Flansberg and Linnell both grew up in Lincoln, Massachusetts,

although Linnell was born in New York, and met while still at high school.

They wrote together a little at that point, but began in earnest after they both relocated to Brooklyn, New York City in

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