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PHONING IT IN

Phoning It In: “Walking My Cat Named Dog” And “I Haven’t Seen You In Forever”

TMBG

They Might Be Giants have resurrected their ingenious Dial-A-Song concept by streaming a new song each week of 2015 at www.dialasong.com. MAGNET’s Matthew Fritch reviews them all.

The summer slide continues at Phoning It In, as we skipped last week. Rarely has the absence of so little effort been so well documented as it is here. Musically, “Walking My Cat Named Dog” walks around San Francisco in 1968. The problem there being that walking a cat named Dog isn’t even weird enough for the hippies and burnouts to notice.

The almost a cappella “I Haven’t Seen You In Forever” (there is some percussion) is a prime candidate for Song I May Not Listen To Again After This. Its conceit is interesting enough: the cruel cycle of longing/rejection. Maybe it’s the a cappella thing, or some problem I have with choirs and choruses that can’t be solved with quiet reflection. Never had a problem with Robyn Hitchcock’s “Uncorrected Personality Traits,” though.

Fun Fact: Both of these songs clock in at 2:12. Coincidence? I think not. They will receive the same rating, too.

File-A-Song
“Walking My Cat Named Dog”: 3/10
“I Haven’t Seen You In Forever”: 3/10