“Don't Let's Start” by They Might Be Giants

"Don't Let's Start" was the song that introduced most of the world to They Might Be Giants: the first single pulled from the duo's self-titled 1986 debut, issued as a maxi-single on Bar/None. It's two Johns and a head full of ideas. John Linnell sings lead and handles the keyboards, John Flansburgh covers guitar and bass, and the pair wrote it together, with Bill Krauss producing.

What comes out is a pocket-sized pop song that sounds like it was built in a bedroom out of spare parts and sheer nerve: a bouncing, stubbornly catchy melody, Linnell's nasal, faintly mournful delivery, and a sense that the whole thing could fall apart into a joke at any second and somehow never does. In an age of big hair and bigger snare drums, it was proudly, gleefully small.

It traveled slowly. The single scraped into the Australian chart at 94 in 1988, and once Flood made the band a much bigger deal, Elektra gave it a second release in 1990. The countdowns never quite let go of it either.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.