andrew

There are so many, but I just heard Birdhouse in Your Soul by They Might Be Giants in the last hour, and I really do think that might be one of the catchiest songs there is. It has a million key changes and so many good, varied, parts.

I used to have this book, the Songwriting Secrets Of The Beatles, which talked about all the ways that the Beatles made their songs so catchy. There were so many different things the Beatles did, and they would often just put multiple techniques in the same song. I feel like They Might Be Giants have that in common with them. They make such catchy music, but it's not in the sort of formulaic way that some bands may catchy music, where the songs kind of wear off somewhat quickly, if that makes sense.

If you listen to pop-punk music from the 90s or the 2000s, for example, a lot of it seems catchy on first listen, but it's really just fairly simple, and there's no little quirky elements. For me, and I think a lot of people, it's the weird little quirky bits that really supercharge the catchiness of a song.

I definitely wouldn't call They Might Be Giants one of my favourite bands or anything like that, but I do love a lot of their stuff, and this song, particularly, really is incredible.