Each week, SPIN digs into the catalogs of great artists and highlights songs you might not know for our Deep Cut Friday series.
Like the TV series it was based on, 1995’s Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie was silly, low budget, and popular enough with kids to turn a profit. Some of the bigger names on the film’s soundtrack album, like Van Halen and Red Hot Chili Peppers, merely approved the inclusion of years-old hits. But two long-running alternative bands contributed excellent original songs: Devo’s “Are You Ready?!” and “SenSurround” by They Might Be Giants.
TMBG singer/keyboardist John Linnell explained in a 1995 interview with the Springfield, Massachusetts-based newspaper The Republican that “SenSurround” was inspired by another campy box office hit, the 1974 disaster film Earthquake. “It had a special effect called ‘Sensurround’ − a big speaker in the front made the whole room shake,” Linnell recalled. “The main thrust of the song is that the person singing it was in utero when his mother went to see Earthquake, and it had a permanent effect on the development of the embryo.”
MCA developed Sensurround specifically for Earthquake, the fourth highest-grossing film of 1974, and it won an Oscar for Best Sound. The same effect was used for the theatrical release of a few other movies, including Midway and Rollercoaster, but Sensurround eventually went the way of other ’70s fads like platform shoes and pet rocks.
The soundtrack version of “SenSurround” was produced by Neil Dorfsman (Dire Straits, Sting). The band re-recorded it in sessions for 1996’s Factory Showroom with Pat Dillett, who would go on to produce just about every subsequent They Might Be Giants album. The version that appeared on the B-side of the “S-E-X-X-Y” single is a little faster and a little tighter, with a more developed bridge than the 1995 version.
They Might Be Giants have released multiple compilations and anthologies of B-sides from their early Bar/None Records releases and their later independent releases. But the B-sides from the band’s most popular years on Elektra Records during the ’90s have never been collected on an album, making “SenSurround” one of the very best They Might Be Giants songs that isn’t on streaming services.
Three more essential They Might Be Giants deep cuts:
“Kiss Me, Son of God”
Lincoln’s closing track, sung from the perspective of some kind of politician and/or cult leader who’s built an empire on “the blood of the exploited working class,” has in recent years become by far TMBG’s most popular ’80s track on streaming services. It’s hard to say why people might find the song so resonant these days.
“Fingertips”
Tracks 17 through 37 on 1992’s Apollo 18 are a series of microsongs, many of them only a few seconds long, that are collectively known as “Fingertips.” The band has occasionally performed the entire tour de force in concert as a medley.
“Another First Kiss”
It’s fair to say that most They Might Be Giants songs usually have absurd, esoteric, or abstract subject matter. But the band has occasionally excelled at more conventional love songs and breakup songs, including “Narrow Your Eyes,” “She’s an Angel,” and “Pet Name.” The uptempo power pop song “First Kiss” first appeared on the band’s 1998 live album Severe Tire Damage. Fountains of Wayne’s Adam Schlesinger produced and helped arrange the slower studio version, “Another First Kiss,” that appears on 2001’s Mink Car. I took my wife to a couple They Might Be Giants shows when we were dating, and at her suggestion, “Another First Kiss” was our first dance at our wedding.