Inside Dubway Studio in New York, two men were laying down a song that refused to behave. John Linnell sang and played keyboards while John Flansburgh handled electric guitar and bass, the core of the American duo They Might Be Giants. On November 2, 1987, the track they recorded there became their first single, a slice of alternative rock called “Don’t Let’s Start.”
From debut album to maxi-single
The song had already been around. It appeared on the group’s self-titled debut album from 1986, and it was the first single pulled from that record. Bar/None and Restless put it out as a maxi-single, which meant extra tracks for collectors and curious listeners. The B-sides included “We’re the Replacements,” “When It Rains It Snows,” and “The Famous Polka.”
What listeners heard in those two minutes and thirty-six seconds was a band that treated pop structure like a toy. Linnell sang a line that stuck with people: “everybody dies frustrated and sad, and that is beautiful.” The words sounded profound, but Linnell repeatedly said that some lyrical turns were shaped to fit the melody and did not necessarily carry meaning. Asked where the text came from, his answer was simple: “I made it up.”
Chart runs and an MTV video
The song’s oddness did not stop it from travelling. It climbed to number 11 on the CMJ New Music Report alternative chart in the United States. Across the Pacific, it reached number 94 on Australia’s ARIA chart. A video directed by Adam Bernstein, shot inside the New York State Pavilion in Flushing Meadows Park, gave the song a second life on MTV. That pavilion had been built for the 1964 World’s Fair in New York.
MTV embraced the clip so fully that it landed on the channel’s list of the 100 greatest music videos ever made in 1999, at number 89. The video’s setting, a relic of futuristic architecture, matched the song’s playful, slightly surreal mood. They Might Be Giants were not a conventional rock band, and “Don’t Let’s Start” made that clear without needing to explain itself.
Flood, reissue and later presence
The song’s impact grew after the duo’s third album, Flood, became a hit. In 1990 Elektra reissued the single, this time with different B-sides: a remix of “Your Racist Friend,” along with “She’s an Angel” and “Absolutely Bill’s Mood.” The reissue also included “Letterbox” and “Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love.” The original recording session, from January 8, 1986, had been produced by Bill Krauss.
Linnell and Flansburgh wrote the song together, and their division of labour stayed consistent: Linnell’s voice and keyboards up front, Flansburgh’s guitar and bass behind him. The single is considered the band’s debut, the moment They Might Be Giants stepped out of New York’s underground and into a wider alternative scene. Their next single, “(She Was A) Hotel Detective,” followed in 1988.
“Don’t Let’s Start” did not sound like a typical first single. It was fragmented, funny, and built on a melody that seemed to change its mind every few bars. That was the point. The duo never tried to smooth out the strangeness, and the song’s long life on MTV and in reissues suggests listeners were ready for something that did not take itself too seriously. The song has also kept a quiet presence in the streaming era. Its official audio and video can be found on major platforms, and the YouTube upload of the video dates from November 4, 2019. By March 20, 2021, that upload had been viewed 36,024 times.