Synopsis

They Might Be Giants perform in a cavernous, industrial-looking interior while a troupe of red-plaid dancers moves around them with stiff, exaggerated gestures. John Linnell and John Flansburgh appear in similarly eccentric poses, shifting between direct performance and surreal visual interruptions. The masks worn by the dancers give the scene an uncanny, almost mechanical quality, contrasting with the song's bright pop melody. The result is a playful but deliberately disorienting video that matches the track's rapid-fire imagery and unconventional energy.

Factoids & Trivia

• The video was filmed in 1989 inside Manhattan's Surrogate's Courthouse, whose large interior spaces were made to look more like an anonymous warehouse.

• The dancers' masks combine sunglasses with printed images of the eyes of William Allen White, a recurring visual reference in They Might Be Giants' artwork and videos.

• The video helped introduce the band to a much larger audience when "Birdhouse in Your Soul" became their breakthrough single from *Flood*.

• "Birdhouse in Your Soul" remains the band's highest-charting single in both the United States and the United Kingdom, reaching No. 3 on the US Modern Rock Tracks chart and No. 6 in the UK.

• The video's deliberately nonsensical images complement a song whose lyrics jump rapidly between unrelated subjects, including a blue-canary nightlight, Jason and the Argonauts, and the Longines Symphonette.