V03-T14 Why Does The Sun Shine?

.....These compilations were made with a greater degree of spontaneity than cassettes I put together for a particular artist or theme. I would usually jot down song titles and playing times on scrap paper 4-6 songs ahead of whatever I was dubbing at the moment so that I wouldn't be surprised by the tape running out. If you add up the playing times for any of these ten volumes you should get roughly 45 minutes for just that reason. Aside from that one concession to planning they were programmed on the fly mostly by instinct.

Volume 3: A KINDER, GENTLER ZERO TOLERANCE, track 14

• 02:54 "WHY DOES THE SUN SHINE?" (Hy Zarat, Lou Singer)
• performed by They Might Be Giants
• original source: CD5 Elektra 66272-2(US)1993
• and my source: the same

.....While recording the 2009 album CD/DVD HERE COMES SCIENCE Disney Sound DOOO456600(US)9/09 the band TMBG was informed that this song from their back catalog was factually incorrect, despite the fact that they covered it from a 1950's educational project. They had even performed it for about twenty years without anyone pointing out that scientific consensus about the composition of the sun has changed in the last half century. If it wasn't for the fact that HERE COMES SCIENCE was intended for children it would not have come under closer scrutiny than most of their releases, as it did. Not wanting to drop a popular song from their repertoire, they coupled it with a new original song, "WHY DOES THE SUN REALLY SHINE?", which was not only correct information but also an object lesson about the greatest strength of science: everything is subject to reexamination and truth is what can be demonstrated, not merely what we are told. The full story behind the remake is here, with links to the history of the original:

http://tmbw.net/wiki/Why_Does_The_Sun_Really_Shine%3F

.....What I wrote about it at the time was that "After listening to this tape a few times I've become painfully aware how this song sticks out like a sore thumb. I just couldn't help it. Aside from a few left over singles from the 1992 APOLLO 19 album, this EP was the band's total output last year: one original song and three covers including this, the title track." Well, that's overstating it. I have since found a two-song vinyl Christmas single from the very end of the year and have learned from their site linked above that a mini-album length cassette of demos for their JOHN HENRY album leaked out and was widely bootlegged until they made it available by podcast. There were a paucity of stray tracks as well, but all in all not much for a normally prolific band. I didn't know how many more of these compilations I would be making and I couldn't imagine not having TMBG in there somewhere. While it didn't fit as I'd expected it would ("TODDLER HIGHWAY" might have worked had I thought of it) I can take some comfort in the knowledge that I gave an implicit endorsement early on for a song that proved to have considerable durability.