Dial-A-Song: Always busy, often broken

By Mercedes Caldera-Perez

The Centennialight

Started in November 1983, Dial-A-Song was a project created by a music group from Brooklyn, NY, They Might Be Giants, when the band was forced to take an unexpected break from performing live. 

Formed in 1982 by John Flansburgh and John Linnell, the American alternative group has been active for 43 years, producing 23 studio albums over the course of their run time. 

Flansburgh had just moved into a new apartment and was burglarized the day he moved in, losing nearly all his worldly possessions. Linnell had gotten into a bicycle accident in the same week where he had broken his right wrist, causing the band to halt for about four months.

Not wanting to lose momentum, Flansburgh took an idea he had previously and started to create Dial-A-Song. He credits a Christian phone service that played back inspirational messages through an answering machine for the concept. 

Flansburgh bought the first Dial-A-Song machine that he housed inside a suitcase in his kitchen, originally using his home phone line. When the number is called, a one to two minute song will play on the answering machine, and the song was usually updated daily. 

The songs used for Dial-A-Song ranged from fully produced songs, fractions of songs the duo was working on, songs that would go unreleased, and demos.

The project was advertised in the back of The Village Voice in the “Voice Bulletin Board”. Flansburgh listed the ads as personal instead of the more appropriate commercial listing because it was cheaper, and because of this, the band was afraid to attach themselves to Dial-A-Song. 

When performing, the Johns quietly promoted the project by putting the phone number on their respective instruments with the hope that people would be curious enough to call the number themselves. 

Later, they would include the number on notes and back covers of their releases once they started releasing music commercially.

Although the original run of Dial-A-Song was discontinued in 2008, the project was later brought back in 2014 with a new number that is still active today. Calling (844) 387-6962 will play one song out of a set from the 2015/2018 projects. 

There is a vast amount of information about not only the history of Dial-A-Song, but also trivia, promotional material/recorded advertisements, and a brief section on the answering machines which can be found at tmbw.net. Absolutely anything and everything you’d like to know about the band can be found at This Might Be A Wiki, a fan-run website that keeps track of all things TMBG.