(She Was A) Hotel Detective

(She Was A) Hotel Detective is a song by alternative rock band They Might Be Giants. It went on to be released as an EP, two years after the release of They Might Be Giants, the album on which it originally appeared. The song has been followed up by the band with two sequel songs.

The entire contents of the EP also appear on the compilation album Miscellaneous T. The track "Kiss Me, Son of God" went on to be re-recorded and released on the band's 1988 album, Lincoln. Neither the CD release nor the 12" release of the EP list the untitled track in their respective track listings. The track consists of a conversation recorded on Dial-A-Song's answering machine between a listener known only as 'Gloria' and an unknown male.^[2]

Hotel Detective series

The song "(She Was A) Hotel Detective" can be found on They Might Be Giants, the band's first album. It was later followed up by the very different "She Was A Hotel Detective" on their EP from 1994, Back to Skull. A second sequel, "(She Was A) Hotel Detective In The Future", was released on the band's podcast, and subsequently on the CD compilation of songs from their podcast, Cast Your Pod to the Wind.

The release order of the tracks is canonical to the story. In the first track, she is actively working as a detective at the hotel (She's got her ear to the walls and she's tappin' the calls). Later, she has become very wealthy and has found a new career, though it is unclear if she is still doing detective work. With riches, she has become extremely powerful and is "now running the world". In the final song, she has survived long past her years and has had several modifications to her body (She had a hundred mechanical fingers).

In popular culture

Joey Ahlbum's animated versions of John Linnell and John Flansburgh from the "(She Was A) Hotel Detective" music video were used in the first episode of the 1991 sitcom Clarissa Explains It All to illustrate the fact that Clarissa liked Linnell (the John without the glasses).

Track listing

All tracks by They Might Be Giants.

CD track listing

12" track listing

Personnel

• John Flansburgh – vocals, guitar
• John Linnell – vocals, bass saxophone, baritone saxiphone, synthesizers
• Anne Moore – vocals
• Peter Pairman Thomson – backup vocals

Production

• Al Houghton – engineer
• Bill Krauss – producer
• Mark Marek – cover art
• Rita Zaitschek – cover production

References

External links

• (She Was A) Hotel Detective EP at This Might Be A Wiki
• "(She Was A) Hotel Detective" (song) at This Might Be A Wiki