Not to be confused with New Jersey by The Dambuilders.
New Jersey is an identified parody of John Linnell's state songs that was misattributed to John himself and They Might Be Giants. Its earliest known origin was on WFMU.org, but it was later discovered it was spread before so.
Search History
On November 11th, 2006, WFMU posted a blog, poking fun at the state of New Jersey by posting a compilation of 22 parody songs about New Jersey. One of them was the misattributed John Linnell one.
On July 27th, 2024, user Erin (EvinaryE) found a Google Groups chat from 1999 discussing who actually made the song, due to it obviously not sounding like John Linnell. A user named Ross D. stated that the ID3 info said it wasn’t by John Linnell, and in his text signature was a link to a (now dead and unarchived) site with text under it saying “New Jersey”. Another user in the chat pointed this out and claimed that when going on the link, it said that Ross made the song.
Erin also discovered that Ross used to have another site where him and his friends posted their parodies and shared parodies by other people. Although that site did not have New Jersey, it did contain a few of Ross’ friends’ full names, including a “Rich Bunnell”.
On August 15th, 2024, Dylan (Lostwave's Unfinest) decided to find and contact Rich, since finding Ross seemed near impossible. Using clues from Rich’s Google Group chats, he tracked him down and contacted him. He got a response confirming that Ross was in fact the creator.
On June 4th, 2025, Ross learned of the search via this Wiki page, and went to Lostwave's Unfinest's YouTube video and agreed to join the Discord server. There, he provided a longer version of the song, an alternate version labelled as the "Original Casio Mix", and the .midi files that make up the song's instrumental.
Lyrics
New Jersey... really sucks
Toxic waste, and garbage dumps
*cough*
It's real hard to breath here
It's crowded, reeks of- *cough*
Umm, yeah.
Th- yeah, it's still really crowded here
And uhh, people get in my way
(Hey!) Die!
Um... uhh umm... I forgot...
Um whatever...
New Jersey... really sucks
*coughing/laughing*
[Outro of people talking very quietly]
Toxic waste, garbage dumps
*cough*
New Jersey, really sucks
I can't breathe, lots of smog
It's really green, but not good
*coughs*
Um... it's really crowded
Get out my way, you... stupid...
Die! God...
Um... New Jersey, really sucks
*sad cough*
[Outro of people talking very quietly]
Gallery
