Great Truckin' Songs of the Renaissance is the debut album by the Australian band TISM. The title was suggested by Leek Van Vlalen's friend, the Sydney University philosopher, Michaelis Michael. Originally released on vinyl as a double album on 26 September 1988, it was re-issued by Shock Records as a lone compact disc. The album reached No. 48 on the ARIA Charts in October 1988.

The vinyl version has a different vocal mix on the track, "Saturday Night Palsy", including an alternate line of lyrics, with the line "I want to shoot heroin through the eye" replaced by "I want to shove a red-hot poker through the eye" on the CD.

The Age's Shaun Carney, in September 1988, described Great Truckin' Songs of the Renaissance as "a fine piece of work. Clever clever they might be on occasions, but if a few more bands applied even half the humor, social observation and melodic intervention that TISM seems to simply toss off, the world would be a, um, groovier place."

Jonathan Lewis of AllMusic rated the album as four-and-a-half stars out of five, he explained "Completely tasteless and musically mediocre, the album was nonetheless fresh, witty, and extremely funny. The album is more or less standard guitar rock, but it is the song lyrics that make this album great."

In December 2004 FasterLouder's Kathryn Kernohan felt the group had "always written simple, direct pop songs... [their] basic structure has remained the same – danceable guitar and keyboard lines coupled with catchy choruses. The band’s ability to write a ridiculously good pop song is second-to-none and this is no better exemplified than in Great Truckin’ Songs opening tracks." She noticed that "The second record of the double-vinyl set (it's not as much fun on CD, is it?) contains various odds and ends, including snippets of a Triple R interview in which the band rode into the studio on lawnmowers."

"40 Years – Then Death" is a 1987 single by Australian alternative rock band TISM. It was originally released on white vinyl in a clear plastic wrapper with no identifying labels of any kind.

"40 Years – Then Death" details an early-twenties male's despondent view of his remaining sex life: 40 more years of "living" then "death". The single earned TISM recognition as their earlier single "Defecate on My Face" was very infrequently played on radio, if at all; where this single was quite radio friendly. The snippet after the main song, "Art, Religion and the Neo-Classical Dialectic", part of a longer piece, "Ezra Pound, Axe-King", which has nothing to do with the song from Great Truckin' Songs of the Renaissance and was released in full on Best Off in 2002.

...
Wikipedia