Maybe this belongs in GQ, but I thout that it was a rather mundane and pointless question, so I put it here.
What exactly is the TMBG’s song “Particle Man” about? The most coherant theory I have heard is that Particle Man, Triangle Man, and Universe Man represent different strains of Christianity and that Person Man represnets the average citizen who is ultimately harmed by all of the conflict between them all. Person Man ultimately doesn’t know who to listen to. The idea goes that it’s an allegory for the history of christian theology. If so, then is the song ultimately anti-christian?
Any other ideas? Or is it just a wacky song written by two silly nerds with nothing better to do?
The way I heard it, it’s a rationalist allegory; particle man is science, triangle man is religion, universe man is nature, and person man is the public. That would mean that I disagree with the song. However, it’s still a cute song.
Without having gone off to visit that link (thanks btw matt) I’ll give you a brief overview of one of our favourite interpretations (also one of many).
I’m glossing badly but you’ll get the gist.
It’s a song about perceptions and the differences between them and to a lesser extent the intractions between them.
Particle Man represents matter but mostly at a subatomic level. Basically, anything smaller than animals.
Triangle man is radiation, disease or death. We have a parituclarly weird (but cool) theory using the radiation theory but I shan’t digress.
Universe man is those things beyond our comprehension. Gods, afterlife and so on.
Person man is of course humanity.
So essentially it’s the three forms of life plus the constant of death. And of course triangle wins all the time.
Not that we ever saw him up against Universe Man. Now there’s a deathmatch waiting to happen.
One of my theories about Triangle Man: the triangle, as I recalled from my high school days, was the symbol in a chemical equation for adding heat. Thus, Triangle Man squashed Particle Man and Person Man.
If you’ve ever seen the Tiny Toons Music Television video of this song, you’d realize that Particle man is Plucky Duck in a wrestler’s costume, Triangle man is a large, fat guy and Universe man is an even larger fat guy (both also in wrestling garb). Person Man is Plucky Duck without a wrestling costume.
No matter how he’s dressed, Plucky (as Particle Man or Person Man) gets stomped. Alas, there are very few anvils in this video, but there is a little old lady using a walker.
The allegory is plainly evident: no matter how you dress, some big fat guy in a wrestling costume will try to stomp your butt.
Of course, I’m certain there are other, equally valid interpretations (but mine is the most correct one :wally).
Much as I love TMBG, I can’t in good faith reccommend anyone trying to find meaning in any of their songs. I mean, sure, if the meaning behind “The Sun (Is A Mass Of Incandescent Gas)” is pretty blatantly clear, but try to puzzle out “Whistling In The Dark” and you’re in for a breakdown. As they say in Matt’s link, I’d say they just aren’t fixed in meaning, and everyone’s interpretation is correct.
i would have to go along with baloo’s interpertation<sp?>
i happen to be quite fond of “birdhouse in your soul”…although i think that that too has no significant meaning except to make you smile
Would you mind if we balanced this glass of milk
Where your visiting friend accidentally was killed?
Would it be OK with you
If we wrote a reminder
of things we’d forget to do today
Otherwise
Using a green magic marker
(if it’s all right)
On the back of your head?
Minimum Wage… HYAHH!! whipcrack
Turn up your hearing aid; don’t say
Electric chair’s not good enough
For king lazy bums like myself…
…and you’re stressing out about interpretations for Particle Man?! My friend, there’s a whole wide vista of bemusing confusion out there waiting for you to explore.
just so you know
Mercedes Lackey, a great author of fantasy novels…uses TMBG songs as a way for a prisoner to make the telepathics trying to get into his head go crazy…he keeps singing the lyrics over and over and the telepaths go crazy trying to interpret it
A couple friends of mine went to a TMBG concert pretty early in their career, about '88 or '89. After the show they had a chance to chat with John and John. They asked them why Triangle Man hates everybody. The answer, “that’s just the kind of guy he is.”
OK, I think that this tops Olentzero’s quotes for inscrutability:
If I were a carpenter I’d
Hammer on my piglet, I’d
Collect the seven dollars and I’d
Buy a big prosthetic forehead
And wear it on my real head
Everybody wants prosthetic
Foreheads on their real heads
Everybody wants prosthetic
Foreheads on their real heads
Throw the crib door wide
Let the people crawl inside
Someone in this town
Is trying to burn the playhouse down
They want to stop the ones who want
Prosthetic foreheads on their heads
But everybody wants prosthetic
Foreheads on their real heads
However, it is a cool song, and may I add, I have it in my (non-prosthetic) head now.
I loved Chrome Circle! Don’t forget that he was also concentrating on the awesome mystical power of the accordion–if that isn’t a great subject for a TMBG song, I don’t know what is. That book is what got me started listening to TMBG in the first place–I didn’t catch the Tiny Toons episode until some recent reruns.
I don’t pretend to understand “Particle Man”, but 'Minimum Wage" seems pretty straightforward for a TMBG song. Also, I’ve always though of “A Rock to Wind a String Around” as being about harassment of nonconformists by the unimaginative.
I’ve always liked Purple Toupee as a sort of '60s epic sung by someone who was way too young to really remember the '60s.
I’m not sure if Balance’s idea about nonconformity has been absorbed by the fans. I went to a TMBG concert a few years ago at a college auditorium. I’d never been there before, and I wasn’t sure I was in the right place until I saw some students holding rocks with strings tied around them, and one girl with a purple carpet sample on her head.
I’d love to find out the story behind the Tiny Toon/TMBG videos. I have an animation cel from Particle Man.
Great, now I have to go find my TMBG tapes…and dammit, I want a prothestic forehead.
And wait…they used TMBG in Chrome Circle??? Damn, I gotta read that book again.
As for inscrutable lyrics, I submit:
I returned a bag of groceries accidentally taken off the shelf before the expiration date.
I came back as a bag of groceries accidentally taken off the date stamped on myself.
Did a large procession wave their torches as their head fel in the basket
And was everybody dancing on the casket?
Now it’s over, I’m dead, and I haven’t done anything that I want
Or I’m still alive and there’s nothing I want to do.
(Actually, for nonsense lyrics, try Fingertips. but I’m not typing that one out.)
Chrome Circle is an awesome book, as are most by Mercedes Lackey…TMBG just has cool lyrics…i used to try and understand them, but i find it much more enjoyable to just listen, and figure out ways to use the songs in fun ways…i used to use lines from Fingertips on my answering machine and also on my frisbee team…please pass the milk please was a code for us…weird, i know, but it was fun…
Well, perhaps Particle Man is like the riddle, recently cited as a Cecil’s Classic, about “Why is a Raven like a writing desk?” It’s a song that seems like an allegory for something greater, but its really just about nothing in particular, all to the consternation of guys like me who NEED an explanation.
And Fingertips is just a collection of song fragments. I don’t even understand them individually, never mind as a group.
