Contributors:

The TMBG Early Years Handbook

The TMBG FAQ

ana-ng@poetic.com

Dave Anderson

Tom Beres

Blue Canary

Jonathan Chaffer

J. D. Crutchfield

Siobain Duffy

Jamie jim joe joey junior shab-a-doo

Matthew McLauchlin

J. L. Moquin

Elitza Nicolaou

The Plaguerat

Brenden Rensink

Kelly Rodger

Tim Shorkey

Greg Smith

David Weeding

Sarah Hurd

Ana Ng is one of TMBG's many relationship songs. It regards a man's love that is either imagined or unrequited, depending on your interpretation. It would serve us well to first study some of the imagery and references made in the song, as they can be misleading if misunderstood.

First is the name Ana Ng itself. It is an arbitrary name, chosen because it is the most frequently occuring Chinese name in the New York telephone directory. Flansburgh thinks it is a Vietnamese name. It doesn't matter which it is; see the next paragra ph.

We turn to the gun imagery in the opening lines of the song. This is just a clever, poetic means of describing Ana's location. The intent is to demonstrate that Ana lives on the other side of the world from John. Whether there is really a coun try exactly opposite from John's location is irrelevant. We're going for concepts here, not specifics.

John then goes on to elaborate on the idea that Ana is on the other side of the world. First is pretty simple: "My apartment looks upside-down from there." That is indeed the idea we have; think about the joke that everything must be upside-down in Aus tralia, US folks.

Next, John says "water spirals the wrong way out the sink." This refers to Coriolis forces. There have been plenty of people who have stated that this effect does not really exist in small systems like sinks. We don't care. The important think is that people really do think that water in the other hemisphere will spiral the other way when going down the drain. So Ana is in the other hemisphere. If you want to know real facts about Coriolis forces, go to http://www.ems.psu.edu/~fraser/BadMeteorology.html for details.

The '64 World's Fair is prominent in this song. Some details about this event, from the Early Years Handbook:

The World's Fair-- a now-defunct annual New York bash celebrating American invention-- was a huge event in its heyday, drawing thousands upon thousands of wide-eyed spectators to observe the festival. John Linnell visited the '64 World's Fair as a chi ld. Obviously, it made a profound impression on him. The Fair turned up as a mysterious, unknown kind of alternate world in Linnell's "Ana Ng"-- "All alone at the '64 World's Fair / 80 dolls yelling 'Small Girl After All' / Who was at the Dupont Pavilion? / Why was the bench still warm? Who had been there?" Flansburgh has been known to hunt all '64 World's Fair items obsessively, recently proudly noting that he had finally located the '64 World's Fair souvenir record. (He is currently searching for the board game.)

About the "small girl" part: It is a TMBG-ized version of "small world," an exhibit at said fair. This may or may not have significance.

The "horn on the pole" is "at the bus depot", thus it is the speaker at a bus station which the announcments come out of such as "bus 311 to chicago will be departing in 5 minutes" much like at a train station or airport.

Now examine the bridge of the song: it has been noted that the bridge mentions a bridge, which may be intentional humor. The quote did not, in fact, come from a bridge, though it had been reported to be painted on a few later, as a joke. The quote come s from "a conversation we had about money," according to the Johns. Not necessarily significant to the theme of the song.

The final verse is once again obscure. The only obvious point to make is the joke in repeating the "broken record" line.

Probably the most obvious reading of this song is that it is a simple love song. From the chorus, we see that John is in love with a girl elsewhere in the world with whom he cannot be. He may have met her once and lost her. He may be merely speculating that there is someone special for him somewhere, and he will never meet her. That he is not with her is certain; he hypothesizes what it would be like "if there was a me for you."

Alternate reading: it is a critique on the Vietnam War. John F. thinks Ng is Vietnamese; the song could be referring to U.S.-Vietnam relations or a specific relationship with a girl in an enemy country.

There is a bit of information supposedly straight from the Johns, which does not necessarily detract from the value of previous interpretations:

A guy I used to know once had pizza with the two Johns after they played at the college radio station where he worked. He asked them about the meaning behind the lyrics to Ana Ng. They told him that the inspiration was a Pogo cartoon, in which Pogo was dressed up as Cupid or something, and he'd decided to shoot someone with his bow and arrow THROUGH the world -- hence the first verse of lyrics.