Quotation from the TMBG FAQ, maintained by John Relph <relph@engr.sgi.com>.

28. What is "The Statue Got Me High" about?

Andrew Weiskopf <ST891425@pip.cc.brandeis.edu> writes:

Our French Literature specialist has brought to our attention the Moliere work called Don Juan. The relationships between this work and the TMBG song are too numerous to ignore: "And though I once preferred a human being's company, They pale before the monolith that towers over me..." Don Juan, the king of all lovers, sees a statue one day, when suddenly, the statue strikes up a conversation with him. The two have a good rapport, and so Don INVITES THE STATUE OVER FOR DINNER, as opposed to one of his m any LADY FRIENDS.

"The statue got me high..." During dinner, our hero suddenly realizes that his dinner guest is not the kind person he originally met. But before Don can run away, the statue HYPNOTIZES him, and makes him sit back down at the dinner table.

"...it killed me..." The statue KILLED Don Juan. 'Nuff said.

"The statue made me fry..." Then, the statue sent him down to HELL, to FRY for all eternity.

"And what they'll find is just a statue standing where..." Had angry villagers busted down the door, I suppose all they would have seen was A STATUE STANDING WHERE the statue got Don Juan hypnotized...

Pretty incredible, huh? All you TMBG/Moliere fans- is there any truth to this?!?! Did all of this really happen in the same book? If so, one cannot deny that there must be some creedence to this theory.

During the 1994 They Might Be Giants tour, John Linnell introduced the song as having been written about Don Giovanni, although ``I didn't know it when I wrote it.''

By the way, Don Juan and Don Giovanni are the same person, just different works, the former a play by Moliere, the latter an opera by Mozart.

J.D. Baldwin <baldwin@netcom.com> says:

If L. introduced the song this way, my guess is that he was referring to the Mozart opera of that name, based on the same story. Since it is much more widely performed and much more familiar than the Moliere play, it seems reasonable that his referenc es were based on the opera. More musical that way, anyway.

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Quoth David Heiman <SAHeiman@aol.com>:

It fits with Arthur Clark's space odysees (ie. 2001, 2010, 2061)

The statue made me die
It took my hand it killed me and it threw me to the sky

Dave was copied onto the whatever (easy interpretation is sky), and then the original was killed-

The statue made me fry
My coat contained a furnace where there used to be a guy

-by a star coalacing oround the original, incinerating him.

And though I once preffered a human being's company
they pale before the monolith that towers over me

The "star child" Dave worked with a monolith, found it to be partially sentient, and learned to use it.

And now it is your turn
(your turn to hear the stone and then your turn to burn)

Dave uses the monolith to copy HAL, and the original HAL, with the spaceship, flew into Jupiter, which was turned into a star. So HAL fried too.

Quoth Christopher Grillo <Stevecamp@aardvark.ucs.uoknor.edu>:

Out of the two interpretations listed, it is necessary to present something current and without literary basis. Basically, the "statue" is a "TV".

The statue got me high
The statue got me high

Many people are transfixed by the images to such a degree that reality bleeds out.

The monument of granite sent a beam into my eye

"monument of granite" refers to the fact the the statue is terrestially made. The pictures are made with bunches of photons striking the screen and the couch potatoes.

The statue made me die
The statue made me die
It took my hand it kiled me and it threw me to the sky

The death is the singer's lifelessness as he becomes transfixed by TV; the singer chooses to watch TV instead of living life. Since the TV statue has no intrinsic power, the singer's attention is actually being drawn to the sky from which the signal's come.

The stone it called to me
(And now I see the things the stone has shown to me)
A rock that spoke a word
(An animated mineral it can be heard)

All in all, one can listen to and watch the statue. Very TV-ish.

And though I once preferred a human being's company
They pale before the monolith that towers over me

"The more people I meet, the more I like to watch TV." Even the singer's friends are not as interesting as the TV's offerings.

The statue got me high
The statue got me high
The truth is where the sculptor's chisel chipped away the lie
The statue made me fry
The statue made me fry
The statue made me fry
My coat contained a furnace where there used to be a guy

Watching TV. Watching TV. The screen is what the singer believes tells him the truth. In essence, the singer has forsaken the real world and has instead accepted television VR as his sole footing in life. TV rotting brain. TV rotting brain. TV ro tting brain. When one sits too long in one place, one gets a might toasty.

There's a lot more of the same. Fastfoward to the end.

And as the screaming fire engine siren fills the air
The evidence will vanish from your charred and smoing chair
And what they found was just a statue
Standing where the statue got me high
And what they'll find is just a statue
Standing where the stature go you high

Even when the singer is long gone, the statue remains. Not only will it seduce and corrupt new individuals, but also anybody is susceptible.

TV, its not just entertainmet, its dangerous art.

Quoth Christy <Christi587@aol.com>:

Ok, yeah, this is obvious, but it hasn't been mentioned yet so here goes. Statue = made of stone. Stone = rock. Rock = slang for crack cocaine. Statue got me high = crack got me high. Whoopee.

"The stone it called to me", "now I see the things the stone has showed to me", "It took my hand, it killed me and it threw me to the sky", "My coat contained a furnace"... this sounds like the singer's having a bad trip

"Though I once prefered a human being's company, it pales before the monolith that towers over me"... once you're hooked, it's the most important thing in your life

"You can't refuse to do the things it tells you to"... again, physical addiction dictates the narrator's actions. Also see below

"As the screaming fire engine siren filled the air", "what they found was just a statue standing where the statue got me high"... the cops (well, all those sirens sound the same to me!) came for the guy and he ran away, leaving his drugs behind in his hurry

"Now it is your turn" and everything in future tense... the narrator is a dealer trying to get other people hooked, maybe because he Can't Refuse To Do The Things the stone Tells him To.

Quoth Robin Jamison <jamison1@ix.netcom.com>:

I picture a confused and struggling father that commits suicide in front of his little boy by torching himself. The vision of the fathers statue-like skeleton is an image that stays with the boy his whole life. When he becomes the same age that his f ather was when he died, our guy commits suicide in the same way. He can't cope. Not with life or the image of his dead father. And as he's burning to death he can hear the fire engine sirens coming for him.

Quoth Tamar Wilner <twilner@wesleyan.edu>:

I don't know if this is what John and John had in mind, but I think of the statue as a volcano--specifically, a rhyolitic volcano. Rhyolitic magma contains the highest silica content, therefore the magma is more viscous and this type of volcano tends to have *violent eruptions.* (therefore GOT ME HIGH and TO THE SKY refers to being thrown into the air by the force of the volcanoās eruption, DIE and KILLED referred to being killed by the eruption) Rhyolitic magma forms light-colored rocks such as GRAN ITE. Granite is formed inside the earth, where its crystals can grow quite large. It is composed of the minerals feldspar and quartz, along with some mica and hornblende. Quartz forms six-sided minerals, which, if they grow large enough, exhibit unusual audial and optical properties. To quote Encarta Encyclopedia on CD-ROM: "Quartz crystals exhibit a property called the piezoelectric effect, that is, they produce an electric voltage when subjected to pressure along certain directions of the crystal. Be cause of this property, quartz crystal has important applications in the electronics industry for controlling the frequency of radio waves. It also has the optical property of rotating the plane of polarized light and is used in polarizing microscopes."< /p>

It is not hard to see that there is a connection between these properties of quartz and Their lines: IT CAN BE HEARD/CALLS TO YOU/YOU CAN'T REFUSE THE THINGS IT TELLS YOU TO (audial/radio) and A MONUMENT OF GRANITE SENT A BEAM INTO MY EYE (visual).

This is probably stretching it, but sand is primarily quartz, and um, I will quote Encarta again: "A variety of the rock, known as oölitic limestone, is composed of small spherical concretions, each containing a nucleus of a sand grain or other foreign particle around which deposition has taken place." Limestone, in turn, when metamorphised, becomes marble, a popular rock to SCULPT and CHISEL. Perhaps chiseling away as marble helps one get back to the rock's origin as rhyolitic granite.

As for the other minerals contained in granite, I wonder if there is any connection between feldspar (which is often potassium-rich) and lye (a pun on CHIPPED AWAY THE LIE, usually a sodium or potassium hydroxide.) Anyone know about this?

Finally, I would point out that it seems the narrator is actually *inside* the volcano. Perhaps the narrator has been a sacrifice to the gods, thrown inside the volcanic crater. STONE IT CALLS TO YOU etc. can be speaking to the next sacrificial victim. FURNACE refers to the magma reservoir inside the volcano. FRY is cause, well, itās damn hot inside volcanoes. WHAT THEY'āLL FIND IS JUST A STATUE STANDING WHERE THE STATUE GOT YOU HIGH is because the volcano itself is left standing while its magma res ervoirs deplete their contents.

Giantisms:

• Chipped away the lie/chipped away the lye