Band Info Arcade Discussion Home Page Navigation Graphic

Author: They Might Be Giants
Sung by:
Length: 0: 0
On Albums: Then: The Earlier Years, Mightathon, Selections From The 2-CD Retrospective

Quoth Jeff Troy <JeffTr32ft@aol.com>:

I've studied physics for the better part of, well, my whole life, actually, and it's true what they said in the second part of the first verse:

"simulataneous events don't happen
We are isolated temporally"

Einstein proved, in his special theory of relativity, that absolute time does not exist, and the perceived time of the observer is relative to his position, etc. Therefore, simultinaety does not exist either, for what is simultaeneous to observer A is not for observer B.

The meaning of the song is the inability for some people (and I really have to include myself here) to lie.

I was never at the island, hon. honest I wasn't. Even if your friends tell you I was.

I didn't damage that wall, officer, I wasn't even at the march. Please don't send me to the Gulag.

We weren't both even there at the same time. Einstein proved such a thing impossible.

The chorus, "samba time for Tamba and WeepDay for Urine man" is the expected result of the time honored fight starter which always goes something like this:

"honey, did you leave the seat up?"

"why no, hon, of course not"

"Lying &#%@#"

(sounds of flying plates and other dangerous projectile weapons)

Urine man left the seat up, and Tamba, his wife catches him. Tamba, of course, can lie all she wants and never raise suspicion, wheras Urine man cannot, which is why Tamba can Samba while Urine man just sits and cries the tears of a guilty man.

the last verse is more complicated.

The fist half is lying that men do very well at, which is lying for no reason at all.

I didn't sing that line,

I didn't write that,

I'm not singing this for you

the second half is a strange account of a woman's web of deceit, which a man will invariably fall for. Why? Because, as my mother has often warned: "When a man is faced with a woman, good or evil, he is apt to think with the wrong head."

the lies of man are merely like two opinions, easily spotted, where a woman is able to seperate her good and evil sides, thus the lies are more oft beleived, since it is seen as uncharacteristic, coming from the second or unseen half.