Maybe the main reason I love They Might Be Giants (TMBG) so much is the quirky humor they often emply in both music and lyrics. These quotes are among my favorites. In an alternate universe, I would learn to play the accordian and form a TMBG cover band. It would be called, naturally, "They Might Be TMBG".
| Quote | Attribution |
|---|---|
| Touch the puppet head! | "Put Your Hand Inside the Puppet Head", They Might Be Giants |
| And sadly, the cross-eyed bear
has gone to sleep behind the stair, and his shoes are laced with irony. | "Hide Away, Folk Family", They Might Be Giants |
| Nothing's gonna change my clothes, ever anymore! | "Nothing's Gonna Change My Clothes", They Might Be Giants |
| When you're following an angel
does it mean you have to throw your body off a building? | "Angel", They Might Be Giants |
| Well the rain falls down without my help, I'm afraid
And my lawn gets wet 'though I've withheld my consent. | "It's Not My Birthday", They Might Be Giants |
| As I walk, I think about a new way to walk.
As I think, I'm using up the time left to think. | "It's Not My Birthday", They Might Be Giants |
| I'm not the only dust my mother raised. | "It's Not My Birthday", They Might Be Giants |
| When this gray world crumbles like a cake,
I'll be hanging from the hope that I'll never see that recipe again. | "It's Not My Birthday", They Might Be Giants |
| I'm having a wonderful time,
but I'd rather be whistling in the dark. | "Whistling in the Dark", Flood |
| All the people are so happy now, their heads are caving in.
I'm glad they are a snowman with reflective rubber skin. | "Nothing's Gonna Change My Clothes", They Might Be Giants |
| 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. | "Dead", Flood |
| Now I'm rattlin' the bars around this drink tank.
Discretely I should pour through the keyhole or evaporate completely. And there'd be no percentage and there'd be no proof, And the sound upon the roof is only water. | "It's Not My Birthday", They Might Be Giants |
| I came back as a bag of groceries,
accidently taken off the shelf before the date stamped on myself. | "Dead", Flood |
| We both said "I really love you."
The Shriners loaned us cars. We raced up and down the sidewalk hundred thousand million times. | "Angel", They Might Be Giants |
| I heard they have a space program,
when they sing you can't hear, there's no air. Sometimes I think I kinda like that, and other times, I think I'm already there. | "Angel", They Might Be Giants |
| Wake up and smell the cat food! | "Don't Let's Start", They Might Be Giants |
| Is he a dot, or is he a speck?
When he's underwater, does he get wet? Or does the water get him instead? Nobody knows, Particle Man. | "Particle Man", Flood |
| The sun is a mass of incandescent gas
A gigantic nuclear furnace Where hydrogen is built into helium At a temperature of millions of degrees. | "Why Does the Sun Shine", Severe Tire Damage |
| I'm going down to Cowtown, cow's a friend to me.
Lives beneath the ocean and that's where I will be Beneath the waves, the waves, And that's where I will be, I'm gonna see the cow beneath the sea. | "Cowtown", Lincoln |
| The yellow Roosevelt Avenue leaf overturned
The ardor of arboreality is an adventure we have spurned. | "Cowtown", Lincoln |
| The day Marvin Gaye and Phil Ochs got married
The trees all waved their giant arms, And happiness bled from every streetcorner And biplanes bombed with fluffy pillows. | "The Day", Then-The Earlier Years |
| Purple toupee will show the way when summer brings you down.
Purple toupee and gold lame will turn your brain around. | "Purple Toupee", Lincoln |
| I shouted out, "Free the Expo 67!" | "Purple Toupee", Lincoln |
| We're on some kind of mission.
We have an obligation. We have to wear toupees. | "Purple Toupee", Lincoln |
| This is the spawning of the cage and aquarium.
Don't wait a moment too soon. | "Cage and Aquarium", Lincoln |
| When it rains, it snows. I wonder why. | "When it Rains, it Snows", Miscellaneous T |
| Everybody wants a rock to wind a piece of string around. | "We Want a Rock", Flood |
| Everybody wants prosthetic foreheads on their real heads. | "We Want a Rock", Flood |
| If I were a carpenter I'd hammer on my piglet. | "We Want a Rock", Flood |
| Is the thermostat engulfed in flames,
or is it just me? | "Thermostat", John Henry |
| Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part
that wonders what the part that isn't thinking isn't thinking of. | "Where Your Eyes Don't Go", Lincoln |
| Hush my darling, be still my darling,
the lion's on the phone. | "The Guitar", Apollo 18 |
| I was working all night in my office,
when a man I had recently killed called me up from a phone near my building, so I looked out the window at him. He had the same obsequious manner than was the reason I had him killed, so to calm my nerves I sang this song to him over the phone. | "Turn Around", Apollo 18 |
| I was out by myself in the graveyard.
I was doing an interpretive dance when I felt something heavy and pointed strike me in the back of my neck, and then the ghost of my dance instructor pushed me down into an open grave, and as dirt rained down she played a xylophone, and sang me this song. | "Turn Around", Apollo 18 |
| What's that blue thing doing here? | "Fingertips", Apollo 18 |
| He's a hypnotist, hypnotist of ladies.
... You won't remember why you liked him. | "Hypnotist of Ladies", Apollo 18 |