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Particle Man
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Wikipedia article
"'Particle Man'" is a song by alternative rock band They Might Be Giants, released and published in 1990. The song is the seventh track on the band's third album, 'Flood'. It has become one of the band's most popular songs, despite never having been released as a single. John Linnell and John Flansburgh performed the song, backed by a metronome, for their 1990 'Flood' promotional video. Although it was released over a decade before the band began writing children's music, "Particle Man" is sometimes cited as a particularly youth-appropriate TMBG song, and a precursor to their first children's album, 'No!', which was not explicitly educational. The song is partially influenced by the theme of the 1967 'Spider-Man' TV series.
They Might Be Giants' official YouTube account has the user name "ParticleMen", derived from the song title.
Lyrical content
The song describes four different "men": Particle Man, a microscopic being whose attributes are deemed "not important" enough to be discussed lyrically; Triangle Man, a belligerent entity who hates Particle Man, fights him, and wins; Universe Man, a kinder being, who is the size of the universe, and has a watch with hands relevant to the age of the universe ("Hes got a watch with a minute hand, a millennium hand, and an eon hand"); and Person Man, a "degraded" being who lives in a garbage can, somehow feels worthless, and who is also despised, challenged, and defeated by Triangle Man.
One intertextual (in the most obvious sense) explanation for the first strophe of the song's apparently nonsense lyrics is as a muted parody of the degraded agon driving the plot of David Cronenberg's The Fly (1986), in which the male protagonist (played by Jeff Goldblum) first appears at a cocktail party in front of a neon triangle, and the agonist (played by John Getz) is the editor of 'Particle Magazine' and drives a sports car whose prominent vanity plate spells out "PARTICLE." Goldblum's character hates Getz's character for publishing an expose on his scientific discoveries; at the end of the film, they have a fight, and Triangle wins. However, he wins nothing, and begs to be killed in the film's final sequence, an outcome resonant with the depressive tone of the song's announcement of Triangle's victory: "They have a fight, Triangle wins, triangle man."
The song's author, John Linnell, denied the assertion that there is a deeper meaning to "Particle Man", stating on a phone interview filmed for 'Gigantic (A Tale of Two Johns)' that "nothing is missing from your understanding of 'Particle Man.'Gigantic (A Tale of Two Johns)'. Dir. AJ Schnack. 2003. Band member John Flansburgh described it as "just a song about characters in the most obvious sense" and claims that the lyrics are not intended to allude to real people,Flansburgh, John. by Matt Springer and Brian Bender. 'Pop Culture Corn'. October 1998. Retrieved 2013-02-10. though Linnell later said that "Triangle Man was based on a friend's observation that Robert Mitchum looked like an evil triangle when he took his shirt off in 'Night of the Hunter'. Nothing else not explicitly stated need be inferred."
Video
Both "Particle Man" and another They Might Be Giants song, "Istanbul", were made into music videos featured on the Warner Bros. animated series, 'Tiny Toon Adventures' and 'The Plucky Duck Show'. Both appeared in the episode "Tiny Toons Music Television". In the video for "Particle Man", Plucky Duck portrays both Particle Man and Person Man (Person Man being, in the video's interpretation, Particle Mans secret identity), and the other characters are featured as massive wrestlers.Ricks, Rosy. "They Might Be Giants at the Pabst—Oh, Boy". 'Third Coast Digest'. 2011-10-30. Prime 7 Media. The video also includes cameos by The Crusher from the Looney Tunes short 'Bunny Hugged', Hamton J. Pig as a wrestling announcer who lip-syncs the song's lyrics, and Dizzy Devil playing the accordion.
The music videos for "Particle Man" and "Istanbul" are credited with having introduced young fans to the band.Rivait, Lindsay. "Here Comes They Might Be Giants". 'Lance'. 2008-03-05. Although they were not official music videos, the 'Tiny Toons' selections warranted inclusion on the band's 1999 video compilation, 'Direct from Brooklyn'.
Influence and usage
In addition to the 'Tiny Toons Adventures' music video above, "Particle Man" has been performed by schoolchildren on multiple occasions. In two such instances, the band has obtained recordings of the performances and released them to their fans and the general public. A cover entitled "Schoolchildren Singing 'Particle Man, recorded by a music teacher at an elementary school, appeared on the band's Dial-A-Song phone line, as well as their 1999 compilation 'Then: The Earlier Years'. John Linnell stated that this was his favourite version of the song.Flansburgh, John and John Linnell. "John and John Answer Your Questions". TMBG Info Club. 1994. Another rendition was done by the fifth graders of the Kingsley Montessori School in Boston. The recording was accompanied by an animated video made by the students, which the band uploaded to YouTube.
In the Marvel Comics series 'X-Factor', writer Peter David referenced "Particle Man" as the source song for a fictional parody by "Weird Al" Yankovic about the character Multiple Man. A partial verse, which discussed Multiple Man's ability to create duplicates of himself, was presented as a radio broadcast in issue #73.David, Peter, Larry Stroman, and Al Milgrom. "Crowd Control" 'X-Factor' #73. Ed. Bob Harras. 1991. Marvel Comics. The song was also a minor inspiration to author Terry Pratchett. One of his recurring 'Discworld' characters, Foul Ole Ron, frequently mutters "millennium hand and shrimp". This was a result of Pratchett feeding various texts to a text-generation computer program, and this phrase was a result of merging this song's lyrics (which mention a "millennium hand") with a Chinese takeaway menu.
A cover of the song was used, in part, for advertisements and previews for the video game 'Geometry Wars: Galaxies'. In reference to the nature of 'Geometry Wars', the part of the song about "Triangle Man" is particularly stressed.
The single "Particle Man" appears on "Dr. Demento's 25th Anniversary Collection," released in 1995 on Rhino Records.
Personnel
They Might Be Giants
*John Linnell vocals, keyboards, accordion'Flood' (album notes). Elektra Records. 1990.*John Flansburgh guitar
Additional musicians
* Alan Bezozi drums* Skyline Studio staff handclaps
Production
*Roger Moutenot mixing*They Might Be Giants producer
References
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