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Ana Ng

From This Might Be A Wiki
Music video for Ana Ng
Screenshot
Screenshot
1988 Handbill Advert
song nameAna Ng
artistThey Might Be Giants
releasesLincoln, Ana Ng (Single), Then: The Earlier Years, Direct From Brooklyn, Best Of The Early Years, Severe Tire Damage, Dial-A-Song: 20 Years Of They Might Be Giants, A User's Guide To They Might Be Giants: Melody, Fidelity, Quantity
year1988
first playedSep. 28, 1988 (451 known performances)
run time3:23
sung byJohn Linnell

Trivia/Info

  • The video was directed by Adam Bernstein and the exterior shots were filmed at the FDNY Training Academy, Randall's Island, New York City. Throughout the music video, portraits of John and John's grandfathers can be spotted. The video also includes a shot of cards from "Mille Bornes" (One Thousand Milestones), a French game popular in the United States during the early 1960s. (For more information on the making of the video, see Myke Weiskopf Interviews Adam Bernstein).
  • The title of the track came from an experience the Johns had when they found a huge number of "Ana Ng"s in the phone book. Linnell: "I think I was collecting possible song ideas and, for some reason, I ended up looking in the phone book, and there were about four pages of this name that contains no vowels, Ng. I was fascinated because it's a name I didn't know about before, and it was filling up a large chunk of the Manhattan white pages. I called up some of the numbers kind of experimentally to find out how it was pronounced, and I got the phone machine of a Dr. Ng and I was kind of relieved. The message said, "Dr. Ng is not in," and I had my material." (Pitchfork Magazine, 1996)
  • Linnell: "The other inspiration for [Ana Ng] was a Pogo comic strip. [...] Some of the characters are digging a hole. They decide they're going to dig to China, but one of the smarter characters pulls this huge revolver out of a drawer and shoots a hole "in the desktop globe." Then they look at the other side and the hole is in the Indian Ocean. (Pitchfork Magazine, 1996).
  • Flansburgh has referred to the guitar sound in the song as one of the coolest the band had created, and he has said that the song has a "Latin feel."
  • Ng is a common Cantonese family name, and it is correctly pronounced like the last sound in 'dong.'
  • The line, "I don't want the world; I just want your half," is said by Lisa Klapp, a friend of John and John's, and recorded through a telephone. TMBG likes to mess around with the delivery of the line in concert:
    • On Severe Tire Damage, Flans can be heard screaming it into his guitar pickups in the manner of a racetrack announcer.
    • On Live!! New York City, Linnell sings no words and imitates the sound of radio static. (Note: The Live!! New York City version and the Severe Tire Damage version are the same recording; on STD, the radio static was replaced with the pickup screams in studio)
    • Linnell sometimes sings "It's a small girl after all" during the bridge instead of the part about the bridge when played live.
    • In 1996, Linnell would occasionally open the song with the chant of "OVERSIZED LOAD," and this line would, in the bridge, replace "I don't want the world; I just want your half."
    • Most often, he has also been known to sing the aforementioned line in a trembly falsetto to a melody similar to "Love people are there / The smell of love is everywhere" from "I've Got A Match."
  • The line "Eighty dolls yelling 'Small Girl After All'" is a reference to the ride "It's A Small World", created for the 1964 World's Fair and now residing at several Disney theme parks.
  • Linnell habitually sings "human hair" instead of "humid air" when played live.
  • In the early 90s show Clarissa Explains It All, Clarissa says that she likes John Linnell and a bit of "Ana Ng" plays. A picture of TMBG from the "(She Was A) Hotel Detective" video follows.
  • The song appeared briefly in the film Yes Man, and made a small cameo in a Homestar Runner toon, specifically SBemail 99.
  • The main riff may have been borrowed from Bob Marley's 1980s song Redemption Song. The riff occurs at around 2:10.

Song Themes

1964 World's Fair, Backwards, Cities, Everything, Geography, In Back, Kingdom Of Loathing Reference, Loneliness, Love, Me, Numbers, Oxymorons, Paradoxes, And Contradictory Statements, People (Imaginary), Non-John Vocals, Questions, Real Estate, Recursion, References To Other Songs Or Musicians, Size, Talking, Not Singing, Telephony, Tongue-Twisters, Trade Names, Transportation, Upside Down, Water, Weather

Videos

Watch it on MySpace Video

 
Current Rating

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Ana Ng is currently ranked #1 out of 846. (1761 wikians have given it an average rating of 9.13)
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