Bee Of The Bird Of The Moth

From This Might Be A Wiki

song name Bee of the Bird of the Moth
artist They Might Be Giants
releases The Else, 50,000,000 They Might Be Giants Songs Can't Be Wrong
year 2007
first played April 26, 2006 (51 known performances)
run time 3:31
sung by John Linnell


Trivia/Info

  • This song's title was inspired by one of Jonathan Lethem's Promiscuous Songs called The Moth of the Bee of the Birds (scroll down). The "Promiscuous Materials Project" was also the source of John Linnell's song "The Second Longest Night."
  • John Linnell at the March 2007 TED Conference performance introduced the song by saying: "This is a song about a hummingbird moth, which imitates another creature, which imitates yet another creature. It's completely fucked up and can only be explained in song."
  • The final verse ("everyone's deforming...") was not added to the song until about a year after its first performance.
  • STP, an automobile lubricant and additives brand, distributed oval stickers of their logo at auto races starting in the 1960s.
  • The horn break appears to quote Pretty Flamingo by Manfred Mann - a song that is also about something referred to as a bird, but isn't.
  • "Sleep of reason" is a reference to Francisco de Goya's etching The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (El sueño de la razón produce monstruos). The album cover art also includes Goya references: the words "Se aprovechan" (They take advantage) are taken (in their original lettering) from Goya's series The Disasters of War (Los desastres de la guerra), and the owl is a figure used in The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters.

Song Themes

Animals, Body Parts, Colors, Food, Freaks, Insects, Mind Control, Hypnotism, Nonsense Words, Not In Common Time, People (Imaginary), Plans, Problems with Liner Notes, Questions, Recursion, Science, Sea, Trade Names, Transportation, Weapons

Videos

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Bee Of The Bird Of The Moth is currently ranked #152 out of 1005. (158 wikians have given it an average rating of 8.83)