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Interpretations:Someone Keeps Moving My Chair

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Linnell once described the song as being about "personal discomfort". I have always viewed the annoying things that are done to Mr Horrible by the Ugliness Men as representative of our own (or the writers) personal bugbears; Mr Horrible as the person who has to deal with it all (ourselves) and the Ugliness Men as the people who force such situations upon us. - astralbee

Hm. Does anyone else get the impression Mr. Horrible is a harried office worker whose boss/bosses is constantly annoying him and making his situation worse, and Mr. Horrible is ignoring the major problem of his overbearing boss/bosses and is instead focusing on trivia[someone keeps moving my chair] to keep his mind off it?

When I was first listening to Flood in high school, my mom heard this song and really liked it because she thought it said "someone keeps moving my-y I-Ching". The "I-Ching" is the Chinese "Book of Changes", I guess a sort of Taoist/astrology book. I don't think that was Johns' intention, but I still think of it when I hear the song.

I always thought of Mr. Horrible as a sweet elderly (perhaps somewhat senile) man and the Ugliness Men are the teenage neighborhood punks, prank calling him, writing on his head, making him wear really ugly pants, moving his chair. He doesn't mind most of this, but it's his favorite Lazyboy recliner, could you boys please stop moving it?

When someone moves your chair right as you're about to sit, you fall down. I think it's about a man who tolerates just about everything, but doing so can wear a person out, so he tries to rest (sit). When he sits, though, he falls to the floor (so to speak), adding another annoyance to the pile. -Chuckie

I get the impression that the humor value of the song is designed to lie in the disparity between the terrible things that the Ugliness Men are doing, and the relatively trivial thing that Mr. Horrible is actually concerned about. The Ugliness Men are doing degrading things to him, and are also offering disrespect to the memory of his friend--but he doesn't care. All that concerns him is the minor matter of his chair, thus earning his name. 

 --Dairhenien

Ok, here's a creepy interp for you. "Mr. Horrible" is a criminally insane murderer on death row. The Ugliness Men are prison psychiatrists, trying to cure his insanity so they can execute him. The unpleasant thing spilled on his brain is drugs. Alternatively, the Ugliness Men might be abusive prison guards. The chair is not literally being moved. Rather, it's Mr. Horrible's date with the (electric) chair that is.

Is it just me or I hear "armchair" instead of chair? If so why don't they include the world "arm" into the lyrics?-- byakugan

I think that's just you, byakugan. The lyrics go "...my-yi-yi chair", but "my" is pronounced "mah", resulting in "mah-ha-hah chair". Definitely not an "arm" in there. -Some Other Anonymite

All right, so Mr. Horrible is the kind of nerdy, bottom of the hierarchy, shy, gets picked on office guy. And the Ugliness Men are the bosses or coworkers that keep doing things to see how far they can push him. He allows them to subject him to all of these embarrassing methods of torture, but he --Lemita 19:53, 15 Apr 2006 (CDT)only speaks up and admits that he is bothered when they move his chair. (my 2 cents) -mattyB

I think one of the main messages is that despite the horrible things that happen to Mr. Horrible the worst of it all is depriving him of a place of rest. Kind of how anything can be borne as long as you have a place to return to. Like Hemingway's 'A Clean, Well-lighted Place' everyone needs a sanctuary to be able to return to. -Hitako47

Mr. Horrible's chair problem reminds me a lot of myself. I get really and I mean really annoyed when something is out of place. So annoyed, I will interrupt a serious conversation to fix that moved, out of place item. To tell you the truth, I have a pretty good interpretation for this.

Mr. Horrible is the normal, (I'm assuming office guy) with a small case of OCD. His coworkers like to make fun of him, mildly torturing him while he tries to find his beloved, chair. He cannot rest until he has his chair.

Oh the taunts and trauma of coworkers. ^___~; --Lemita 19:53, 15 Apr 2006 (CDT)

"I believe you have my stapler." - Milton in "Office Space" Posted by Tzion, 27 May 2006

He wants everything to stay the same. The unpleasant thing on his brain is new ideas. The chair that's being moved is his ideas being moved. ~AgentChronon

I think that maybe the chair may be the wheelchair of somebody paralysed,(if paralysed is the case, the "spill something on your brain" would make sense, it could refer to a stroke) This could explain the "try on these pants" statement, and the writing on the head. The ugliness men may be a gang of youths, or maybe abusive carers at old people's homes... - Rob

Like the song "Kiss Me, Son of God", I feel this song is about the seemingly Ironic things that so many people do, in this case, its about the tendency for people to complain more often about the small minor problems in their lives rather than the bigger problems. --Sarcasmagasm 08:53, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I see this song as a reflection of the government using small annoyances on the individuals of a population to mask the effects and use of larger problems and flaws in the government. Mr. Horrible being an individual in a population and the ugliness men being the government. --Dr. Snail <--- You jeally!!! (is this a real word?)

"Mr Horrible" was a super-villain in Herbie #8, March 1965; the first menace he fought in his costumed identity as the Fat Fury. Mr. Horrible is a giant, maybe 15' tall, dressed as a laborer. Some details can be seen at Dial "B" for Blog. It would be interesting to know if he ever appeared again, and whether he had any chair issues. --M. Fudd 15:17, 14 October 2007 (UTC)


Here's an idea: Mr. Horrible is a blind old guy. He lives alone, and therefore is happy when idiots go to his house to bother him because he has company, but when somebody moves his chair, he falls over and is left to wander around his house looking for it.

The song is about all the horrible things that happen, and how we look back and are still annoyed/regretting something really really small --Dunklekuh81

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