I Palindrome I
From This Might Be A Wiki
Sculpture representing the song from the Apollo 18 promo
| song name | I Palindrome I |
| artist | They Might Be Giants |
| releases | Apollo 18, I Palindrome I (EP), Dial-A-Song: 20 Years Of They Might Be Giants, A User's Guide to They Might Be Giants: Melody, Fidelity, Quantity, Flood + Apollo 18, 50,000,000 They Might Be Giants Songs Can't Be Wrong |
| year | 1992 |
| first played | January 23, 1992 (236 known performances) |
| run time | 2:22 |
| sung by | John Linnell, John Flansburgh backs |
Trivia/Info
- John Linnell spoke about the song in a 1992 interview: "It's about how one generation replaces the one before it. The story is the same backwards as forwards -- all have the same experience."[1] He later elaborated: "I was reading I, Claudius before I wrote that song. It seemed like everyone in that book was in the process of poisoning a relative or being poisoned by one. It was just this endless feeding frenzy, which seems to be the natural way of one generation following the next. It made me think that's the way it is, your kids sort of eat you up."[2]
- Linnell has also mentioned poet Hal Sirowitz as an inspiration for this song. Sirowitz is perhaps best known for his 1996 collection Mother Said. The band was interviewed about Sirowitz's work on WNYC's Studio 360 in 2001. Linnell:
I always think of the one where the mother complains about - I can't recite it for you, but it's the one where she's complaining that he feeds crumbs to the bugs and he never gives anything to his mom. [...] I guess I must have written ["I Palindrome I"] after I saw Hal. It starts with the line "Someday Mother will die and I'll get the money." Except for the fact that Hal's mother didn't have money, I think that would fit in with his work.
- The band often apologize to their parents before performing the song live. John Flansburgh recalled in a 1992 interview: "[Linnell] called his mother right after [writing the song] and said, 'Don't take this the wrong way, mom.' I was more afraid and didn't call my mom until after the record came out. That might not have been a good move. My mom is more sensitive, just doesn't understand why you would want to sing a song like that."
- A number of palindromes (of various types) are featured in the song:
- "Son I am able she said, though you scare me. Watch, said I, beloved, I said, watch me scare you though. Said she, able am I, Son," is a palindrome which uses words as units instead of letters. This is a form of antimetabole. This line may also be a reference to the famous palindrome "Able was I ere I saw Elba," widely misattributed to Napoleon Bonaparte.
- Flansburgh sings "Man o nam" and the classic palindrome, "Egad, a base tone denotes a bad age".
- The length of the track is 2:22, which is a numerical palindrome.
- The line "a snake head eating the head on the opposite side" refers to the ancient symbol ouroboros, as well as bearing resemblance the mythic creature amphisbaena.
- This song was preceded by a completely different song with the same title, which Flansburgh wrote and released on Dial-A-Song. Flansburgh spoke about this Dial-A-Song demo in 2012: "I made a quick song for DAS with the title—which really was a sketch I can't even remember—and then handed off the title to Mr. [Linnell]."
- According to Joshua Fried, the song's title came out of a conversation the band was having about palindromes.[3] They were trying to devise the stupidest palindrome, and Flansburgh suggested "I Palindrome I." Flansburgh spoke about the song's title in a 1995 interview:
I was talking to John about how palindromes have this unique cadence to them. There's this way that palindromes sound that basically reflects the fact that they're symmetrical; the first half usually works pretty nicely, the second half works in this really lumpy way. I wrote a song called "I Palindrome I" that was slightly different, but had a similar "I always repeat myself" kind of theme. I kind of handed off the title to John, and he cooked up this song... it's kind of impressive, actually. At the time, I was reading Greek mythology, and there's this motif in a lot of Greek stuff of snakes eating their tails... the thing that makes you great is the thing that brings you down. I was kind of amazed that when John finished writing the lyrics to the song, it had those elements in it.
- A promotional video was planned for the song but Elektra Records pulled the plug at the last minute. Artist J. Otto Seibold, a previous collaborator with the band who had been tapped to direct the clip, recalled: "I remember Linnell was going to be walking in place on a treadmill in a pied piper outfit. And my two dogs at the time were going to have squid and whale costumes. The rest is hazy. I do remember being bummed that it didn't go forward."
- Michael McKean read this song's lyrics like a poem in the extras of Gigantic.
Song Themes
Age, Animals, Backwards, Body Parts, Clothes, Death, Funny But Sad, Heads, Love, Medical, Mirrors And Reflections, Money, Nonsense Words, Recursion, Relatives, The Senses, Shapes, Swear Words, Time, Traded Tracks
Videos
- Watch it on
– Recorded live on November 29, 2008 by CapitalQ - With "Dig My Grave"
Current Rating You must be logged in to rate this. You can either login (if you have a userid) or create an account with us today. I Palindrome I is currently ranked #8 out of 1020. (316 wikians have given it an average rating of 9.25) |
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