Interpretations Talk:Pencil Rain

I remember when I first started listening to They Might Be Giants I picked up "Lincoln" and listened to "Pencil Rain" and thought "What the hell?" I asked my father, and he said it was about nuclear war. I don't know about that one... The testthing sounded more TMBGish than that explaination than my dad's. Boht seem at elast some what plausible.

I don't think it's about war at all

I always thought it was about editing your own work, excising (killing) the stuff you've written that doesn't make the final cut. As though the songs that they've written are bracing themselves against being eliminated. The soldier thing is just a metaphor.

The line "they're searching the yonder blue/they look out for number two" is a silly play on the phrase "to look out for number one," but also the reference that the editor is looking out for shit to cut.