Oblique Cliches Or Idiom

Sudden left turns in the middles of cliches; clever references to cliches or idioms.

• Absolutely Bill's Mood - "I know monkey see, but monkey's dead" ("Monkey see, monkey do.")
• All Time What - "I use my outside voice" (Use your indoor voice)/ "The barn that I was raised in was constructed out of noise" ("Were you raised in a barn?")
• Ana Ng - "And it sticks like a broken record / Everything sticks like a broken record" ("Like a broken record")
• Answer - "You wanted tall / I came in under 5'4 / Then you asked for dark / I tend to sunburn a lot / As for handsome, well / Can't help you there / So make of it what you will" ("tall, dark and handsome")
• Bangs - "Are that on which the world hangs" ("The fate of the world hangs in the balance.")
• Birdhouse In Your Soul - "Not to put too fine a point on it, say I'm the only bee in your bonnet" ("A bee in your bonnet.")
• The Big Big Whoredom - "Work the hardest to be the smartest / We work the hardest to be the smartest " ("Work smarter, Not harder.")
• The Bright Side - One is told to "look on the bright side", but "The bright side is blinding our eyes"
• The Bullies - "Just talking in slogans / Like 'Hey, if the shoe fits' / The shoe does not fit / I woefully submit" ("if the shoe fits, wear it")
• Cabbagetown - "He said, 'Time and tide are one thing / That no one understands'" - modified from "time and tide wait for no man"
• Cabbagetown (Demo) - "He said, 'Camels have hard eyes / And dead men don't talk back'" - a strange combination of the Bible's "camel passing through the eye of a needle" and the more ominous "dead men tell no tales"
• Cage & Aquarium - "This is the spawning of the Cage and Aquarium" ("This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius," a lyric from the musical Hair)
• Chess Piece Face - "There go I but for my face" ("There go I but for the grace of God")
• Chip The CHiP - "Now the sight of him might gross you out / So if your eye offends you poke it out / If your remaining eye offends poke out the offending other eyeball as well" - a twisted reference to the Bible's Matthew 5:29
• Climbing The Walls - ("up the wall")"The deep end [...] They don't really know how deep it goes" ("gone off the deep end")
• Cowtown - "The yellow Roosevelt Avenue leaf overturned" ("The Yellow Rose of Texas," "Roosevelt Avenue," "A new leaf overturned")
• Critic Intro - ‘’”if you hear only one song this year, there’s something terribly wrong with you!”’’ Subverts how artists say how if you only listen to one song each year, you should listen to theirs.
• Didn't Kill Me - Subverts the common proverb "that which does not kill us makes us stronger"
• Don't Let's Start - "Wake up and smell the cat food" ("Wake Up and Smell the Coffee," an 80s corporate slogan); "The tail that wags the hound" ("Wagging the dog")
• ECNALUBMA - "I've got the need to spite my face / I've got a nose, I know what to do / Hand me that electric knife" ("cutting off the nose to spite the face")
• The End Of The Tour - "This was the vehicle, these were the people, you opened the door and expelled all the people" (a children's rhyme with accompanying hand gestures: "This is the church, this is the steeple, open the doors and here are the people")
• Everything Right Is Wrong Again - the title references "everything old is new again"; "Every five and dime's been gained and spent" (see information about "five and dime" stores)
• Fake Out In Buenos Aires - Taking cliches or common phrases and changing one word to fake, such as "Fake your claim" and "Winner fake all," among others.
• Finished With Lies - "move the needle telepathically" ("move the needle" both figuratively, as to change a situation noticeably, and literally, as in the needle of a polygraph)
• First Kiss - "The plot thins" ("The plot thickens")
• Flo Wheeler - "You can't do the time / Therefore you didn't do the crime" ("If you can't do the time, then don't do the crime")
• Four Track Mind - Title plays on the idiom "one track mind" ("four track" refers to the music recording device)
• Fun Assassin - "Like a magnet to a flame" (like a moth to a flame); "Stab me in the front" (stabbing one in the back); "Where did we bury the time?" ("killing time")
• Hey, Mr. DJ, I Thought You Said We Had A Deal - "I could never sleep my way to the top... 'cause my alarm clock always wakes me right up" ("sleeping your way to the top"); "You scratch my back and I'll scratch your record" ("You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.")
• Hide Away Folk Family - "Sadly, the Cross-eyed Bear's been put to sleep beneath the stairs" ("Gladly the cross I'd bear," a popular lyric from the hymn "Keep Thou My Way"; also the mondegreen "Gladly the Cross-eyed Bear")
• Homunculus - "Three many windows shining back in your face" ("too many")
• How Much Cake Can You Eat? - "We can trust you, we can throw you" ("I trust him as far as I can throw him.")
• I Broke My Own Rule - "I'll lay me down, down in the dark" (suggests the classic prayer "now I lay me down to sleep")
• I'll Sink Manhattan - "He's my lower half" ("he's my better half"), "A river of tiny tears flow from your crocodile eyes" ("crocodile tears")
• I Am A Ring - "I am a ring / That turns your finger green / And I am a promise / You really didn't mean" - Could be a play on the traditional "promise ring"; a "mood ring" does include green as a color, but the ring itself turns green, not the person's finger.
• I Haven't Been Right Yet - "I fooled you twice, so shame on you" ("fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me")
• I Love You For Psychological Reasons - "Cheese and chalk do not talk" ("as different as chalk and cheese")
• I'm Impressed - "On the one hand, he'll give you five good reasons to follow him" (an oblique mention of his fist)
• I Left My Body - "I left my body" being a play on losing one's head; "I left without my senses" is literal but suggests taking leave of one's proper senses figuratively
• An Insult To The Fact Checkers - "Pick on someone else your own size" ("Pick on someone your own size!")
• I Palindrome I (Dial-A-Song 2) - "One door shuts, another door closes" (one door shuts, another door opens.)
• It's Not My Birthday - "I'm not the only dust my mother raised" ("raise a dust")
• I've Got A Match - "I've got a match, your embrace and my collapse" (the old joke: when someone asks, "Have you got a match?", you reply, "Yes, your face and my ass")
• Jackie The Clipper - "If you've got nothing nice to say / There's nothing left to say" ("If you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all")
• Judy Is Your Viet Nam - "She's the storm before the calm" ("calm before the storm")
• Lazyhead And Sleepybones - Lazybones, Sleepyhead
• Letterbox - "Cause a little bird never tells me anything I want to know" ("A little bird once told me.")
• Lord Snowdon - "I'm on the outside, looking out"' ("outside looking in")
• Louisiana - "They've pulled the wool down over me and I can't see" ("pulling the wool over" one's eyes)
• McCafferty's Bib - "The toothpaste won't go back in the bottle since it granted our wish" (Mixed idiom with "genie is out of the bottle")
• Memo To Human Resources - "I'm searching for some disbelief that I can still suspend" ("suspension of disbelief")
• Mr. Me - "Onward go and Edward ho" seems to play on either "westward ho" or "onward ho"
• My Evil Twin - "Bad weather friend" ("fair weather friend")
• Narrow Your Eyes - "They say love is blind / I don't think you're blind"
• No! - "All nos lead to no, no, no" (All roads lead to Rome)
• Nothing's Gonna Change My Clothes - "And nothing's smellin' like a rose"
• Out Of Jail - "I wish I'd gotten to know her before I fell in love" ("love at first sight")
• Pencil Rain - "The possible dream" ("To dream the impossible dream," a lyric from the musical Don Quixote, a cinematic reference to which being TMBG's namesake)
• Quit The Circus - "I'll blink once for no. I'll blink twice for no." ("Blink once for yes, twice for no.")
• Rhythm Section Want Ad - "Laugh hard, it's a long way to the bank"; "Speak softly, drive a Sherman tank" ("Laughing all the way to the bank," and the Theodore Roosevelt quote "Speak softly, carry a big stick")
• Santa Cruz - "Somebody invented a gun that shoots flowers"
• She's An Angel - "Somewhere they're meeting on a pinhead" (the idea of "angels dancing on the head of a pin")
• Snowball In Hell - ("A snowball's chance in Hell"), "Money I owe / Money I-ay"
• Stand On Your Own Head - The whole song contains well-known sayings that have been given that special Linnell twist -- or stood on their head.
• There Will Be Sad - "Sad poultry will come home to roost at last" (Chickens are coming home to roost.)
• Thunderbird - "Before you fall, you have to learn to crawl" ("Before you can walk, you have to learn to crawl.")
• Triops Has Three Eyes - "There are two sides to every story, but triangles have three"
• Twisting - "Blew out your pilot light / And made a wish" plays on the convention of blowing out and wishing upon the candles of a birthday cake
• Unsupervised, I Hit My Head - "You could count on me with just one hand"
• Upside Down Frown - A play on the request to "turn that frown upside down" and smile
• Weep Day - "And the part is never called the whole thing" (a play on the Aristotle misquote “the whole is the sum of its parts”)
• We Live In A Dump - "While the monkeys type away" (Infinite Monkey Theorem - an infinite number of monkeys typing randomly on an infinite number of typewriters will eventually type out the collected works of William Shakespeare.)
• We Want A Rock - Sounds like "We wanna rock."
• When It Rains It Snows - "When it rains, it pours"
• Whistling In The Dark - Not really twisted, but not used in its usual context.
• Whole Lot Of Glean - "You made a beautiful bed, now go and lie in your bed" ("You’ve made your bed, now lie in it")
• Withered Hope - "And he cut out a paper heart, pinned it to his arm" literally says he was wearing the heart on the sleeve (which is proved by the lines that follow: "Gave her everything he was holding in his head..." etc.)
• Worried Sleep - "Insult to injury" (Adding insult to injury)
• You'll Miss Me - "Your money talks but my genius walks" ("Money talks and bullshit walks")
• Your Racist Friend - "He let the contents of the bottle do the thinking"

See also

• Puns