On The Drag

From This Might Be A Wiki

song name On the Drag
artist They Might Be Giants
releases Working Undercover For The Man (EP), Man, It's So Loud In Here (EP) [Australian Release], They Got Lost, tmbg.com Free Tunes, TMBG Clock Radio, 50,000,000 They Might Be Giants Songs Can't Be Wrong, The Spine Surfs Alone: Rarities 1998-2005
year 2000
first played March 14, 1996 (66 known performances)
run time 2:18
sung by John Flansburgh


Trivia/Info

  • St. Mark's Place is a notable street and breeding ground for counterculture in the East Village of lower Manhattan. It is referenced in the lyrics and is likely "the drag" mentioned throughout the song. The line "I'm trying to walk away from First Avenue to A" refers to the streets that border the eastmost block of St. Mark's Place; walking this way would, indeed, be walking away from St. Mark's Place and toward Tompkins Square Park.
  • From tmbg.com, "You might remember this one from the live show. We recorded a version of this for Factory Showroom but it sounded kind of generic. At a later session at Coyote for something else we pulled this one out and the track came back to life."
  • The phrase “on the drag” can mean “running late.”
  • Early versions have the first and second stanzas switched. The song thus starts with "You're only happy when you're sad" instead of "I won't die until I'm dead".

Song Themes

Death, Friendship, Geography, Letters Of The Alphabet, New York City, Oxymorons, Paradoxes, And Contradictory Statements, Streets, Time, Transportation

Videos

Current Rating

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On The Drag is currently ranked #127 out of 1022. (71 wikians have given it an average rating of 8.89)