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 - "The deep end [...] They don't really know how deep it goes" ("to go off the deep end")
• Cowtown - "The yellow Roosevelt Avenue leaf overturned" ("The Yellow Rose of Texas," "Roosevelt Avenue," "A new leaf overturned")
• 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 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.
• 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.)
• 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