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Ana Ng Lyrics

Artist: They Might Be Giants
Album: Lincoln

Make a hole with a gun perpendicular
To the name of this town in a desk-top globe
Exit wound in a foreign nation
Showing the home of the one this was written for
My apartment looks upside down from there
Water spirals the wrong way out the sink
And her voice is a backwards record
It's like a whirlpool and it never ends

Ana Ng and I are getting old
And we still haven't walked in the glow of each other's majestic presence
Listen Ana hear my words
They're the ones you would think I would say if there was a me for you

All alone at the '64 World's Fair
Eighty dolls yelling "Small girl after all"
Who was at the Dupont Pavilion?
Why was the bench still warm? Who had been there?
Or the time when the storm tangled up the wire
To the horn on the pole at the bus depot
And in the back of the edge of hearing
These are the words the voice was repeating:

Ana Ng and I are getting old
And we still haven't walked in the glow of each other's majestic presence
Listen Ana hear my words
They're the ones you would think I would say if there was a me for you

When I was driving once I saw this painted on a bridge:
"I don't want the world, I just want your half"

They don't need me here, and I know you're there (don't need me)
Where the world goes by like the humid air (world goes by)
And it sticks like a broken record
Everything sticks like a broken record
Everything sticks until it goes away (it goes home)
And the truth is, we don't know anything (don't know)

Ana Ng and I are getting old
And we still haven't walked in the glow of each other's majestic presence
Listen Ana hear my words
They're the ones you would think I would say if there was a me for you

Ana Ng and I are getting old
And we still haven't walked in the glow of each other's majestic presence
Listen Ana hear my words
They're the ones you would think I would say if there was a me for you

Ana Ng and I are getting old
And we still haven't walked in the glow of each other's majestic presence
Listen Ana hear my words
They're the ones you would think I would say if there was a me for you

Comments/Interpretations

by Matt on 6/6/2008 10:02am
They're better than i imagined them to be :)
by kallmekiller on 7/3/2008 6:55am
I effing love tmbg!!!
by Jon on 9/11/2008 11:26pm
Shouldn't that be 'small WORLD after all'?
by Donna Lawliet on 10/19/2008 6:51pm
Jon - No, if you listen closely, it says "Small girl after all." I know it doesn't make much sense...it's not supposed to
by Might be pregnant on 10/24/2008 6:06pm
Best TMBG song EVUR
by Elissa F on 11/4/2008 6:09am
> Shouldn't that be 'small WORLD after all'?

I think the song conveys a sense of disconnection, fright, confusion for a foreign-born girl, all alone at the '64 World's Fair. This interpretation is given by her misunderstanding the lyrics that 80 dolls are shouting at her.
by fin on 11/11/2008 9:50am
or maybe its because girl and world are synonyms to him because the girl IS the world to him.
by Err.. on 11/17/2008 3:19am
Not really.

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure it's conveying the semi-desperate concept that this guy's one true love could be some random girl in Vietnam that he'll never get to meet. He's saying that he'd rather sacrifice his life here than live his life without this One True Love that he's not sure exists.
by girl on 11/17/2008 3:36pm
Small girl after all is better, makes more sense to me, I always wondered the lyrics to this song thx
by me on 12/6/2008 10:29pm
Mabey since Ana must be foreign she thought the dolls were saying "small girl after all"
by I'm myself too on 12/11/2008 10:29am
What difference does it make?
We all agree it's a great song, right?
by ng on 12/18/2008 7:18pm
thanx 4 these lyrics. one of my fav. tmbg songs. i agree with Err.. on this song's meaning.
by flippin nuts on 1/2/2009 3:41pm
I agree with Err.. on this one, but i'd like to add that i think the reference to the 64 worlds fair was trying to point out that perhaps he might have come real close to meeting this person, so close in fact that the seat was still warm from her having just sat there. Also the bridge thing, its like saying the grass is always greener on the other side. But then again i'm flippin nuts!
by HKlawyer on 1/3/2009 7:47am
The Johns both were present at the '64 Worlds Fair before they ever met each other. Presumbly the misunderstanding of that the dolls were saying comes from the perception of the children they were at the time.
by Given Willingly on 1/6/2009 6:42pm
I agree with Err..

TMBG lyrics are never easy to interpret though.

by Yoshua777 on 1/15/2009 6:11pm
Quasi mythical TMBG song.
Err - spot on.
by skot on 1/30/2009 8:31pm
nope.

A long time ago John imagined there was a girl out there that was a perfect fit for him - not necessarily a romantic fit - a polar 'same' if you will. He imagined her upside down, in an asian-pacific country exactly a half world away and wondered if he'd ever get to meet her.

He believes they came very close to running into each other (the still warm bench) but now he is starting to despair that they are both getting older and that life is of a very finite duration (a realization that many 30 somethings can understand all too much.)

It's a sad song, really.

by misery on 3/16/2009 7:52pm
They wrote most of the song before the chorus and title. They picked Ana Ng by randomly opening a page of the white pages.
by Dave on 3/18/2009 12:16am
haha I absolutely love these concepts of what the song could be about...

At a concert TMBG said they just found it really funny to do a song about Ana Ng, which was a really popular name in the NY phone directory. They figured they would do a song all about this person they have and never will meet and figured it'd be kinda funny.

good old TMBG. twistedly goodnessingly...
by (#@0& on 7/30/2009 7:30pm
Asian girls are small. So are dolls.
by Slippe on 9/9/2009 6:59pm
I love this tune! I heard it today and it brought back such memories and feelings. I'd forgotten I have feelings. Thanks TMBG!
by Klixo on 12/3/2009 10:23am
How about a "bridge" (song segment linking other segments) about a bridge? And a lyric about a "broken record" which repeats like, well, a broken record?

Always thought the bridge line and the one about the little voice on the horn were evocative, but never sure why.

Greatness. The writing is brilliant in its throw-away casual attitude.
by Dr John on 12/8/2009 2:29pm
For more on the semi-desperate concept of there being One True Love on the other side of the world, see Wreckless Eric's "The Whole Wide World".
by el oro on 3/11/2010 2:22pm
However if it's across the world, and the girl is in Vietnam, then wouldn't the guy be in Ecuador? Not New York?
by Liz on 3/14/2010 8:24pm
he would be in peru
by aggo on 5/13/2010 3:21pm
this song is so clever! the video was a little bit strange though...haha
by ng...is litterally my last name! on 6/21/2010 11:53pm
actually err... its cantonese(chinese) and its weird cuz my still single aunt's name is ana but we arent like in china or something we are in the united states.lol n her last name is ng too! i hope its her so she can finally get married!lol
by Ob Vios Lee on 7/6/2011 6:03am
Dude- its a song written by a peruvian that caught a glimpse of the Vietnamese Ana Ng and fell in love with her at the '64 worlds fair inside the 'It's a small world attraction, but when he went to say hi she had already left him and headed back to her country, never to see him again. Right? Of course right. TMBG practically say so..
by It's not Whirlpool on 8/5/2011 10:58pm
It's not Whirlpool.
It's like a MOVIE and it never ends.
by It is a whirlpool on 1/20/2012 7:42am
Well, it just IS.
by awesome sauce on 6/25/2012 2:41pm
i agree
by jgibs2 on 6/29/2012 10:24pm
Anyone else think with the distortion that they said "heart" instead of "half"?
by Phil on 8/2/2012 12:20pm
Sounds like a guy singing about a girl from another dimension that is right on top, or maybe right under our own. Some how he has glimpsed this other world and imagines that one of its inhabitants is right for him because no one in this dimension is.
by punkymcpunkerson the fourth on 6/8/2013 9:16am
Star Fucking Hipsters did it better.








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