Particle Man - Lyrical Content

Lyrical Content

The song describes four different "men": Particle Man, a microscopic being whose attributes are deemed "not important" enough to be discussed lyrically; Triangle Man, a belligerent entity who hates Particle Man, fights him, and wins; Universe Man, a kinder being, who is the size of the universe, and has a watch with hands relevant to the age of the universe ("He’s got a watch with a minute hand, a millennium hand, and an eon hand"); and Person Man, a "degraded" being who lives in a garbage can, and who is also despised, provocated, and defeated by Triangle Man. The song's author, John Linnell, denied the idea that there is a deeper meaning to "Particle Man", stating on a phone interview filmed for Gigantic (A Tale of Two Johns), that "nothing is missing from your understanding of 'Particle Man'". Band member John Flansburgh described it as “just a song about characters in the most obvious sense” and claims that the lyrics are not intended to invoke real people, though Linnell claims that "Triangle Man was based on a friend's observation that Robert Mitchum looked like an evil triangle when he took his shirt off in Night of the Hunter. Nothing else not explicitly stated need be inferred."