Particle Man
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"Particle Man" is a song by the band They Might Be Giants. It can be found on their 1990 release, Flood. It is about four different "men": Particle Man, a micro-sized man whose personality has been labeled "not important" by the band (What's he like? It's not important); Triangle Man, a person who hates Particle Man, fights with him, and wins (Triangle Man hates Particle Man. They have a fight. Triangle wins. Triangle Man); Universe Man, a gentle man the size of the universe with a watch to go with it (He's got a watch with a minute hand, a millennium hand, and an eon hand); and Person Man, a normal guy who lives in a garbage can (Person Man, Person Man. Hit on the head with a frying pan. Lives his life in a garbage can. Person Man), who is also hated by Triangle Man (Triangle Man hates Person Man. They have a fight. Triangle wins. Triangle Man).
This song and "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" were made into music videos featured on the Warner Brothers animated series Tiny Toon Adventures. In this one, the "men" were featured as masked wrestlers.
Fans of codee comic books often interpret "Particle Man" as referring to superheroes and supervillains contending with one another, in particular casting Triangle Man as a villain and Particle Man and Person Man as heroes (though very ineffective ones, as their personalities seem to be less than heroic and they are both defeated by Triangle Man). Fans of Marvel Comics in particular interpret Universe Man as a reference to the planet-eating cosmic being Galactus.
In the Marvel Comics series X-Factor (volume 1), writer Peter David referenced "Particle Man" as the source song for a fictional parody by "Weird Al" Yankovic about the character Multiple Man; only a partial verse was presented, referencing the Multiple Man's ability to create duplicates of himself.
The song can also be interpreted as referring to ancient Greek philosophy with the different men representing philosophers alluded to in Plato's Timaeus. In this schema, 'Particle Man' would be Democritus and his theory of atomism, 'Universe Man' would be Parmenides with his doctrine of the one and 'Person Man' would be Protagoras due to his famous statement that "man is the measure of all things". 'Triangle Man' would be Plato himself, because he proposes in Timaeus that triangles are the basic unit of matter, and he can be seen to be fighting and winning against both Democritus and Protagoras, while Parmenides is frequently referenced but not as a philosophical opponent.
The song was also an inspiration of sorts to Terry Pratchett: One of the recurring Discworld characters, Foul Ole Ron, frequently mutters "millennium hand and shrimp"; this was a result of Pratchett feeding various texts to a text-generation computer program, and this phrase was a result of merging this song's lyrics (which mention "millennium hand") with a Chinese takeaway menu.[1] Azrael in the Discworld universe also bears a notable resemblance to the song, as Azrael is "so big that a supernova would be a mere suggestion of a gleam on the iris" and has a clock that has a "universe hand" that only goes around once.
It is questioned as to whether Particle Man can actually get "wet", or whether the water gets "him" instead. The question revolves around the fact that he is probably much smaller than the smallest possible grouping of water molecules.
[edit] References
Particle0 is a character played by a certain someone on every game and had his name ripped off by this song and the Particle people band.
[edit] External links
- Particle Man at This Might Be A Wiki
- Fan-made music video for Particle Man
- Interview with John Flansburgh discussing Particle Man, from Pop Culture Corn.
- Tiny Toons Particle Man Music Video
