Ana Ng - Background

Background

The title of the track came from an experience the Johns had when they found a huge number of Ng listings in the New York City phone book.

Linnell: "I think I was collecting possible song ideas and, for some reason, I ended up looking in the phone book, and there were about four pages of this name that contains no vowels, Ng. I was fascinated because it's a name I didn't know about before, and it was filling up a large chunk of the Manhattan white pages. I called up some of the numbers kind of experimentally to find out how it was pronounced, and I got the phone machine of a Dr. Ng and I was kind of relieved. The message said, "Dr. Ng is not in," and I had my material." (Pitchfork Magazine, 1996)

Ng is a common Cantonese family name, and in Cantonese it is pronounced, like the last sound in the English word hang. However, according to a 1988 handbill advertisement for the single, They Might Be Giants actually rhyme the name with hang, /ˈæŋ/.

Linnell: "The other inspiration for was a Pogo comic strip. Some of the characters are digging a hole. They decide they're going to dig to China, but one of the smarter characters pulls this huge revolver out of a drawer and shoots a hole "in the desktop globe." Then they look at the other side and the hole is in the Indian Ocean. (Pitchfork Magazine, 1996).

The song, or at least part of it, is set against the backdrop of the 1964 New York World's Fair, which John Linnell attended as a child. It includes references to "It's a Small World" and the DuPont pavilion, both attractions at the fair.

The line, "I don't want the world / I just want your half," is said by Lisa Klapp, a friend of John and John's, and recorded through a telephone.