I was to jazzed, I had to post this here
The TMBG song, "Bee of the Bird of the Moth" is a fluffy little thing, and I was not really loving it except for the wonderful round the singer does with himself at the end of the song, the last few lines of which are:
Everyone's deforming
in the presence of the swarming
Of the bee of the bird of the moth
Protozoa, snakes, and horses
have enlisted in the forces
Of the bee of the bird of the moth
All are irresistibly directed by the suction
Of a hypnotizing tractor beam
presenting a production
Of the sleep of reason corporation in association
With the bee of the bird of the moth
This had been bugging me for weeks - though I loved this part of the song on headphones - the silly idea of an mutating army based around a weird hawk moth called a Snowberry Clearwing Hummingbird Hawk Moth (Dr Seuss would have loved that name). It's an actual large moth that looks like a bee.
In any case, what was bugging (hee hee) me was the phrase "sleep of reason corporation." I was just sure that was familiar, like from a 70's movie, or something just at the edges of my ...
Anyway, I found it!
The cover of the album on which this song appears has two figures, one of which holds up a suitcase with a caption from a Goya painting on it. It says, in Spanish or Portuguese, "They avail themselves" a reference to a painting in which dead soldiers' bodies are being robbed.
There is another famous Goya work, a print, I think, of the artist asleep at his desk, head down, and behind him, he is pursued by a flock of horrible winged nightmares. On the table cloth, it says, "El Sueño de la Razon Produce Monstruos" which means "The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters"! This can't be coincidence, given the Goya reference on the cover.
So the Sleep of Reason Corporation would naturally produce a Hummingbird Moth, since it is a monster! Also, monsters in the classical sense were deformations of the natural order, from the latin monstrum omen, warnings of disorder in the universe revealed in deformity of living beings.
If you look at the monsters that are creeping in upon Goya, there are no moths, but the scary winged things are unnerving, and are being compared to the unnerving weirdness of the Hummingbird Moth to the narrator. I like the way so much is suggested by the Goya print reference, including a sense of persecution by an unnatural army - Goya made an enemy of the King of Spain and his army, for instance. Ooooo, so many little layers of suggestion.
*exhausted sigh*
That was so much fun! YAY!!!! Thank you, They Might Be Giants, for leaving little breadcrumbs for us to find! *waves*
Everyone's deforming
in the presence of the swarming
Of the bee of the bird of the moth
Protozoa, snakes, and horses
have enlisted in the forces
Of the bee of the bird of the moth
All are irresistibly directed by the suction
Of a hypnotizing tractor beam
presenting a production
Of the sleep of reason corporation in association
With the bee of the bird of the moth
This had been bugging me for weeks - though I loved this part of the song on headphones - the silly idea of an mutating army based around a weird hawk moth called a Snowberry Clearwing Hummingbird Hawk Moth (Dr Seuss would have loved that name). It's an actual large moth that looks like a bee.
In any case, what was bugging (hee hee) me was the phrase "sleep of reason corporation." I was just sure that was familiar, like from a 70's movie, or something just at the edges of my ...
Anyway, I found it!
The cover of the album on which this song appears has two figures, one of which holds up a suitcase with a caption from a Goya painting on it. It says, in Spanish or Portuguese, "They avail themselves" a reference to a painting in which dead soldiers' bodies are being robbed.
There is another famous Goya work, a print, I think, of the artist asleep at his desk, head down, and behind him, he is pursued by a flock of horrible winged nightmares. On the table cloth, it says, "El Sueño de la Razon Produce Monstruos" which means "The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters"! This can't be coincidence, given the Goya reference on the cover.
So the Sleep of Reason Corporation would naturally produce a Hummingbird Moth, since it is a monster! Also, monsters in the classical sense were deformations of the natural order, from the latin monstrum omen, warnings of disorder in the universe revealed in deformity of living beings.
If you look at the monsters that are creeping in upon Goya, there are no moths, but the scary winged things are unnerving, and are being compared to the unnerving weirdness of the Hummingbird Moth to the narrator. I like the way so much is suggested by the Goya print reference, including a sense of persecution by an unnatural army - Goya made an enemy of the King of Spain and his army, for instance. Ooooo, so many little layers of suggestion.
*exhausted sigh*
That was so much fun! YAY!!!! Thank you, They Might Be Giants, for leaving little breadcrumbs for us to find! *waves*