For instance, our music, They Might Be Giants, has this element of humor, which is probably the most uptight part of what we include in our music, because we're in part very self-conscious guys, and we want our music to stand up to the test of time, not just be visceral comedy records. We love humor and comedy, but there's this aspect to it that runs counter to what is included in most music.

I feel like the future is unwritten. So many of the things that we write now haven't been about educating people on the environment, they've been about disseminating facts. But I feel like it could be productive to write something that explored directly the idea of fragility.

That really sums up the strange bluntness that a really prime German interview can have. They're really interested in your cultural velocity in this way that I don't think people in the United States even necessarily think about alternative-rock bands. So it's not like we're against regular rock. We're not like a battling army shaking our weapons against The Rolling Stones.

That's what I call 'Guiliani Time', my friends. 'We've got a problem. Let's kill it.'

I wrote a thirty-second song that I couldn't finish for a year.

The main thing that we're doing is thinking we can control anything, which is the biggest false assumption we can make. I think we can figure out how to tread a lot more lightly on the environment, and we'll be a lot better off.

I read The Onion, and I've read a lot of interviews that are very direct, often with people who are never direct. Which is interesting. But somehow the A.V.Club part of The Onion, I don't think is telegraphed into the popular culture.