We're affable guys in They Might Be Giants. We're not gonna do the periscope-down thing, but it's a little bit mind-bending. The biggest struggle is trying to figure out a way to back up far enough in your answer that it can be read without the context of the question. Every declarative statement you see that comes out of an interview with somebody is actually in response to a question. So it's sort of like this very real interpersonal dance where one of the people involved is invisible.

You have to define how much of a cultural politician you are as a performer. There are times where I just want to remain a civilian.

Sometimes you have to wonder if there isn't an ejector seat built into having a popular-music career. We were lucky when we started. We were already old when we started - you could have described our first album as "aging Brooklyn guys." We were in our late 20s. We weren't octogenarians, but a lot of bands were already younger than us. Fortunately, we've held on to our manly good looks.

There is a fact-based belief system available to you if you want to believe in facts. But this is the weirdest time. I mean, after Nixon I thought nothing could be weirder. Then there was Reagan, and after Reagan I thought nothing could be weirder. Then there was Bush and Bush's son, and it all just seemed like nothing could be a badder joke than George W. Bush. And now we're here. It seems to just yo-yo around, but hopefully we'll get to another level.

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

Any time having international interviews is a language barrier, you don't know how much you need to simplify what you're saying for it not to be damaged in translation. But culturally, there are some interesting phenomena. I get the feeling that the way rock music gets described in Germany, it is all like Rolling Stone circa 1975, taken to the 10th power. If you're a rock musician, you're part of the counterculture. Your music is like a critique of everything that is wrong with America.

I don't lose a lot of sleep worrying about aliens, but I think it seems possible that there's life forms beyond our solar system.