I Palindrome I

This song cryptically tells the story of a man who murders his mother to collect his inheritance. At the end of the song, this deed is turned back on him when one of his children kills him. The implied moral is that what goes around comes around, a message that is reflected in the song's title.

A palindrome is a word or phrase that's spelled the same way forward and backwards, for example: "Madam in eden, I'm adam." In this song, the bridge section is a word palindrome, meaning the words are the same forward and backwards: "Son I am able, she said though you scare me. Watch, said I, beloved, I said watch me scare you though, said she, able am I, Son."

They Might Be Giants ran a Dial-A-Song service from 1983-2006, playing snippets of songs on an answering machine for any fans who called in (a free number). On the Apollo 18 album, however, the wrong number was printed on the initial pressings, causing an electrical contractor to get flooded with calls.