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Artist: They Might Be Giants
Song: No One Knows My Plan
Album: John Henry
Intro:
F F(G) F(A) F(Bb)
C C(D) C(E) C (x4)
Dm G C F Bb Eb G C
Verse 1;
F F(G) F(A) F(Bb) C C(D) C(E) C
In my prison cell I think these words
F F(G) F(A) F(Bb) C C(D) C(E) C
I was careless, I can see that now
Dm G C F Bb Eb G C
I must be silent, must contain my secret smile
Dm G C F Bb Eb G C
I want to tell you - you my mirror, you my iron bars
Pre Chorus:
Am Bb C Dm
When I made a shadow on my window shade
Eb G C Bb b
They called the police and testified
Am Bb C Dm
But they're like the people chained up in the cave
G Bb C
In the allegory of the people in the cave by the Greek guy
Chorus:
F F(G) F(A) F(Bb) C C(D) C(E) C
No one understands
F F(G) F(A) F(Bb) C C(D) C(E) C
no one knows my plan
Dm G C F Bb Eb G C
why the dancing, shouting; why the shrieks of pain
Dm G C F Bb Eb G C
the lovely music - why the smell of burning autumn leaves
Bridge:
Am Bb C Dm
Eb G C Bb
Am Bb C Dm
G Bb C
Chorus:
No one understands
No one knows my plan
Why the dancing, shouting
Why the shrieks of pain
The lovely music
Why the smell of burning autumn leaves
Verse:
In my prison cell I bide my time
Always thinking
Always busy cooking up an angle
Working on the tiny blueprint of the angle
Sketching out the burning autumn leaves
Chorus:
No one understands
No one knows my plan
I must be silent, must contain my secret smile
I want to tell you
you my mirror
you my iron bars
Outro:
F F(G) F(A) F(Bb) C C(D) C(E) C
No one understands
Bb C F
No one knows my plan
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Tab Discussion, Comments, and Critiques
|
No Picture
Ale Wanna Be |
#1 by Ale Rosado at Dec 18, 1970 at 9:23 PM EST |
| The speaker suffers from social anxiety and has retreated into obessively planning his revenge on people. Above all, he is lonely and confused - I love the garbled Plato reference. | |
|
No Picture
Squats Average |
#2 by Squats at Nov 24, 1973 at 11:37 PM EST |
| In theater class a few months ago, our teacher gave my group this song and told us to make a music video-ish thing out of it. I ended up dancing on a table. Oh, it was great. | |
|
No Picture
Chris Average |
#3 by Chris Essery at Feb 15, 1979 at 3:34 PM EST |
| Surprisingly, this is one of the ONLY songs in the TMBG discography that makes any sense to me. It seems like a portrayal of someone who's carefully planning something from within the cold solitude of his own silence. For whatever twisted reason, he "must be silent", yet he longs to voice his plan. He similarly longs to be normal and enjoy the "dancing, shouting" and "the lovely music" (though his warped mind hears them as "shrieks of pain"), yet he's contained within the "iron bars" of his own sad mind. | |
|
No Picture
Nyle Average |
#4 by Nyle Leddy at Mar 10, 1994 at 5:58 AM EST |
| I like to take this song more literally - I think it is a man, sitting in prison, biding his time until he can get out and complete his secret plan. He's excited about the plan, and it's killing him not to be able to move on it, so he comes clean to the inanimate objects in his cell. He's in prision for something he was doing - something that was a part of his plan but not his plan in its entirety, but was still very much illegal. His neighbors (or whoever) saw him (making shadows on his window shade) and this lesser crime got him sent to jail. His neighbors then, really are like the people in Plato's Allegory, because they misinterpret the crime they saw as his plan, while it was only an aspect of the bigger picture. What his plan actually is - that's a mystery. No one knows. But if it involves dancing, shouting, shrieks of pain, and burning autumn leaves, it's probably for the best that he's in prision. | |
|
No Picture
Curtis Rhythm Player |
#5 by Curtis Lee at Aug 13, 1996 at 5:33 PM EST |
| so, I have to ask, why the burning autumn leaves? | |
|
No Picture
Mike Average |
#6 by Mike Murphy at Sep 24, 1999 at 7:32 PM EST |
| I like to take this song more literally - I think it is a man, sitting in prison, biding his time until he can get out and complete his secret plan. He's excited about the plan, and it's killing him not to be able to move on it, so he comes clean to the inanimate objects in his cell. He's in prision for something he was doing - something that was a part of his plan but not his plan in its entirety, but was still very much illegal. His neighbors (or whoever) saw him (making shadows on his window shade) and this lesser crime got him sent to jail. His neighbors then, really are like the people in Plato's Allegory, because they misinterpret the crime they saw as his plan, while it was only an aspect of the bigger picture. What his plan actually is - that's a mystery. No one knows. But if it involves dancing, shouting, shrieks of pain, and burning autumn leaves, it's probably for the best that he's in prision. | |
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