Back in high school I knew a girl
Not too simple and not too kind
We both grew up, but I heard she changed
From a new wave fan to another kind
She thinks she's Edith Head
But you might know she's not
The accent in her speech she didn't have growing up
She thinks she's Edith Head
Or Helen Gurley Brown
Or some other cultural figure we don't know a lot about
It's been years since I moved away
But at Christmas I come home
And I saw her reflection in the window of a store
She was talking to herself
Not too simple and not too kind
I walked on by, it was complicated and it stuck in my mind
She thinks she's Edith Head
But you might know she's not
The accent in her speech she didn't have growing up
The accent in her speech she didn't have growing up
The accent in her speech she didn't have growing up
She thinks she's Edith Head
She thinks she's Edith Head, now
She thinks she's Edith Head
She thinks she's Edith Head, now
She thinks she's Edith Head
She thinks she's Edith Head, now
She thinks she's Edith Head
She thinks she's Edith Head, now
(She's lost her mind!)
(Let's listen.)
(I ate a bug.)
(I can't hear you at all.)
Quoth the Johns:
Earlier versions of this song and "Bangs" were included on a special disc that we created for Issue #6 of Dave Egger's literary journal McSweeney's. We contributed 37 short pieces of music to go with 37 written pieces or pictures. This song was the companion to a painting by the artist Amy Sillman of a woman with dozens of heads and other things emanating from her very wide body. McSweeney's #6 has already sold 30,000 copies (pretty good for a literary magazine).
—John Flansburgh and John Linnell
[source: Emusic promotional email, August 3, 2001]