This song is about nothing. Nothing is the lack of anything. A void of matter. However, nothing does have the component of time. In other words, when you go to look, there is nothing there. Looking for nothing involves "when", as in:
"Hey, get me a beer"
"There aren't any left, there is nothing in the fridge"
"Really? WHEN did you look"
"About an hour ago...leave me alone, I am looking at catalogs...Do you think we should get your Dad a Garden Weasel for Christmas?"
"You should look again, I just came from the store, there should be some there now"
"I just looked again, there is nothing there....maybe it should be a subscription to People magazine, he is kind of metro and might like to look at all the dresses from the Oscars"
As you can see from the above example, looking for nothing involves time. Each time you look for "nothing" you will find a "new" nothing. This song is about how "nothing" is always new because the time dimension has changed and therefore the "nothing" that was there before has changed and is now "new".
Modest Mouse, up until the time they sold out, were deeply into quantum mechanics, general relativity, and string theory and this song reflects their interests.
This song is about nothing. Nothing is the lack of anything. A void of matter. However, nothing does have the component of time. In other words, when you go to look, there is nothing there. Looking for nothing involves "when", as in:
"Hey, get me a beer"
"There aren't any left, there is nothing in the fridge"
"Really? WHEN did you look"
"About an hour ago...leave me alone, I am looking at catalogs...Do you think we should get your Dad a Garden Weasel for Christmas?"
"You should look again, I just came from the store, there should be some there now"
"I just looked again, there is nothing there....maybe it should be a subscription to People magazine, he is kind of metro and might like to look at all the dresses from the Oscars"
As you can see from the above example, looking for nothing involves time. Each time you look for "nothing" you will find a "new" nothing. This song is about how "nothing" is always new because the time dimension has changed and therefore the "nothing" that was there before has changed and is now "new".
Modest Mouse, up until the time they sold out, were deeply into quantum mechanics, general relativity, and string theory and this song reflects their interests.