--It was very, very early it was 2:37 in the afternoon
--I turned off my alarm clock and I stumbled over several pizza boxes
--And my girlfriend on the way to the bathroom
One person thought that was "several people boxing with my girlfriend" !

The next verse doesn't have any references, so I'll leave it out

--Don't get me wrong
There's a pretenders song called "don't get me wrong" that is sung almost exactly the same way. This isn't a reference, but it explains why I sing it the way i do as opposed to the way Adam wrote it, which is exactly the way the pretenders sing it.

--I'm not talking about some kind of figurative stranger here
--No existential bullshit from Camus or Billy Joel
Existential Bullshit was the title of an album by John Valby, perhaps the filthiest man alive. Camus, of course, wrote The Stranger, and Billy Joel's breakthrough album was called The Stranger as well.

--I'm not saying I didn't recognize myself in the mirror
--Or that I didn't like the kind of person I saw
--No I'm talking about an actual literal kind of stranger here
--Like the villain in issue 104 of the Flash
Flash 104 features the first appearance of the Mirror Master, one of his more popular villains, who was recently brought out of obscurity by Grant Morrison in Animal Man.

--There was no question this was not your everyday reflection
--This was some middle aged balding Jewish guy and he had a moustache

--There's a stranger in my mirror there's a new face on the wall
--After that Newcastle incident I thought that I'd seen it all
Okay, we're talking Alan Moore' Swamp Thing here. He had a supporting character named John Constantine (who has his own series now, called Hellblazer), and he was this really enigmatic magician who had seen/done it all. The only thing that bothered him was what he always referred to as "the Newcastle incident." We thought it would be funny to frame the song as if it was another of John's odd adventures.

--Things like this are always happening to me

--So I stood there looking stupid in my $20 bathrobe
I have a 20 dollar bathrobe that everybody (Tanya included) makes fun of.

--With my indicator toothbrush sticking in between my teeth
Remember these? They had the middle bristles dyed blue, so that you could tell when to replace the toothbrush.

--My eyes just opened wider when I looked back in the mirror
--And saw the stranger with his toothbrush staring back in disbelief

Again, I'll skip the parts without references. . .

--Then I grabbed my girlfriend's Lady Bic razor and ran it down. . .
Someone online informs me that there is no such thing as a Lady Bic, only a Lady Schick. And yet no one has figured out that it's Webster and not Roget, who puts out the New World Thesaurus. (from Cliché)

--I am young enough to be this old, bald, fat guy's son
--I've never even met an Arab and I don't even own a gun
These are references to Camus' The Stranger, where the main character needlessly shoots and kills an Arab man. (of course, for the less literary, you can say that this is a reference to the Cure song Killing an Arab ("I am the stranger, killing an Arab") which is of course a more straight adaptation of the Camus novel. And you non-art types can just assume that I'm referring to the Israeli-Arab conflicts.

--There was that time when the shopping mall devoured my Aunt Sue
This isn't a reference to anything, but I have an Aunt Sue (but Adam wrote this line -- honest Aunt Sue!)

--And when my pet canary turned to stone I didn't know what to do
--I scolded my basilisk from behind my mirrored shield
We all know what a basilisk is, right?

--The was the same week Adrian Veidt removed my intrinsic field
Another Alan Moore reference, this time to Watchman. Adrain Veidt was Ozymandias, and he tried to kill Dr. Manhattan by removing his intrinsic field. All he accomplished was killing his own pet, Bubastic the genetically altered lynx (which was a name that Adam and I performed under once. "Bubastic the Genetically Altered Lynx" that is. Catchy huh?)

--I had nothing to lose so I played the lottery
--It was run by Shirley Jackson
The famous occultist and writer of The Lottery, that short story we all had to read in high school where the poor woman is stoned for "winning" the town lottery.

--I said put down those stones somebody dropped my canary
That's my favorite part of the song, because it references back to an earlier lyric in the song! I have no idea if that was me or Adam, though, who wrote this line.

--I had a friend in a convent, Nergal said, "get thee to a nunnery"
In Hellblazer, John Constantine had a friend who encountered a demon named Nergal who advised her "get thee to a nunnery," so she became a nun. Why she followed the advice of a demon is anybody's guess

--And another friend who stuttered and quoted Lovecraft
In Swamp Thing, Constantine had a friend named Ben Cox who stuttered and was constantly quoting H.P. Lovecraft (duh!)

--I had a girl in New York city
Again, in Swamp Thing, John's girlfriend lived in NYC

--They were all killed by the Invunche
All these people were killed by the Invunche in Swamp Thing. The Invunche was made by taking an infant and doing horrible, horrible things to it (like twisting its head around and sewing its hand into its back and what not). It was very effective in the comic to have John Constantine (who was otherwise a cold-hearted bastard) weep when he described the making of the Invunche to Swamp Thing. I have no idea why I decided that we should pronounce it "in-vun-chay" as opposed to the more obvious "in-vunch." It just sounded more esoteric, I suppose.

--Or the time when I awoke from unsettling dreams transformed in my bed Into a monstrous vermin
This is, of course, the first line of Kafka's metamorphosis.

--Or those three days each august when my shadow is replaced by that
--Of Ethel Mermin
This is all me, no reference. It just rhymed with vermin so I blurted it out. We also wrote an alternate line that's a comic book reference but I don't think we're ever used it. It's the same line, but in place of Ethel Mermin we use Myra Ferminn, who was a supporting character in The Question, one of Adam's (and me, too) favorite comics of the late 80s.

--Well it was all quite interesting to have my doppleganger
--But it was getting boring and I had to use the loo
Randy Hoffman pointed out that we are simultaneously interested and bored. By substituting "well and good" for "interesting" the problem is solved. Of course, Randy also pointed out that we couldn't tell he was bald since the only way to tell he was Jewish would be if he was wearing a yarmulke over his head. Not wanting to bring up the whole foreskin issue (we didn't say the stranger had clothes on) I just said six words, "Judd Hirsch, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen. . ."

--I tried to help him but unfortunately I lacked the ability to phase
--Through solid objects like mirrors
Kitty Pryde of the X-Men has the ability to phase through solid objects like mirrors.

We refer to the ending as the "Beethoven ending," and I'm sure you see why. Adam really, really likes it when I make odd noises in between the guitar hits at the end. I do explosions, and thunder, and tires squealing, etc.

Oh dear lord, let it end. . .