Pet Name: Almost Figured Out
A reflective essay on “Pet Name” by They Might Be Giants. About delayed clarity, emotional mismatch, and finally understanding a song after a relationship ends.
Writing while listening to this on repeat. Cup of coffee in hand.
I can’t explain it, but even as a non-smoker, I wish I had a cigarette.
Some Songs Wait
There are songs you think you understand because they hurt at the right time.
And then there are songs you don’t understand until years later, when the hurt finally lines up with the words.
Pet Name is one of those songs.
It sits near the end of Factory Showroom, the antepenultimate track on an album where They Might Be Giants sound noticeably more settled into being a live band. By this point, the record has slowed down, grown warmer, and allowed grooves to breathe.
I love how the bass groove leads this song with so much emotion. Paired with the congas, it gives Pet Name a loose, sultry feel, carrying forward the same vibe and tones introduced at the top of the album with S-E-X-X-Y.
It is the early hours of 6:50am, okay this isn’t that early. Most people are up in the world around now but it’s early for me to be up and writing. I’m trying out this new daily routine I’ve cooked up and so far, going pretty meh.
My headphones are on as I type and I’m listening to Pet Name on repeat. I don’t typically try to write while actively listening to the song that I’m writing about but I really enjoy this song. The rich tapestry of sounds it brings along with the deep mix of emotions it conjures.
Feeling It Before I Understood It
My first high school breakup happened the year of this album’s release in 1996. Pet Name would come on during my grief ridden listens and I connected to the emotion behind it even though I didn’t fully understand or relate to what was being sung. I knew it was about a relationship that either was unravelling, had recently unraveled, or was always in a state of unravel. While we were together, my girlfriend and I were very wonderful to each other.
As far as teenage dating goes, we considered each other’s feelings, shared affectionate little pet names and it was all seemingly reciprocal and good. Until she just wanted to have all of that with someone who wasn’t me and broke it off. Typical high school dating.
I would hear this song during the 16 and a half years of my first marriage - right out of high school. And even through all of it - and my exit - this song didn’t seem any more relatable than my high school breakup. My first divorce was about escaping a dynamic that was severely bad for my mental health, self-worth, and overall self-preservation. I didn’t hear the song and feel the kinship with the singer or music at all.
The Inventory
Early spring of 2025, I was walking around the park while my second wife was away with friends in Mexico. We had been having a lot of long conversations about our relationship and her current feelings surrounding her place in the world and things she regrets not doing.
I was taking a mental inventory of the previous six years of our marriage when Pet Name came on. So much more was clicking. As often as I felt loved and cherished, I also found myself feeling avoided, discarded, betrayed. This non-reciprocal dynamic left a disingenuous taste in my mouth.
After she split, and the dust had settled, I listened to this song in preparation writing and there it was. I knew when it came on that this time would be different.
There were tears. Some were from grief and some from a sense of relief granted me by the clarity. This song was talking about the things I was unable to see or afraid to name out loud for years.
Acceptance, Arriving Late
and it’s a lucky thing
because that sentimental stuff
doesn’t suit you
at all.
This lyric used to sound angry to me. Now, it just doesn’t land that way. It resonates for me like acceptance arriving late.
It’s the moment where the narrator stops expecting something the other person was never built to give. Not because they were cruel or withholding, but because sentimentality simply wasn’t where their energy went. Some people are wired to linger over meaning, memory, and gesture. Others are consumed by the ongoing work of managing themselves.
Listening to this now, I don’t hear bitterness in that lyric the way did before. I hear the relief that comes with naming a mismatch. The kind you only recognize after you’ve spent years hoping someone might one day grow into a language they never really spoke.
Almost
Some relationships don’t end because the love disappears. They end because it never quite lands where it’s meant to. Pet Name keeps circling the idea that love wasn’t absent, it was translated poorly. And that kind of understanding doesn’t arrive during the relationship, it arrives afterward, when there’s finally enough distance to tell the truth.
I’m still listening to Pet Name. Still drinking the coffee. Still sitting with the clarity. The song didn’t save anything, but it named something. And sometimes that’s enough. I’ll leave myself with this lyric:
And we almost figured out
how we'd get along
And given time we'd
find it strange to
be alone. . .
You’re reading one of my Factory Showroom essays. An album full of oddball beauty, quiet heartbreak, and some of the band’s most elegant songwriting.
See all Factory Showroom posts - Start Here
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I like your "lost in translation" take on the song!