Foreshadowing in Coraline's "Other Father Song"

 (WARNING: Major spoilers for this 15 year-old movie)

I finally got around to watching the animated spooky season classic Coraline last night, and yep, it's a high-quality piece of work. There really need to be more stop-motion horror movies, if you ask me.

Of course, as an enormous They Might Be Giants geek, I loved the "Other Father Song," written by the band and performed by TMBG's John Linnell in the film (John Hodgman does the speaking voice of the character). This video really changes how I see the song. It's a cool edit that shows the surprisingly dense foreshadowing in its lyrics, how Other Father was trying to warn Coraline all along. The best of these hints is "She's as cute as a button in the eyes of everyone who ever laid their eyes on Coraline," which is genuinely insane writing. Other people in the comments note that he says "eyes" three times in the song, corresponding to the eyes of the three ghost children. I have no idea why the world's other lyricists even try when they're around.

I could go on about how crazy some of it is. It's a fun watch if you want to see one of the movie's best scenes in a different light.

"Our eyes will be on Coraline..."