This song came from a practice session at Matthew Bellamy’s house early in Muse's existence as a band, with the guitar part coming before the bass line and percussion, respectively. Its first recorded release was on the Muscle Museum EP, where it came in two versions. One is close to the later incarnation on Showbiz, and one is a short acoustic with rain effects. The latter was used at the beginning of the former as an introduction. The EP version also differs from the Showbiz version as having a different bassdrum figure in the verses and the pre-chorus parts. Bellamy said that the meaning was the "conflict between the body and the soul or mind" - the Freudian idea of inner conflict between want and conscience. He later stated that the meaning somehow involved people in the future no longer having bodies. This idea came from a book that he had read. The title comes from a dictionary that Muse used, which had 'muscle' immediately before 'muse' and 'museum' immediately after. You can hear Matt talking about his hometown in "Muscle Museum", where Teignmouth still wanted to convince Muse they were doing wrong (to prove I've made a big mistake). (Thanks to MuseWiki)