It samples the Penguin Cafe Orchestra song "Telephone and Rubber Band".

It's using some kind of metaphor of a worldly or inner-worldly search for the end of isolation, and the acceptance of one's self is in there.

[3] An early demo version of the song plays over the credits of Michael Almereyda's 1994 film Nadja.

Mashup artist Girl Talk layered "In the Meantime" over the Terror Squad hip-hop song, "Lean Back" in his album All Day.

An excerpt of the re-recorded version of the song is used as the opening theme to the VH1 television series Hindsight in addition to appearing on the show's second episode.