I think much like another song “Anti-Matter” (that's also on the same album as this song), this one is also is inspired by a horrifying van crash the band experienced on Nov 3, 2022. This, much like the other track, sounds like it's an extension what they shared while huddled in the wreckage, as they helped frontman Garrett Russell stem the bleeding from his head wound while he was under the temporary effects of a concussion. The track speaks of where the mind goes at the most desperate & desolate of times, when it just about slips away to all but disconnect itself, and the aftermath.
Two headed boy
All floating in glass
The sun it has passed
Now it's blacker than black
I can hear as you tap on your jar
I am listening to hear where you are
I am listening to hear where you are
Two headed boy
Put on Sunday shoes
And dance round the room to accordion keys
With the needle that sings in your heart
Catching signals that sound in the dark
Catching signals that sound in the dark
We will take off our clothes
And they'll be placing fingers through the notches in your spine
And when all is breaking
Everything that you could keep inside
Now your eyes ain't moving
Now they just lay there in their climb
Two headed boy
With pulleys and weights
Creating a radio played just for two
In the parlor with a moon across her face
And through the music he sweetly displays
Silver speakers that sparkle all day
Made for his lover who's floating and choking with her hands across her face
And in the dark we will take off our clothes
And they'll be placing fingers through the notches in your spine
And when all is breaking everything that you could keep inside
Now your eyes ain't moving now, they just lay there in their climb
Two headed boy
There is no reason to grieve
The world that you need is wrapped in gold silver sleeves
Left beneath Christmas trees in the snow
And I will take you and leave you alone
Watching spirals of white softly flow
Over your eyelids and all you did
Will wait until the point when you let go
All floating in glass
The sun it has passed
Now it's blacker than black
I can hear as you tap on your jar
I am listening to hear where you are
I am listening to hear where you are
Two headed boy
Put on Sunday shoes
And dance round the room to accordion keys
With the needle that sings in your heart
Catching signals that sound in the dark
Catching signals that sound in the dark
We will take off our clothes
And they'll be placing fingers through the notches in your spine
And when all is breaking
Everything that you could keep inside
Now your eyes ain't moving
Now they just lay there in their climb
Two headed boy
With pulleys and weights
Creating a radio played just for two
In the parlor with a moon across her face
And through the music he sweetly displays
Silver speakers that sparkle all day
Made for his lover who's floating and choking with her hands across her face
And in the dark we will take off our clothes
And they'll be placing fingers through the notches in your spine
And when all is breaking everything that you could keep inside
Now your eyes ain't moving now, they just lay there in their climb
Two headed boy
There is no reason to grieve
The world that you need is wrapped in gold silver sleeves
Left beneath Christmas trees in the snow
And I will take you and leave you alone
Watching spirals of white softly flow
Over your eyelids and all you did
Will wait until the point when you let go
Lyrics submitted by PLANES, edited by riverajosie2, adngai, Mellow_Harsher
Two-Headed Boy Lyrics as written by Jeff Mangum
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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I've always thought of this in a completly different way...That Jeff Mangum is actually in love with the idea of Anne Frank...A sort of Miniver Cheevyesque story of him being born too late to love his soulmate. If you go about the entire album in this way, it becomes one of the saddest and most beautiful love songs ever. The whole CD seems to be one long song--One descriptive transgression of Jeff Mangum, very much about the holocaust, but also about the sexual confusion of the singer--like in Holland, 1945, "The only girl I ever loved Was born with roses in her eyes But then they buried her alive One evening 1945."
coming back to the THB...I feel that two heads describes both his walk through reality and his dreamstate.
" placing fingers through the notches of your spine" could be describing the horrific experiments on and the post-mortem uses of parts of the victims' bodies by the Nazis--such as the human skin lampshades, the body fat soaps, bone funiture...vertebrae could be made into rings if ground around the outside. A person could quite literally put his or her fingers through the spinal canal of a vertebral ring.
I know that's pretty graphic...but it's my interpretation and only an opinion.