| Neutral Milk Hotel – The King of Carrot Flowers Pt. 1 Lyrics | 20 years ago |
| Thinking about it, the tower is probably the Tower of Babel, in relation to Satan as the "holy rattlesnakes." Still, I believe both of these have deeper, more base metaphors. | |
| Neutral Milk Hotel – The King of Carrot Flowers Pt. 1 Lyrics | 20 years ago |
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After reading the incestual, or at least forbidden love comments, I've come to doubt it's what Mangum intended. Although certainly possible, I don't think it fits with the album. I think we must look at the exact connection between the two to begin to formulate the relationship. When you were young You were the king of carrot flowers And how you built a tower tumbling through the trees In holy rattlesnakes that fell all around your feet -I'm not sure what the carrot flowers means exactly, but I believe overall it is about sexual maturation. The holy rattlesnakes are temptations and sins of some sort, I think, and the tower from the trees may signify a maturing libido. Notice how the point of view is from an observer- at this point, he has no connection with the subject, almost as if he is witness to their childhood, and more specifically, through texts and fantasy. And your mom would stick a fork right into daddy's shoulder And your dad would throw the garbage all across the floor As we would lay and learn what each other's bodies were for -Now, is this stanza to be taken literally? It could very well be an incestuous, or pedophiliac love. I think more generally it is about the speaker's connection with the subject. It could be physical, or emotional, and I don't think the two even need to exist in the same time period. All we know is that the figure helped the speaker "mature" in some way. It is also interesting to see his use of pronouns. At the beginning it is only "You," which leads into the ONLY "We" of the song. This leads me to believe that at this point, there is the only actual interaction between the two, most likely in a metaphysical manner. I think the connection is transcendent, as if the spirit has "touched" the narrator in a profound manner. And this is the room One afternoon I knew I could love you And from above you how I sank into your soul Into that secret place where no one dares to go -My points from the last stanza carry to this one. On the pronouns, this is the only stanza he uses "I." Why? I believe it is most likely that the speaker is alone again, yet has connected with the subject and may feed off of this. Literally, I suppose it's sex, but moreso I think it's about completion, a metaphor of a metaphor. And your mom would drink until she was no longer speaking And dad would dream of all the different ways to die Each one a little more than he could dare to try -I think it's most interesting that at this point neither the subject or the speaker is the focus. It's my belief that this is because, as I said, the connection is complete. To make sense of this, I believe that the entire story with the mothers and fathers is to show the similarities and connections in the subject and speaker's youths. I believe both sets of parents to be interchangable- I'm not sure on the whole incest comment because, although the speaker does use "daddy," he never has a "mommy" explicity stated. However, the subject has both a "mom" and "dad." This leads me to believe that both have different sets of parents, yet could very well be the same because of who they are. So in summation, I believe the song is about the initial metaphysical connection between the speaker, the singer of the album, and the subject. |
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| Stars – Sleep Tonight Lyrics | 20 years ago |
| Haha, when I saw them in Boston, Torquil said this song was about cunningulis. Amy seemed a little embarassed. | |
| Stars – Ageless Beauty Lyrics | 20 years ago |
| I think the lyric is, "You can see it for yourself, I'll sing it." | |
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