| The Mountain Goats – Dinu Lipatti's Bones Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| it would be nice if people listened to dinu lipatti because of this song. lipatti really is one of the greatest musicians ever recorded, and that isn't pretense speaking - it's just truth. | |
| The Tallest Man on Earth – Into the Stream Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| the song seems to be about wanting to take risks to get away from 'this great old boring road'... | |
| The Tallest Man on Earth – The Gardener Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| I lie - but no ones dancing in my fake garden :/ | |
| The Tallest Man on Earth – The Sparrow and the Medicine Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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It's definately about still loving someone who has moved on - possibly because you had hurt them. I'm sure it says heart in the chorus and i think it's 'spreading the wind apart' - he says things weird though. I like the line 'Knowin' that a quite (not quiet), unconscious feeling could be bought to drown a memory anywhere' - it seems to be about just lusting for cheap sex/relationships in order to hide the pain of loving someone who you've lost/let down '"When I'm covered by the thunder I get rid of all your breath deep in my lungs"'. Probably my favourite from the album. |
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| Beirut – Postcards from Italy Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| As mentioned before the last vese says 'bury' me Not 'marry' me. The song is about having previously been in love and haing lost that and he is now telling her to not carry any hate in it all, because t is no ones fault. He's saying that it wasn't 'all bad' and (although it might seem odd) he looks forward to the time of his death because as everyone knows in people reflect on the good times when someone who was close to them has died. The line about 'those who admit defeat too late' - he is pointing out that they criticise people for holding on to what is lost for too long and hence it was not wrong for them to let things fade.This song is beautiful. | |
| Bright Eyes – Amy in the White Coat Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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This song ISN'T sung in the view of the molesteror everone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If you re-read it carefully it is actually conor singing to a girl he knows and then midway through the first verse he quotes the words of the father who molestors this girl. Hence the speech marks from 'he says "We all follow the rules' to... 'You could easily go and make your own life somewhere. Couldn't you?"' Then the second verse is just conor speaking to the girl again. Still I guess it adds up to pretty much the same thing, I hope I'm not just being anally retentive :) |
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| Neutral Milk Hotel – Holland, 1945 Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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(100th post of one of The great songs ever, yay!) I agree with many people that this song is about Anne Franks death and that he uses Pepito Arriola as a symbol of his ideas on resurrection. And that then the second verse does seem to bring in a new character, who's brother has commited suicide and is riding 'a comets flame, and won't be coming back again'. but who is it?! the same character is in 'two-headed boy' (that time spoken from the characters first person view) and in even more detail in the post-aeroplane unreleased track 'little birds'. again, in the boy/girls first person view and tells the story of their brother killing himself (or being killed by his homophobic father). it could even link with the characters in king of the carrot flowers and two headed boy, which may even indicate some sort of incest. i don't wanna sound all crimewatch all of a sudden, but if anyone knows of a person, either historical or someone in jeff's own life, that would fit in with the songs. i would be very very grateful. |
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| Neutral Milk Hotel – I Will Bury You in Time Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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I think KingJelle is onto something here. On my version Jeff's introduction about the rock star has been cut off, but by what people have said the two things go hand in hand. I think Jeff probably thought (and feared) about fame however minor or major that may be. It sounds to me like it is the rock star singing to jeff, but the rock star is in him. It is the demon or the angel or just the future that is lying on his shoulder whispering into his ear. As an example the second verse is about the rock star singing through him. It seems Jeff knew that he would struggle with the kind of fame and almost level of worship that he may or may not end up with. This is him looking into the future with a fear of what lies ahead. The line 'crown your king when your life is broken' is about the 'children', seeing jeff as this figure of adoration when he has gone and is a broken person. In the same way that when an artist dies prematurely, particularly when self inflicted, people often look back on them all starry eyed and through rose tinted spectacles. I won't continue going line through line because I'm sure it all makes sense if you want to interpret this way. Oh, and just before I forget - this song is absolutely amazing! No matter what you think it's about. |
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| Neutral Milk Hotel – The King of Carrot Flowers Pt. 1 Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| actually there is no YOUR Dad anywhere in this song. it is always 'your mum' and then just 'dad'. | |
| Sparklehorse – Mountains Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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i, kind of, think it's about having become an adult and not properly living life anymore, now that childhood has passed. and the idea of going 'back home one day' might be to do with death and an after life - in which the character truely feels will be the only time in which he'll live again. |
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| Sparklehorse – Shade and Honey Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| i think it's about being in love with a person who is depressed: 'she was born with the wings of a hawk; but now she combs her hair with blood'. | |
| Tunng – Jenny Again Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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it's pretty lame that i'm the first to comment - such a good song. the meaning of the song is pretty clear, if you listen carefully enough. the song is sung from the viewpoint of a person as he is dying or after he has died, talking to his friend who has murdered him because he was having an affair with his partner. |
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| Bright Eyes – June on the West Coast Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| this song reminds me of kimya dawson. | |
| Neutral Milk Hotel – Little Birds Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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when i listen to 'in the aeroplane', i see the whole album as a cohesive work about the 'white light' (as jeff puts it in the inlay) that appears from all people including the most fragile of us, like anne frank or the ‘communist daughter’ or the girl falling from the burning building in new york or the goldaline twins (starving in a siberian forest) etc. to me there seems to be one more character though, a brother. he's mentioned most namely in two-headed boy pt 2 and holland 1945, previously i thought this to be anne franks brother having never read the book, but after a small amount of research i can see that this clearly isn't true. after sifting through a series of b sides and live recordings i came across this song (little birds), here is a story of a young boy who was being overcome by beautiful birds and tried to explain this to his father - the father that had attacked his homosexual brother with a hammer. as mentioned by 'mrwuggs' this song is an anomaly - it is the 'most straightforward' song lyrically jeff has ever produced and is also the only song to emerge from a post 'in the aeroplane over the sea' world. i also agree that it seems jeff has made this piece as an explanation for those, like me, trying to understand more of the album. in it there seemed to be a very direct link with two-headed boy pt 2 (as previously mentioned by others) in particular, with themes of homosexuality, death and the separation of father and son. it seems important to note that both of these songs are addressed to the father of both of these two boys, the mother is absent from the text - i believe that this is because they don't share the same mother and they are in fact step brothers, which is also supported by the absence of the word 'your' before the word father in 'king of the carrot flowers', despite 'your' having been used before the word mother. although reading the lyrics of both two-headed boy and king of the carrot flowers with the themes of incest, implied by this idea, seem a bit twisted, it seems to me, more of a case of them trying to discover themselves and in the mean time build an emotional connection through the chaos that surrounds them. jeff added on the 'little birds' recording that the boy lived in a 'not so very nice situation', seemingly beyond that of his brother's death that had gone before because of the use of the present tense - possibly the violence mentioned in the king of the carrot flowers (?). as 'whitepoett' has just explained jeff's father and his mother had a lot of problems and this may explain why, that out of all the characters mentioned, jeff only ever chooses the older brother of the two to narrate – jeff seems to relate to his situation in some way. i cannot say whether these characters are based on fact or fiction, although i presume the latter to be true. but i don't see any real significance in debating that - especially since it's only jeff that could ever tell us. another detail that seemed to link the characters of 'little birds' with 'in the aeroplane..', is a quote about the 'brother' in holland '1945', being 'wrapped in white', which if the boy did drown in the water of his baptism (which is what i take from the ending of little birds), would be the case. there are still more ways in which this idea fits with the album, that i'm struggling to put down in words, like i believe that the 'two-headed boy’ is jeff's imagining of a reincarnation of the two main characters of the work: anna and the older brother (the one that the bird's are entering). i probably should have put quotes up here to speed up your referencing – but i didn’t want it to be too long :) as with everyone else, this is only an opinion that i thought i'd include because it helps me to understand this amazing lyrical work - so don't shout at me if you disagree. |
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| Neutral Milk Hotel – The King of Carrot Flowers Pt. 1 Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| actually, i've changed my mind on one little detail after listening aagain and i think it's actually the other brother, of the two, that jeff imagines to reincarnate with anne frank as the 'two-headed boy'. | |
| Neutral Milk Hotel – The King of Carrot Flowers Pt. 1 Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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(i didn't really know what song to write this under, as it refers to most of the songs on 'in the aeroplane', but the start seemed the best place to start :) when i listen to 'in the aeroplane', i see the whole album as a cohesive work about the 'white light' (as jeff puts it in the inlay) that appears from all people including the most fragile of us, like anne frank or the ‘communist daughter’ or the girl falling from the burning building in new york or the goldaline twins (starving in a siberian forest) etc. to me there seems to be one more character though, a brother. he's mentioned most namely in two-headed boy pt 2 and holland 1945, previously i thought this to be anne franks brother having never read the book, but after a small amount of research i can see that this clearly isn't true. after sifting through a series of b sides and live recordings i came across the song 'little birds', here was a story of a young boy who was being overcome by beautiful birds and tried to explain this to his father - the father that had attacked his homosexual brother with a hammer. as mentioned in another account on this site this song is an anomaly - it is the clearest song lyrically jeff has ever produced and is also the only song to emerge from a post 'in the aeroplane over the sea' world, it seems to me that jeff made this piece as an explanation for those, like me, trying to search for true meaning in this album. In it there seemed to be a very direct link with two-headed boy pt 2 in particular, with themes of homosexuality, death and the separation of father and son. it seems important to note that both of these songs are addressed to the father of both of these two boys, the mother is absent from the text - i believe that this is because they don't share the same mother and they are in fact step brothers, which (as already pointed out) is also supported by the absence of the word 'your' before the word father in 'king of the carrot flowers'. although reading the lyrics of king of the carrot flowers the themes of some sort of incest, implied by this idea, seem a bit twisted, it's more of a case of them trying to discover themselves and in the mean time build an emotional connection through the chaos that surrounds them. jeff added on the 'little birds' recording that the boy lived in a 'not so very nice situation', seemingly beyond that of his brother's death that had gone before - possibly the violence mentioned in the king of the carrot flowers (?). from what i know of jeff and his parents it seemed that his father and his mother had a lot of problems and this may explain why, that out of all the characters mentioned, jeff only ever chooses the older (homosexual) brother of the two to narrate – jeff seems to have related to this in some way. i cannot say whether these characters are based on fact or just fictional, although i presume the latter to be true. there are a lot more ways in which this idea fits with the album, that i'm struggling to put down in words, like i believe that the 'two-headed boy’ is jeff's imagining of a reincarnation of the two main characters of the work: anna and the homosexual brother. i probably should have put quotes up here to speed up your referencing – but i didn’t want it to be too long. as with everyone else though this is only an opinion that i thought i'd include because it helps me to understand this, the most beautifully complex lyrical work i have ever encountered. |
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| Neutral Milk Hotel – In the Aeroplane Over the Sea Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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admittedly i haven't scrawled through all the replies - as there have already been quite alot, but i felt a some people were missing the meaning of the lines: "Now, how I remember you How I would push my fingers through your mouth To make those muscles move That made your voice so smooth and sweet" to me this is talking about jeff (dreaming about being) at the side of anne frank's corpse trying to get her to speak again - i definately don't think it is sexual in any way. just my thoughts. |
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