It’s a very defined album by Neutral Milk Hotel, in my mind. More than just distinctive, I find it too pure to listen to properly. It’s too artistic and too expressionate, it hurts my mind to listen through it. I just listen to a song or two at a time, and maybe get through the album in a week or so.
There’s a reoccurring theme in the lyrics. Anne Frank, a young girl who wrote a diary during the holocaust, is referenced in many songs. She died, close to the end of concentration camps, and later her diary was published and is read by many. The singer loves her, she represents it to him. It’s not that surprising, although why does SHE represent it is a question to wonder at times. Not wonder, but note. ‘He forces his fingers into her mouth, to make those muscles move’.
I listen to the song ‘holland, 1945′ before going out. I follow the vocal line, and it fills my chest with energy. The lyrics are the core. Here’s the first three lines, fwiw:
The only girl I’ve ever loved
Was born with roses in her eyes
But then they buried her alive
