Neutral Milk Hotel

[halleluwah]

For me, Jeff Mangum is second only to Dylan as far as the richness and depth his lyrics provide if you take the time to really look inside them closely.    ...man, where is the barfing smiley.

this...

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

...is so overdone and wimpy and flowers and just means nothing and is generally something my three year old would write, compared to The Mountain Goats...

I think it's hilarious how in probably 90% of the times I've heard people criticise NMH's lyrics, they're always too lazy to look past the album's opening lines.  You quote the opening lines of that song, call them wimpy and flowery, and then neglect to mention that the remainder of the song concerns the child's parents physically battling each other, where the mother is an alcoholic and the father is contemplating suicide.  Nothing flowery about that.

Nothing flowery about these either:


"I know they buried her body with others
Her sister and mother and five hundred families."

"Goldaline my dear, we will fold and freeze together
Far away from here there is sun and spring and green forever
But now we move to feel for ourselves inside some stranger's stomach
Place your body here; let your skin begin to blend itself with mine."

"Your father made fetuses with flesh-licking ladies
While you and your mother were asleep in the trailer park."

"The only girl I've ever loved was born with roses in her eyes
But then they buried her alive one evening 1945."

"My dreamgirl don't exist
At the age of five she slit her wrists."

"And in my dreams you're alive and you're crying,
As your mouth moves in mine, soft and sweet."


Need I go on?

[asswax]

there may be nothing flowery about those NMH lyrics...but they're dank, they're not real, and they're not fun.  how 'bout you take something real, dank...and make it fun?  like the best songwriter today, john darnielle, can do?

alright I'm on johnson avenue in san luis obispo
and I'm five years old or six maybe.
and indications there's something wrong with our new house
trip down the wire twice daily
I'm in the living room watching the watergate hearings
while my step father yells at my mother.
launches a glass across the room, straight at her head
and I dash upstairs to take cover.
lean in close to my little record player on the floor.
so this is what the volume knobs for.

I listen to dance music.
dance music.


...i guess my main issue with NMH lyrics...is they never sound like they are real.  it's like, let's try and be as obtuse and indirect and flowery....flowery as in ironic.  no one can relate to lyrics like those NMH one's you listed.  unless you were actually freezing to death together with someone.  or, you actually knew of someone burying some girl's body with a bunch of other people.  or, your skin has blended itself with someone elses.  flowery.

not bad.  just not my cup of tea.  no neutral milk, please....i take only goat milk.

from one rabid fan to another!   peace!     

[koeeoaddi there]

why do the lyrics have to be real?

me personally, i dont even care about lyrics. as long as theyre not cringe inducingly bad i pretty much dont pay attention to the lyrics of any band i like.

but saying lyrics have to be real is like saying oyu should only watch documentaries or watch factual films.
films are about fantasy and escapism.
music can be too.

[asswax]

why do the lyrics have to be real?

it's a good point you make.

bob dylan's 115th dream isn't real, but it's still awesome.  i guess the difference is, one is word play, and one is nonsense.  i can understand that they asked bob for collateral so he pulls down his pants.  but i can't understand being a king of carrot flowers or rattlesnakes falling at my holy feet.

i guess real as in....not jibber jabber.  so, in conclusion, if you are able to follow this post and make any sense of it whatsoever, you'd probably like NMH.   

don't get me wrong, i think NMH is good.  and the guy could very well be a poet.  but i'd take a songwriter over a poet anyday.  i just never got poetry.  but i can get all along the watchtower.

[the captain]

Sometimes Mangum's lyrics just sound beautiful when sung. I love that. I think some of them have a kind of meaning, too, and there's certainly more than just a little symbolism, or something to "get."

But you don't have to get anything. To me, just listening to him sing those words is beautiful. They mean something even if they don't.

[halleluwah]

I don't know, I don't think there are a lot of Mangum's lines where I just think, "that makes no fucking sense.  He's just spurting out nonsensical images."  There are a few, but I think that, to me anyway, easily 85% of the lyrics on Aeroplane are meaningful.

To me, the opening lines of "Carrot Flowers" are just a different way of saying, "when you were a kid, sometimes you had to take refuge in imagination and fantasy, since the realities of your life were too much for you to bear."  The flowers, rattlesnakes, etc. are just sort examples he's giving of the sorts of illogical images little kids make up when they're imagining things; I don't think they are meant to be taken as individual metaphors on their own.  The rest of the song is a relatively clear-eyed sketch of an abusive family.

[Daniel S.]

So what if Paul doesn't actually OWN any Radiohead albums?

He's as old as my Grandma and she doesn't even know who they are!

 

[koeeoaddi there]

don't get me wrong, i think NMH is good.  and the guy could very well be a poet.  but i'd take a songwriter over a poet anyday.  i just never got poetry.  but i can get all along the watchtower.

heh, thats exactly how i feel about bob dylan.
he can write good lyrics but he aint no musician/singer.
well each to their own.

[asswax]

he can write good lyrics but he aint no musician/singer.

whoa.  i didn't say that about dylan.  i just alluded that i felt him more a songwriter than a poet, which is a varying degree in itself depending on the audience.

there is NO QUESTION, however, that he is a musician/singer.  he plays music.  and he sings.

and yes, to each his/her own....however, the mountain goats are better than NMH.   

[Daniel S.]

...i guess my main issue with NMH lyrics...is they never sound like they are real.  it's like, let's try and be as obtuse and indirect and flowery....flowery as in ironic.  no one can relate to lyrics like those NMH one's you listed. 

Are you Mike Love?

[CosmicDancer]

...i guess my main issue with NMH lyrics...is they never sound like they are real.  it's like, let's try and be as obtuse and indirect and flowery....flowery as in ironic.  no one can relate to lyrics like those NMH one's you listed. 

Are you Mike Love?

 
Well played old man!

[Goofus]

Just wanted to chime in here:

I owned Aeroplane for quite awhile before getting into it. I loathed it, in fact.
And then a good friend of mine - who after enduring a rant about why I regarded the disc as crap - responded with a very heartfelt defense of it. I didn't turn around automatically and then love it, but yes, the turn-around was quick. I was shocked to discover one morning that I actually NEEDED to hear that disc. And now Aeroplane is up there in my top 100. It's a messy creature, it defies you to hug it even in all its grotesque glory, but its ugliness is one of the things going for it like a disturbing Klimt painting.

[Don_Zabu]

And one day we will die
And our ashes will fly
From the aeroplane over the sea
But for now we are young
Let us lay in the sun
And count every beautiful thing we can see
Love to be
In the arms of all I'm keeping here with me

Look me in the eye and tell me that isn't a beautiful, beautiful lyric.

[the captain]

Didn't expect to see this thread exhumed. But while it is, note that Mr. Mangum is supposed to perform at a Chris Knox benefit and already contributed a track.

[grillo]

Yeah man, it's wild and sad and amazing what happened to Chris Knox and I'm glad to see everyone helping him out. Tall Dwarfs are one of my favorite bands and I couldn't believe that Knox had a debilitating stroke last year. But now he's performing again (vocals, but no lyrics!) and it sorta reminds me of Jan and his struggles.
The Mangum track is pure greatness, btw.

[alf wiedersehen]

I saw them play last night.
Was pretty cool.

[SMiLE Brian]

Nice, what did they play?

[JK]

I finally understand the fuss about In An Aeroplane Over The Sea. It makes perfect sense and I cannot stop listening to it.

Anyone else?

Thank you, Bubbly Waves, for resurrecting this ancient topic. It introduced me to a perfectly stunning album...
 

[Ovi]

"And in my dreams, you're alive and you're crying..."

[alf wiedersehen]

Thank you, Bubbly Waves, for resurrecting this ancient topic. It introduced me to a perfectly stunning album...
 

You're welcome, John. Glad you like it.

Nice, what did they play?

They played just about all of ItAotS, but they also played some other stuff I'm unfamiliar with. One was a song called "Birds", they play it live but have never released.

[the captain]

Great you got to see them, Bubbly. I was introduced to them a little too late to see them the first time around (around 2000) and, considering the much-publicized if not altogether real seclusion of Jeff M. (sound familiar to Beach Boys fans?), figured I'd never get a chance. The reunion stuff has been great for old fans, middle fans, young fans. I saw him solo in a theater around 2012 or 2013, then saw them together in Feb. 2014 at famed First Ave and have a recording of that show. It was great both times, with some audience members having crossed well into religious devotion and ecstasy.

Sadly with only two real albums and one short EP, plus a few odds and ends from the box, there's a pretty limited catalog from which to choose in those live shows, as it doesn't seem they are doing anything new. (The unreleased stuff they have done is, from what I can tell, all from the same era as the released stuff.) But then again, if I'd released a near-perfect album, I might just call it a day, too...