2. Two-Headed Boy

Song:  "Two-Headed Boy"
Artist:  Neutral Milk Hotel
Album:  In the Aeroplane over the Sea
Year:  1998
Length:  4:26
Label:  Merge
Rating:  10 out of 10 (for the album on Pitchfork)

• Download Neutral Milk Hotel - "Two-Headed Boy".mp3

The last three songs on my top 40 songs of all-time list have been part of albums that have received 10 out of 10 ratings (Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation, Pavement's Slanted and Enchanted, and The Smiths' The Queen is Dead) and this song continues that trend.  (I haven't looked it up yet, but I'm pretty sure my #1 song falls short of such universal acclaim).  So the question is, are my picks being influenced by such critical praise?  It's possible, although I'm fairly confident 95% of the mouth-breathing public has never heard of this song or band before, so I can continue to be proud of my "alternative" and "indie" cred.  I hope.  Mostly, I just love these fucking records.  I've probably told the story of the meaning of Neutral Milk Hotel to my life several times before, but please indulge me one last time.

I first heard this song several years after its release, in the spring of 2001.  That year was a transitional one for me musically, and was the beginning of the spark of the advent of my embrace of indie rock as a genre and the Internet as a forum for delivering great, new, undiscovered musical masterpieces.  Eatontown's FM106.3, the only local alternative station in the NYC area, got sold about a year earlier, and my radio use dropped precipitously as a result.  My time spent listening to music dropped as well, and I truly feared whether my time might have passed and I'd spend my latter years reliving the glories of The Smiths or Pavement or Sonic Youth, for there were no "new" bands coming out with good alternative rock music anymore.  What passed for alternative those days was the crap-rock of a Limp Bizkit and what passed for pop music was the fucking Backstreet Boys.  I had basically given up hope.  The only new music I ever heard was when I received the CD that came every month in the CMJ New Music Monthly magazine, but increasingly many of the 20 tracks included were hip-hop or dance tracks that I didn't like, or a bunch of bands I never heard of before (mostly because I wasn't paying attention).  I actually bought Grandaddy's The Sophtware Slump as a result of the recommendation of that magazine, but I never actually got around to listening to it despite the dearth of new music selections in my catalog at that time.  I don't know why.  But anything that was too original or too different and too unknown still kind of scared me off.  Until I bought In the Aeroplane over the Sea.

Merge Records is the home label of Superchunk, founded by Mac and Laura of the band, and since the Chunk were just about my favorite band at the time, I was often getting mailings from Merge urging me to buy more records from their artists.  The one that kept sticking out was this weird band with the weird name that Merge was pumping for its glowing reviews equating its album with all-time musical greatness.  I finally, reluctantly, after a couple years of resisting, gave in and purchased an album from a band I'd never heard a single note from, despite its weird name and weird album cover.  And almost exclusively out of complete desperation to find something - anything - new, that I might like.  And the rest, as they say, is history.

On the first listen, through the opening "The King of Carrot Flowers Part 1" and the weird spoken word/scream of "Part 2", I was far from sold on the concept.  And I'm not sure I really bought "Two- Headed Boy" the first time through either.  But it definitely stood out from the other, faster-tempo tracks on the early part of the album, and by the second or third listen at least, I realized that I was experiencing something brilliant.  Something so different, so original, so wonderful.  Like nothing I'd ever heard before.  A work of art.  A majestic, glorious record of utter emotion, vulnerability, beauty, and depth.  A complex lyrical soundscape blending with every imaginable instrument in wonderful harmony, while Jeff Mangum's tortured vocals soared above it all.  "Two-Headed Boy" was the greatest song on the album, and led me to listen to it over and over again, but truly the album works best in its entirety, so it's a little tough to single out this one song.  But I'm pretty sure it's worth it.

As a result of my love for this song and album, I spent time online trying to find out about the band (which never released an album after this 1998 masterpiece).  Through my search, I discovered Pitchforkmedia and its glowing review.  And through Pitchfork, I found that Neutral Milk Hotel was merely the tip of the iceberg.  Rock bands hadn't stopped producing good music.  It just wasn't happening on major labels anymore.  The Pavements and Superchunks and Sonic Youths and Pixies that got played on MTV and alternative stations in the '90s all had successors that were making just as good - or even better - music, but without an avenue to play them anymore.  The music industry was collapsing around itself, a bloated farce of conglomerates buying each other and looking for the next big mass appeal pop act, not the next R.E.M. or U2 - superstars that took years (for R.E.M., the better part of a decade) before reaching commercial success.  Those days were gone.  Those bands were unsigned.  And the independent labels were the only ones left putting out this music.  The mainstream music industry has never recovered.

But fortunately, the growth of the Internet coincided with this and a little thing called Napster came around to allow a forum for people to hear the type of music they wanted, even if it wasn't on MTV or the radio.  That's where I went in mid-2001, after discovering NMH, and after discovering Pitchfork.  It wasn't Napster, actually (I think they were shut down by then), but rather Audiogalaxy, a very user-friendly file-sharing service in which I looked up all the indie rock bands I read about on Pitchfork and downloaded some songs.  Some I liked, some I didn't, and some I absolutely loved.  Modest Mouse. Death Cab for Cutie. Built to Spill. Guided by Voices. Yo La Tengo. Mogwai. Pedro the Lion.  The Decemberists.  Some of these bands had been around for close to a decade.  But I'd never even heard of them (with the exception of BTS and GBV).  I finally broke out my Grandaddy album and listened to it.  And loved it.  Modest Mouse became one of my three favorite bands of all-time (replacing Superchunk, ironically).  And it was Neutral Milk Hotel that started it all.  I bought their debut album, 1996's On Avery Island, and their 2000 live recording.  I scoured the Internet and various file-sharing sites for rare versions and alternate versions and live takes of the thirty or so songs that they ever recorded in their brief career.  But "Two-Headed Boy" shined above it all.  I still don't know what the hell it's about.  I am aware that on first listen, Jeff Mangum sounds like a strangled cat.  I don't care.  It's a fucking brilliant masterpiece.

#2 Favorite Song of All-Time

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 clouds

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 clouds

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

Here are some critical reactions:

Shortly after the release of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, Puncture magazine had a cover story on Neutral Milk Hotel. In it Mangum told of the influence on the record of Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl. He explained that shortly after releasing On Avery Island he read the book for the first time, and found himself completely overwhelmed with sadness and grief. Back in 1998 this admission made my jaw drop. What the hell? A guy in a rock band saying he was emotionally devastated by a book everyone else in America read for a middle-school assignment? I felt embarrassed for him at first, but then, the more I thought about it and the more I heard the record, I was awed. Mangum's honesty on this point, translated directly to his music, turned out to be a source of great power.  - Pitchfork review

The emotional centerpiece of Neutral Milk Hotel's sublime In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, "Two-Headed Boy" is a disturbing puzzle that never quite coalesces into more than a collection of disquieting images equating sex, death, sideshow freaks, and the emotional release of dancing to the radio, "catching signals that sound in the dark." Unlike the rest of the album, which sets Jeff Mangum's vocals and acoustic guitar to neo-psychedelic blends of odd instrumentation, "Two-Headed Boy" is a live-sounding solo recording that sounds as if it was recorded to a cheap cassette deck -- the volume audibly pegs into distortion in a couple of spots as Mangum hits emotional climaxes -- and is all the more immediately powerful for it. - All Music Guide

Publication	Country	Accolade	Year	Rank
Village Voice	United States	Pazz & Jop: Albums of the Year[16]	1998	#15
Nude as the News	U.S.	The 100 Most Compelling Albums of the 90s[17]	1999	#3
Magnet	U.S.	Top 60 Albums, 1993-2003[18]	2003	#1
Pitchfork Media	U.S.	Top 100 Albums of the 1990s[19]	2003	#4

And the greatest review for the album I've ever seen (possibly the most positive album review ever) off the website Nude as the News

Neutral Milk Hotel's second album is a tour-de-force of emotive music. Jeff Mangum boils down the essence of rock and roll into eleven stunning tracks, each crucial pieces to this concise, 40-minute musical manifesto.

The experience of listening to Aeroplane cannot be equaled. It's a piece of art that surrounds you, envelops you, explodes into your heart and explores your deepest emotions.

This is the coming out of a completely new breed of singer-songwriter: Mangum's voice comes straight from his soul. He seems less intent on carefully constructing melodic and rhythmic frameworks than being a conduit for the intangible beauty he hears in his mind. Part of what makes the album so breathtaking is that it doesn't subscribe to any particular sound or trend.

The album's flow is sublime, as marching horn sections buffer acoustic stream-of-consciousness epics and life-affirming rockers. Multi-instrumentalist Scott Spillane provides great relief from the Aeroplane's intensity with two self-penned brass interludes. Drummer Jeremy Barnes and multi-instrumentalist (including the 'singing saw') Julian Koster also turn in stellar performances. Mangum exhibits strong focus as he conducts this ragged but tight band through a river of repeating motifs and intense imagery, guided by the strong melodic current that flows throughout.

Mangum's voice strains to the limits of expression, and his vocal segues are exquisite. After astounding the listener with exhaustive melodies, he wrings the last drop of vocal energy out of his larynx, only to be rescued and transported to the next movement by another melodic element, be it a rousing chorus, demonstrating flugelhorns or his own overlapping vocals.

The title track is a happy sea chantey, part Beatles lullaby and part Hemingway sunset, that hooks anyone who has made it through all three parts of the opening "King Of Carrot Flowers" suite. You start to realize that all the songs are in the same key, and repeating motifs give structure and cohesiveness to the record in the form of song titles, melodic phrases and lyric subject matter.

Aeroplane features a welcome dearth of rhyming couplets. Especially on "Two-Headed Boy" and "Oh Comely," Mangum discards rhyme schemes altogether for an equally catchy combination of phrasing and word placement. His disjointed but melodic vocal progressions stick in your head chiefly because of their smart meter and alien-perfect sense.

Cryptic at first, the lyrics grab listeners strongly after the fourth or fifth spin and seem to gain more depth of meaning every time. Mangum's compelling voice makes his seeming nonsense jump out from its context until the contour completes itself. He breaks out uncommonly unforgettable phrases like "Your father made fetuses with flesh-licking ladies" and "All of them milking with green fleshy flowers while powerful pistons were sugary sweet machines," more reminiscent of Dylan Thomas than contemporary pop lyrics. But whatever he's saying, it comes across as deeply heartfelt. This is far from rock commercialism -- it is uncompromising art.

In The Aeroplane Over The Sea draws partly from the well of human emotions experienced during WWII. The evocative art on the insert features bomber planes made out of phonographs, a strange symbol linking music with war. Anne Frank's spectre is conjured by Mangum's voice as it echoes the nervousness, sadness, and hopelessness of a life struggle against a powerful force. He puts such honesty into every note that he sounds like Anne's guardian angel, watching the Holocaust from the sky and reappearing 50 years later to finally reveal the lessons learned from times of human despair.

"Oh Comely," the second of the acoustic epics, travels a haunting, perilous course through a number of movements. The last verse describes the grim realities of the holocaust: "I know they buried her body with others / her sister and mother and five hundred families" and wonders about its effect on the state of human existence: "Will she remember me 50 years later? / I wish I could save her in some sort of time machine." At the song's close, you can hear the immediate reaction of someone in the studio in awe of Mangum's performance: a voice exclaims "Holy Shit!".

The last track, "Two Headed Boy Pt. II," is the perfect closer. With his best vocal melody yet, Mangum evokes the exausted but content sound of one who has been through a great journey. He has traveled to the edges of energy and thought and returned home wiser, but burdened with the truth. "Daddy please hear this song that I sing," his voice urges, and later concludes that "God is a place you will wait for the rest of your life."

It's as if the artist's soul is burdened by these songs and in singing them, he has unleashed some arcane understanding to all mankind. Through the album's emotional journey, we realize that life is full of suffering and sorrow. To make the best of our time on Earth, we must relish the precious moments of beauty in between. As Mangum sings in the title track:

"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."

Comments

[wayne]

A truly amazing song from the greatest record of all time.

[LegFuJohnson]

It's comforting to know that your entire musical identity can be traced back to the writings of a young Jew.

[Bill]

I'm a big Anne Frank fan. Not that I've ever read her book. Seems a little depressing.

[Jen]

Two-headed Boy .. amazing. I love this song .. and this entire album.

.. Why didn't the song In The Aeroplane Over The Sea make the cut?

[Tom]

I am beginning to think there is a yet-to-be-identified gene that makes this album so profoundly moving to some, and not to others. As the only one in my household with this gene, I am relieved to read reviews and comments on-line which express similar amazement and appreciation for what may be the most emotionally moving music I have ever heard.

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Happened tonight with a track from In the Aeroplane over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel. While King of Carrot Flowers and In the Aeroplane Over the Sea are favorites, I came to the record long after its reputation and haven’t gotten over the mild reluctance to embrace it fully.

Two Headed Boy wasn’t even a playlist level track. I’ve been listening to it for 5 hours almost straight now. I sang it to my kids for bedtime. It crushed me. No clue why or why now. I wasn’t in the grandest of moods, but not particularly sad either.

I was sure I knew its meaning after a few listens. The picture in my head was a woman crumbling in a gas chamber.

Nazis and gas chambers and all that Anne Frank madness. But not so sure now. “Made for his lover who’s floating and choking with her hands across her face.” Course Anne died of Typhus, not gassing.

Now I’m not so sure. I’m thinking it’s about a friend’s suicide.

Two-headed boy
All floating in glass
The sun, it is 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

This is an image of that two-headed boy in the Philly museum. (Google) Represents his friend, perhaps their closeness.

Imagine Jeff is sitting in bed and senses something happened via this image.

Two-headed boy
Put on Sunday shoes
And dance around 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

Now we’re in the hospital with his suicide friend. They’re trying to revive him. The accordions are respirators. He’s dancing as they apply paddles. The heart monitor sings in response.

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 aside
Now your eyes ain’t moving now
They just lay there in their climb

He’s passed. They’re lifting him off the table. His eyes have rolled back.

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

A nurse with a mask (moon across her face) is wheeling him to his girlfriend, who is identifying his body. Pulleys and weights squeak, providing a soundtrack for the two living people in the room. Some wound or teeth fillings or something are visible, (silver speakers that sparkle all day). His lover breaks down.

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 aside
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

I’m not sure. It’s beautiful, though. Vague feeling that this is the boy in the jar being “freed”…also his friend’s spirit.

[Bill]

It's tough to say what it's "about", it's probably all those things and much more and I guess I don't think that particular song is much about the Anne Frank connection of some other songs on the album, but it does fit. And it affects me deeply each time I hear it. Glad to see you "saw the light" in it as well.

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