warning bigpost
like alot of people said, stuff like this changes all the time, but there are two/three songs that ill almost always think of when it comes to it. two songs that are kind of similar in that they're from who i consider the two greatest lyricists i've ever heard, second and first respectively.
the first is joanna newsom's "emily", a song i've listened more times than i can count, and yet which still moves me to silence every time. like the song im about to mention, this one reached a whole new, incomprehensible level of emotional impact after a certain event, that being spending 22 euros on a solid copy of ys in some austrian record store (i was on holiday). i got back to the hotel, and sitting there with my huge headphones with the lyric booklet just completely opened my eyes to the context of the song and some of the subtleties of it, which i guess are easy to miss with joannas voice and the way she sings.
so the song, as it turns out, is an ode to her little sister emily, an astrophysicist. when she sings about meteors, meteorites, and meteoroids, shes singing from the edge of a river where her sister is trying to explain things to her, and from that comes one of my absolute favourite lyrics ever, where she sings:
"anyhow, i sat by your side, by the water/
you taught me the names of the stars overhead, that i wrote down in my ledger/
though all i knew of the rote universe were those pleiades, loosed in december,
i promised you i'd set them to verse, so i'd always remember."
it's like the most beautiful metaphor ever for this division between art and science, but instead of a conflict, it's like some beautiful coming together.
footnote: emily newsom actually features on "emily", if you listen carefully for it. towards the end of the track, her voice doubles joannas, singing some of the harmonies :)
even when shes not referencing her sister, though, "emily" features some of the most poignant, moving lyrics shes ever written. the way she paints landscapes with just a couple of sentences is really unparalleled:
"there is a rusty light on the pines tonight/
sun pouring wine, lord, or marrow/
down into the bones of the birches and the spires of the churches, jutting out from the shadows"
"come on home. the poppies are all grown knee deep by now/
blossoms all have fallen, and the pollen ruins the plow/
peonies nod in the breeze, and while they wetly bow/
with hydrocephalitic listlessness, ants mop up their brow"
"and everything with wings is restless, aimless, drunk and dour/
butterflies and birds collide at hot, ungodly hours"
i cant name another lyricist who paints images better than joanna newsom, or writes anything that manages to be so beautiful and affecting while still using words like "hydrocephalitic". im sure alot of people argue she treads a line on pretension, but when you really delve into the lyrics, "emily" is nothing more than an ode to a sister, wrapped in poppies, pharoahs, and meteors, and nobody else could have done it.
---
...and then we have neutral milk hotel's "two headed boy", and "two headed boy, pt 2". (i can't possibly choose between these two songs. i thought about it for a while, but i cant do it, so im including both.)
lyrically, aeroplane is an album unlike any other, telling fragmented stories that range from life-affirmingly uplifting (the title track) to completely and utterly tragic (these two right here). some are grounded in reality (the story of anne frank), some completely fantastical (a gypsy king ruling in the trees), but every single line of every single song channels some person, some emotion so powerfully that listening to aeroplane front to back, and i mean really listening to it, is one of the most powerful experiences i've ever had in music.
two headed boy, maybe the most tragic song i've ever heard, sees the boy looking back at his own life in a much more self contained story than the rest of aeroplane, where people and places bleed into each other freely. sitting in his jar, he remembers himself as a child, in another of my absolute favourite lyrics ever:
"two headed boy/
put on your 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"
and then, in the present day, he tries hopelessly to woo a lover, using a system of "pulleys and weights" to create a radio play for her. again, jeff mangum captures the spirit of this love better than any number of ballads ever will:
"in the parlour with a moon across her face/
and through the music he sweetly displays/
sung by speakers that sparkle all day/
made for his lover, who's floating and choking with her hands across her face"
that last, tragic line is utterly heartbreaking. the two headed boy, floating in formaldehyde, woos his lover, but when she goes to kiss him, she chokes and dies.
and then, finally, the narrator tells the two headed boy not to grieve, and leads him to a quiet death, under a christmas tree in the snow:
"two headed boy/
theres no reason to grieve/
the world that you need is wrapped in gold silver sleeves/
left beneath christmas trees in the snow/
where 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"
---
two headed boy, pt 2 is a much less personal story than part 1, focusing on the two headed boy looking back at his family, his lovers, and ultimately resigning himself to a life of loneliness as his children die, his brother commits suicide, and his lover leaves him. though much of the song focuses on reliving that life and the guitar chords are slightly brighter and more major, the ultimate outcome of the song is perhaps even more tragic than in part 1.
the song starts presumably from the point of view of a son, who sings lovingly to his "daddy", wishing his father another child. it's only as he continues singing that we realize there's more to it:
"daddy please, hear this song that i sing/
in your heart theres a spark that just screams/
for a lover to bring/
a child to your chest that could lay as you sleep/
and love all you have left/
like your boy used to do/
long ago, wrapped in sheets warm and wet"
is this the ghost of his dead son?
the next lines are interesting. in the earlier versions of this song, jeff sung:
"sister please, with those wings in your spine/
love to be with a brother of mine"
but in the album recordings, sister was replaced by the nonsensical "blister". the difference is pretty significant. we can assume that the sister with wings in her spine must be the angel or ghost of a dead sister, and if she is with his brother, than he must also be dead. but when you replace that with "blister", the insinuation that the brother has gone to heaven is gone.
regardless, the next few lines make the fate of the brother pretty certain, but jeff's description of the brother's suicide is both brutal and beautiful at the same time:
"brother, see, we are one and the same/
though you left with your head filled with flames/
and you watched as your brains/
fell out through your teeth/
push the pieces in place/
make your smile sweet to see"
and then, theres a fantastic couple of lines in which the two headed boy sings to his brother:
"and when we break, while we wait for our miracle/
god is a place where some holy spectacle lies"
he expresses hope for his brother, and maybe hope that they can see each other again. but in the next line, his hope is gone:
"and when we break, while we wait for our miracle/
god is a place you will wait for the rest of your life"
and then, after all this, comes the most tragic, heartbreaking moment yet. these next few lines are some of my favourite lyrics ever. trying to forget about the death of everyone he loved in his life, the two headed boy finds love, but with a mixture of resignation and just the most tragic sense of dissapointment, knowing that even that wont last, jeff sings:
"two headed boy/
she is all you could need/
she will feed you tomatoes and radio wire/
and retire two sheets, safe and clean/
but dont hate her/
when she gets up to leave"
and theres my slightly rambly interpretations of my three favourite songs in the world.
