merlin:

Neutral Milk Hotel - “Holland, 1945” (In the Aeroplane Over the Sea; Merge Records; 1998) [MP3]

Certain songs stab your heart.

And, tonight, my favorite Neutral Milk Hotel song stabs me more than a little.

Especially, given how so many of the things we face—things kids can’t understand, let alone control—can have such a sudden and terrifying influence on all of our lives.

And, how astonishingly scant power each of us grownups has to fix any of those awful things once their heinous damage has been inflicted.

Kills me.

But now we must pack up every piece
Of the life we used to love.
Just to keep ourselves
At least enough to carry on.
 
And here’s where your mother sleeps.
And here is the room where your brothers were born.
Indentions in the sheets,
Where their bodies once moved but don’t move anymore.
 
And, it’s so sad to see the world agree
That they’d rather see their faces filled with flies.
All when I’d want to keep white roses in their eyes.

Perfect.