Little Birds - Jeff Mangum

NMH performance @ Chris Bilheimer's Birthday Party 5/12/98

Little birds born without a mother or a father
I can watch their bodies forming in the running water
Now there is another in the middle of my mouth
A hundred altogether within me now
Little bird, little bird come into my body

Mother, they're within me every moment I'm awaking
Bodies multiplying until they finally overtake me
Open up my mouth but all you'll ever hear is singing
Put you hand within me and you'll know what I'm feeling
I just want to swallow up and promise to protect them

Daddy come to touch me but he seen his hands are shaking
Look into my eyes and he could see their bodies breaking
Push me to the floor and in his hands I started beating
"I don't want to hear it anymore", he kept repeating
Do you really want the burning hell that we believe in?

Did you know the burning hell it took your baby brother?
Did you see how far he fell and how he made us suffer?
Another boy in town at night he took him for his lover
And deep in sin they held each other
So I took a hammer and nearly beat his little brains in
Knowing God in heaven could have, never could forgive him
So I took a hammer and I nearly beat his brains in

Little boy born without a father of a mother
Taken to the river and then pushed into the water
And the priests are singing that the hell is getting hotter
Father, Son and Holy Ghost, the only one to save him
From the thing he loves the most but we know will betray him
Father, Son and Holy Ghost, the only one to save him
From the thing he loves the most but we know will betray him

And here beneath the water I can see
How the lights distort so strange
And I think this is how I would like to leave my body
And start again

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  People & Blogs

[melkicia]

saw this on saturday in brooklyn - the studio version was similar to the live version

[lloplop]

studio version? this is the only version that exists. i saw it too in new haven last week. i had tickets to the same show on sat but got snowed in :/

[melkicia]

look up little birds studio - he also put it, with this version, on a record in the nmh box set.

[lloplop]

oh shit. I had no idea that happened! I stand corrected. Thanks!

[shipoffoolsful]

where is this place?

[lloplop]

It was at a private party for his friend Chris Bilheimer. I think he was a graphic artist that designed the cover for ITAOTS.

[heylookitsme07]

One of the most beautiful ad haunting songs I've heard in my life.

[lloplop]

sounds perfect to me.

[MorganAndRachelTv]

Jeff Mangum could sing at my birthday.

[Mehtication]

jesus fuck he has that legendary haircut here

[Bumbleberger]

Jeff Magnum is a national treasure.

"And here beneath the water I can see

How the lights distort so strange

And I think this is how I would like to leave my body

And start again"

Powerful, powerful stuff.

[modernsketches]

And there you go....he was packing up that music for fourteen years.

[modernsketches]

yeah, I love that bootleg dude. more than almost anything.

[MrClaremonster]

I think according to the Kim Cooper book on ITAOTS, this was the first anyone had ever heard this song. And you have to think about it, as she puts. All the other members of the band being in the room while he's singing this, how would Julian Koster and his childlike wonderment and arcane instruments fit into this piece? How would Scott Spillane's bombastic and boisterous horns fit into this Neutral Milk Hotel?

They wouldn't. Neutral Milk Hotel as it was known during ITAOTS, had ended.

[phatnatyouknow]

I wish Jeff Mangum would sing at my birthday party ^^

[CeleryMan3]

Better than the studio version.

[james olsen]

Genius.

[Sarah Tabler]

There...are..no words.