Neutral Milk Hotel "Two-Headed Boy" question

I haven't listened to that album in maybe 4-5 months... although I probably will this week now that you brought it up!

I have no personal insights, but here is a link to a site where some other people are discussing it. I haven't read it all, and I'm sure most people are full of shit... but maybe you'll find a couple interesting insights.

http://www.songmeanings.net/lyric.php?lid=36474

i've always thought the whole album is about a family history involving, amongst other things, a twin that absorbs the other.

here's what I found randomly:
The real meaning. | Reviewer: Klaus | 12/9/2007
This is about a twin who gets experimented on, and his other twin witnesses it and feels it. At the end when all the sick doctors are done and the twin is dead, the boy takes his dead twin outside to bury him in the snow. The angels come and greet him and take him in to heaven.

I dunno. Part Two gives me the impression it's somewhat related to his father.

Then again, Aeroplane is an album devoted largely to Mangum's obsession with Anne Frank, so...shit. Where's Werewolf Girl? She's good with NMH.

For anyone who wants to take a crack at figuring the lyrics out:
(For what it's worth, this album is AMAZING. Highly recommended.)

Two-Headed Boy

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

Two headed boy
With pulleys and weights
Creating a radio played just for two
In the parlor witha 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

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've always gotten the impression that Mangum writes lyrics the way that Kurt Cobain did, not worrying about what words mean so much as what they make you feel. I think it's easier to find themes in his imagery than any kind of specific meaning in one of his songs, it's all so surrealistic anyway.

This one makes me think of a lonely little boy who feels like a freak, trapped in a strange world yet finding moments of beauty, dreaming of love. But trying to explain his work is like trying to convince people there's only one real message in a Salvador Dali painting, it just means whatever it means to you.

Yeah, I've always taken this song (and all of them) very abstractly, in this case the two-headed boy being someone who feels like an outsider or freak. The meaning lurgee quoted above isn't bad for a literal interpretation, though.

Still, I'd say the meaning is in how he sings more than anything else. You either feel "I am listening to hear where you are" in your bones, or you don't.

I thought it was a song about making love to your best girl.

ETA: In all seriousness, this album is 46 or 47 kinds of awesome.