"It's the beginning of a story where a boy is in a not-so-nice situation. One day, little birds start to form around him in his room. They start coming into his body and he was...
Little birds born without a mother or a father
I can feel their feathers forming in the running water
Now there is another in the middle of my mouth
A hundred altogether inside of me now
Little birds, little birds, come into my body
Mother, they're within me every moment I'm awaking
Bodies multiplying until they finally overtake me
Put your ears up to my mouth and you can hear them singing
Put you hands within me and you'll know what I'm feeling
I just want to swallow up and promise to protect them
Daddy, come towards me, I can see his hands are shaking
Put his hands against me, he could see their bodies breaking
Push me to the floor put his hands up for a beating
"I don't want to hear it anymore," he kept repeating
Do you really want the burning hell to come and get you?
Did you see 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, nearly beat his little brains in
Knowing God in heaven no could never could forgive him
So I took a hammer nearly beat his brains in
Little boy born without a mother or a father
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 this is how I would like to leave my body
And start again
I can feel their feathers forming in the running water
Now there is another in the middle of my mouth
A hundred altogether inside of me now
Little birds, little birds, come into my body
Mother, they're within me every moment I'm awaking
Bodies multiplying until they finally overtake me
Put your ears up to my mouth and you can hear them singing
Put you hands within me and you'll know what I'm feeling
I just want to swallow up and promise to protect them
Daddy, come towards me, I can see his hands are shaking
Put his hands against me, he could see their bodies breaking
Push me to the floor put his hands up for a beating
"I don't want to hear it anymore," he kept repeating
Do you really want the burning hell to come and get you?
Did you see 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, nearly beat his little brains in
Knowing God in heaven no could never could forgive him
So I took a hammer nearly beat his brains in
Little boy born without a mother or a father
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 this is how I would like to leave my body
And start again
Lyrics submitted by subverted0, edited by danzase6
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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". Mangum even says before he debued the song "It's the beginning of a story where a boy is in a not-so-nice situation. One day, little birds start to form around him in his room. They start coming into his body and he was very happy about this. But unfortunately he tries to share it with other people and they get very upset because this is something that he finds to be very beautiful but they don't find very beautiful and they want to destroy it." This shows the discovery of sexuality/love of the little boy but no one respects it. Also the dad says that h will go to hell for it (i.e. the christian anti-gay stance). Mangum is talking about someone, maybe himself, discovering their homosexuality.
It wasn't immediately obvious to me before but I realize that the lines up to the beating part and the last two are sung by the boy and the part between by his father.
Little birds born without a mother or a father
I can feel their feathers forming in the running water
Now there is another in the middle of my mouth
A hundred altogether inside of me now
Little birds, little birds, come into my body
Mother, they're within me every moment I'm awaking
Bodies multiplying 'til they finally overtake me
Put your ears up to my mouth and you can hear them singing
Put you hands within me and you'll know what I am feeling
I just want to swallow up and promise to protect them
Daddy, come towards me I could see his hands are shaking
Put his hands against me he could feel their bodies breaking
Pushed me to the floor and put his hands up for a beating
I don't want to hear it anymore, he kept repeating
Do you really want the burning hell to come and get you?
Did you see 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 nearly beat his little brains in
Knowing God in heaven no could never could forgive him
So I took a hammer nearly beat his little brains in
Little boy born without a mother or a father
Taken to the river and then pushed into the water
And the priests are singing that the hell was getting hotter
LA-LA-LA-LA-LA
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the only ones to save him
From the thing he loves the most but we know will betray him
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the only ones to save him
And here beneath the water I can see how the light distorts so strange
And this is how I would like to leave my body and start again
Apparently the Yiddish slang word for 'homosexual' is 'faygele', which literally means 'little bird'.
momentmag.com/Exclusive/2006/12/…
In my opinion it's fairly obvious this is about homosexuality (took another boy for his lover)
That is the "sin" that Jesus wouldn't forgive, the one the brother was killed for.
The child looks up from under the water while being baptized, and the distortion of the light in the water is analogized to the way religion distorts what is beautiful (e.g. the birds, and the love the child's brother had for another boy) and calls it evil.
I think the last lines are referring to the child deciding he would like to commit suicide by drowning himself to escape his situation and "start again."
oiiiiiiii
To begin, I believe the birds coming up from the water to be the Holy Spirit. My reasoning is that in Chrisitanity the Holy Spirit is personified by the dove, a bird. The Spirit is the intangible form of God, and unlike the divine and human form of Jesus, It has no father or mother since It already was.
The turning on of the faucet, the letting in of water, i think represents the boy's personal decision to let the Spirit in (which is an unwordly elating experience). In the Catholic faith there is such a thing as Baptism of Desire, and i think the water in this scene also represents baptism.
Maybe this might help for future interpretation, i don't know. This was just my observation.
Brother see we are one in the same
And 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
Don't you take this away
I'm still wanting my face on your cheek
These lines are about a brother to a friend of Jeff who killed himself by putting a gun in his mouth. His story is linked to the 2nd verse in Holland 1945.
And now we ride the circus wheel
With your dark brother wrapped in white
Says it was good to be alive
But now he rides a comet's flame
And won't be coming back again
The Earth looks better from a star
That's right above from where you are
He didn't mean to make you cry
With sparks that ring and bullets fly
On empty rings around your heart
The world just screams and falls apart