Holland, 1945
| "Holland, 1945" | |||||||||
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| Single by Neutral Milk Hotel | |||||||||
| from the album In the Aeroplane over the Sea | |||||||||
| Released | October 13, 1998 | ||||||||
| Recorded | July–September 1997, at Pet Sounds Studio, Denver, Colorado | ||||||||
| Genre | |||||||||
| Label | Blue Rose, Orange Twin | ||||||||
| Writer(s) | Jeff Mangum | ||||||||
| Producer(s) | Robert Schneider | ||||||||
| Neutral Milk Hotel singles chronology | |||||||||
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"Holland, 1945" is the second single and sixth track from the 1998 Neutral Milk Hotel album In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. The single was released in October 1998.
"Holland, 1945" is one of the album's louder, more upbeat songs, featuring overdriven and distorted guitars. The song also showcases fuzz noise on all of the instruments, a quality created by producer Robert Schneider.
The song was one of the last to be written for In the Aeroplane Over the Sea and remained untitled until art director Chris Bilheimer asked Jeff Mangum what to title the song in the liner notes for the album. Mangum told him to use either "Holland" or "1945" and Bilheimer suggested simply combining the two.[1]
In September 2010, Pitchfork Media included the song at number 7 on their Top 200 Tracks of the 1990s.[2]
Contents
Single release
The single version of "Holland, 1945" was released in October 1998. It was the second single released by the band, and has since become the band's last official release before entering an indefinite hiatus. Orange Twin Records released some un-numbered versions through its website. A rare promo CD was released on October 19, 1998.[3]
The single contains the b-side track "Engine", which was recorded live in a London Underground station underneath Piccadilly Circus.[4]
In 2011, the single was re-issued as a 7" picture disc with a fold-out poster and a different version of "Engine".
Interpretations
The song contains references to Anne Frank. In 1945, World War II ended and Frank and her sister Margot died of typhus. The lyric "all when I'd want to keep white roses in their eyes" could be seen as a reference to the White Rose resistance group that existed in Nazi Germany in the early 1940s, though songwriter Jeff Mangum claims that he had never heard of the movement before In the Aeroplane Over the Sea was released.[1]
Also referenced in the song is a "dark brother wrapped in white". In the liner notes for the song, Mangum initialed the letters "(h.p.)" after the words "your dark brother". A critic of The Boston Phoenix wrote in 1998 that this "dark brother" was someone who committed suicide, a family member of one of Mangum's close friends.[1][5]
Personnel
- Jeff Mangum - vocals, guitar, bowed fuzz bass
- Jeremy Barnes - drums, organ
- Scott Spillane - trumpet, euphonium
- Julian Koster - singing saw
- Rick Benjamin - trombone
- Marisa Bissinger - saxophone
- Michelle Anderson - Uilleann pipes
Track listing
- "Holland, 1945" – 3:14
- "Engine" – 3:13
References
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