365 project: "the only girl i've ever loved was born with roses in her eyes"

143.

artist:Neutral Milk Hotel
album:In the aeroplane over the sea

name some of the albums that you heard once and you knew that in that moment, your life was being altered somehow. think hard about this, because I'm sure that if you are a music lover, you have at least one.

for me, that album is one that is full of tales of Anne Frank, a ghost, and a boy who has no bones and lives in a jar. this sounds absurd, and ill admit that i thought so too, at first, but after i got past the "I'm indie so i have to touch myself over this album" stance and really listened to it to base my own decisions on something, i realized that i absolutely love it.

after i had a chance to get to know this album initially, i found myself shoving it in the faces of everyone i thought had half a brain when it came to music. most looked at me like i was playing a joke on them. a few said things like "i can appreciate where the band is coming from...the craft of the album...but that it just wasn't for them."

but for me, this album is summer. this is the CD that we listened to on repeat 17 times on our way to Bonnaroo that summer. its the one that we always fell back on while we were out searching for that elusive spinner watch. hell, its the reason we even set out to find that watch to begin with. this album, sad as it is, is full of happy memories for me. memories of Saturday mornings in the car with my best friend and the adventures we got ourselves into. and of that concert where i thought i died and went to Heaven.

it was the concert where i finally paid attention to Kevin Devine. we talked to that man for nearly an hour, bought put your ghost to rest on vinyl, which he autographed for us, and he made fun of my name, lovingly, of course. it was the night that i got to hug Jesse Lacey, and the night that he told me that my name was beautiful. it was the night that i screamed "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" for the four-hour car ride home from Poughkeepsie. that night, Jesse and Kevin got on that little tiny stage, the stage that i was pressed up against, and together went through the first six tracks of in the aeroplane over the sea. Kevin told Mandy after the fact that when he forgot the words he looked down at her because she was singing them all and that's how he stayed on point. this is going to sound super corny, but from that moment in time, even as it was happening, i felt like there was a bond formed that night between Jesse, Kevin and the crowd in that tiny, hot, noisy room that no one that was there would ever understand.

Shit, man. that was a fantastic night.