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Originally Posted by Timorous Vince
I dislike them. They seem to rip-off Neutral Milk Hotel, minus the amazing lyrics.. I would probably like them if there was a more-competent lyricist. But anybody can mimic an eastern-European style and spoon-feed it to scenesters. Haha.
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What an astonishing comment
. I realise that this was posted a fair while back and the individual making the comment has no doubt disappeared but Beirut sound nothing like Neutral Milk Hotel. What would make anyone think that? I am seriously intrigued.
As to the lyrics, I see that someone replied and said that this was based on various critics making comments about the lyrics being childish. Really? I think that the critics I have read are talking nonsense. I have found the lyrics to be more than competent and suitable to the general tone of the recordings. allmusic also make this comment
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The lyrics, it must be said, are the album's most obvious flaw, clearly the work of a young, romantically inclined teen who has never been to Europe but has seen a lot of foreign art films about, like, Gypsies 'n' stuff.
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I have a lot of respect for allmusic who generally get it right but they on this occasion are wrong. From what I have read Condon made trips to Europe as a 16 year old. And they are romantic! So what! Does every lyric have to dark and foreboding just to be excepted as "art"?
In fact to take the lyrics and their complexity a bit further I found a site that that discussed the lyric from A Sunday Smile from The Flying Cup Club. I quote again
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In a book called History of the War in the Peninsula and in the South of France by William Francis Patrick Napier, I read about an assault on a place simply called the White Church. I believe this song assessed this event, or a soldiers thoughts during his attack on the White Church.
“What’s to say for the days I cannot bare.”
I believe here he is preparing to introduce what in his head he imagines when he is having a hard time in the war.
“A Sunday smile, you wore it for a while. / A cemetery mile, we paused and sang.”
He thinks of her smile on a specific day, this day being spent in (or by) a cemetery. Even surrounded by death, the two of them were frightfully happy. I believe he thinks of this because now as he is surrounded by death, he is unhappy.
“We burnt to the ground, left for you to admire / with buildings inside church of white.”
I think here he is proclaiming that his acts in the war will be something they can look back on. From the aforementioned book: “Heated shot were however thrown at the White Church with a view to burn the magazines; …”
“We burnt to the ground, left a grave to admire. / And as we reach for the sky, reach the church of white.”
He is trying to find good in his acts, thinking that maybe lovers will somebody walk by the cemetery he created and be able to dance. Also, he describes reaching for the white church. They never actually succeeded in destroying it. I think this represents the hope. He reaches for the sky, the same way he fully believes in his relationship with his girl back home. It’s what keeps him going. And yet they didn’t burn the White Church down. So what does this say about everything?
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If the individual who wrote that considers the content of that lyric alone worthy of appraisal then what the hell are Pitchfork and allmusic carrying on about? I would suggest that they a being pretentious and trying to look important to a younger readership.
The final comment by the OP "But anybody can mimic an eastern-European style and spoon-feed it to scenesters" is one of the more absurd things that I have read in a while. Good grief! The whole of the music world consists of artists wearing their influences on their sleeves.