Neutral Milk Hotel Preps Comprehensive ‘The Collected Works Of Neutral Milk Hotel’ Box Set

Listen to the first official release of “Little Birds.”

By Andy Kahn Jan 10, 2023 • 7:15 am PST

Neutral Milk Hotel Press

Neutral Milk Hotel’s comprehensive box set, The Collected Works Of Neutral Milk Hotel, will be released digitally for the first time by Merge Records on February 24. The band shared the first official release of the song “Little Birds.”

Neutral Milk Hotel’s mastermind Jeff Mangum previously self-released a limited edition box set collecting the band’s recorded output that came out in 2011 through the label he ran with his mother, Neutral Milk Hotel Records. The Merge edition of the box set contains an expanded double LP edition of their 1996 debut album, On Avery Island, its acclaimed 1998 follow-up In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, a 12-inch picture disc of Live at Jittery Joe’s, a previously unreleased live recording of “Little Birds,” and the “Holland, 1945” / “Engine” 7-inch single.

The pending box set also comes with a remastered version of the 1994 7-inch Everything Is, expanded to its originally intended 10-inch EP format with additional songs from the era, such as “Unborn.” Also included is the 10-inch EP Ferris Wheel on Fire, Mangum primarily recorded in 2010 with longtime collaborator Robert Schneider of fellow Elephant 6 outfit The Apples in Stereo.

According to press materials:

“Little Birds” and its 7” present a prayer-like song Mangum wrote quickly in 1998 and played later that day at a friend’s party, shortly before he stopped doing Neutral Milk Hotel. He wouldn’t play the song again for 10 years, but that live recording floated around online. Mangum wrote the song after a confrontation with a street preacher in downtown Athens who was spewing hatred towards LGBTQ people. A small group of five or six people gathered and shouted back. Mangum yelled to the point that the preacher got off his stool and slinked away. That distressing experience reverberated as Mangum wrote “Little Birds,” a song about many things, including how conservative Christianity too often imbues so-called believers with an utterly warped sense of morality. A newer version, recorded live at the Prospect Park Bandshell on Neutral Milk Hotel’s 2014 reunion tour, is included on the 2023 Merge box set.

Press materials further detailed the Live At Jittery Joe’s recording included in the box set:

A final component of the box portrays that process viscerally: Live at Jittery Joe’s, the live album recorded in 1997 that Mangum first released in 2001. It captures Neutral Milk Hotel at its most profoundly pivotal moment. After the release of On Avery Island in 1996 and a subsequent tour, Mangum and his bandmates — Julian Koster, Jeremy Barnes, and Scott Spillane — found themselves in New York’s West Village where, in October of that year, Mangum wrote “Two-Headed Boy.” The band was about to get kicked out of their apartment, and soon headed south to regroup with friends in Athens. By that point, the scene was in bloom. Olivia Tremor Control had released its debut LP; Elf Power was playing. Athens was an easy and fruitful place to live and create. Neutral Milk Hotel happily joined in, moving into a beautiful house on Grady Street where Mangum continued to write In the Aeroplane Over the Sea from January to May of 1997.

Pre-order The Collected Works Of Neutral Milk Hotel via Merge and stream “Little Birds” from the box set below:

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The Collected Works of Neutral Milk Hotel Tracklist

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea

  1. King of the Carrot Flowers Pt. 1
  2. King of Carrot Flowers Pts. 2 & 3
  3. In The Aeroplane Over the Sea
  4. Two-Headed Boy
  5. Fool
  6. Holland, 1945
  7. Communist Daughter
  8. Oh Comely
  9. Ghost
  10. [untitled]
  11. Two-Headed Boy Pt. 2

On Avery Island

  1. Song Against Sex
  2. You’ve Passed
  3. Someone Is Waiting
  4. A Baby for Pree
  5. Marching Theme
  6. Where You’ll Find Me Now
  7. Avery Island/April 1st
  8. Gardenhead/Leave Me Alone
  9. Three Peaches
  10. Naomi
  11. April 8th
  12. Pree-Sisters Swallowing a Donkey’s Eye

Ferris Wheel On Fire

  1. Oh Sister (1995)
  2. Ferris Wheel On Fire (1993)
  3. Home (1992)
  4. April 8th (1992)
  5. I Will Bury You in Time (1994)
  6. Engine (1993)
  7. Baby for Pree/Glow Into You (1995)
  8. My Dream Girl Don’t Exist (Live) [1992]

Everything Is

  1. Everything Is
  2. Here We Are (For W. Cullen Hart)
  3. Unborn
  4. Tuesday Moon
  5. Ruby Bulb
  6. Snow Song
  7. Aunt Eggma Blow Torch

Little Birds

  1. Little Birds (Live) [1998]
  2. Little Birds (Studio Demo) [1998]

You’ve Passed / Where You’ll Find Me Now

  1. You’ve Passed (Alternate Version)
  2. Where You’ll Find Me Now (Alternate Version)

Live at Jittery Joe’s

  1. Intro
  2. A Baby for Pree
  3. Two-Headed Boy
  4. I Will Bury You in Time
  5. Gardenhead / Leave Me Alone
  6. Two-Headed Boy Pt. 2
  7. I Love How You Love Me
  8. Engine
  9. Naomi
  10. King of Carrot Flowers Pt. 2
  11. King of Carrot Flowers Pt. 3
  12. Oh Comely
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