Song Against Sex Chords Guitar Tab

On Avery Island Tabs:

Song Against Sex »
A Baby For Pree
Gardenhead/Leave Me Alone

Intro
(Talking, followed by barre F chord, Bb)
(counts in)
Ebsus4    Eb     Ebm7
E-
B-9---------8------6-6-8---8__let ring__
G-8---------8------8-8-8---8____________
D-8---------8------8-8-8---8____________
A-
E-
Verse:
Bb
And the first one tore a picture
Of a dead and hanging man
Who was kissing foreign fishes
That flew right out of his hand
F
And when I put my hands aroud him
I felt the blushing blood run through my cheeks
Bb
And an eerines surrounded me
When his tongue began to speak
and he said,
F
Oh boy you are so pretty
Enough to wrap up tight in rice paper strings
Bb
And when I finally kissed him
The whole world began to ring,
F
Lost like a bell that's tipping over
With two cracks along both sides
and I
Bb
knew the world was over
So I took a look outside
F
And watched the fires that were reaching up
to the weathervane and tops of trees
Bb
And the waiting scene and the sunday dream
They're all waiting here for me
(chord chages similar during trumpets\chorus)
Bb
Deli markets and the flower stands
Pretty girls and the burning men
F
Hanging out on the hooks next to window displays
And I took out my tongue twice removed from my face
Bb
Across a bridge and across the mountains
Threw a nickel in a fountain
F
To save my soul from all these troubled times
And all the guts that I don't have the guts to take
to soothe my mind so I'm
Bb
Always sober
Always aching
Always heading toward
Mass suicide, occult figuirnes
F
And wasted gas station attendants
Attending to their jobs
Bb
And a nice drive in the country
Find a nice cliff to drop off, oh
F
And this life just gets so grating
All the grittiness of life, but don't
Bb
Take those pills your boyfriend gave you
You're too wonderful to die
(trumpet part)
Bb
And the last one tore a picture
From the pornographic page
And all the pleasure points attacking
All the looks of love were staged
F
And it's a lie that you've been given
And it hurts you every day
Bb
So why should I lie her naked
When it's just too far away
from anything
F
you could call love,
Any love worth living for
Bb
So I sleep out in the gutter
You can sleep here on the floor
F
And when I wake up in the morning
I'll forget to lock the door
Bb
Cause with a match that's mean and some gasoline
You won't see me any more

Source: http://www.guitarmasta.net/n/neutral_milk_hotel/355461.html

Tab Discussion, Comments, and Critiques


No Picture Niko Average	#1 by Niko Booth at Sep 27, 2007 at 3:09 PM EST
	This song talks about Judas Iscariot kissing Jesus. In the same spirt as Judas, the song then turns to the perspective of the singer who betrays his supposed lover with a fake kiss. The tearing of pictures: the first page describes ancient history, the start of sin. This is echoed back by the tearing of the last page of the book, which turns into pornography and a completion of the story. The hanging man: the man hanging on the cross kisses foreign fishes, or the 'foreign' apostles from every nation, and 'fishes' because he came to fish for men. Judas 'puts his arms around him' to betray him with a kiss. He can 'feel the blood blushing in his cheeks' because he understands the fullness of what he is doing. Jesus understands too, and when he finally kisses him, the whole world begins to ring--all hell breaks loose. This is the start of Jesus' betrayal and subsequent arrest. The whole world begins to go up in flames. The 'waiting scene' is the damnation, and the "Sunday dream' is ironically denied to Judas. Stanza #2 After Judas turns Jesus in, he goes out into the market "deli markets and flower stands' with his shekels of silver, supposedly to buy stuff his his newfound wealth. But he senses instead guilt and hallucinations of his damnation (burning men), so he goes and tries to give the silver, back, but it is given back to him. He throws it away. He 'threw a nickel in teh fountain to save his soul from these troubled times' but he still can't escape from it. So, he opts for 'mass suicide' and becomes an occult figurine and ends his story. Break to the singer's story in modern times. It again talks about taking pills to commit suicide and end guilt. Stanza #3 The last picture from teh pornographic page. The kisses are fake, and the other party knows this. But this kind of 'love' echoes back Judas' ancient history. The singer, an incarnation of Judas, is cognizant of the treachery and seeks to absolve himself, this time again by some sort of death, this time which he produces and saves himself. Thus, what begins with a fire ends with a fire, and the circle of the song is complete.

No Picture Carly Average	#2 by Carly at Sep 28, 2007 at 6:04 AM EST
	My first kiss with my boyfriend occurred while this song was playing. We laughed about it at the time, of course, but looking at the lyrics now I find it really interesting. I didn't know the song well then (still don't, really) and had never listened to/read the lyrics, but it crossed my mind that maybe it was some sort of sign that this kissing him thing was a bad idea. At the time I wasn't sure how I felt about him, and it was ostensibly just sexual, or mainly sexual at any rate, but I'm crazy in love with him now. He was a lot more interested in me than I was in him at the time, and he knew the song much better, so maybe he took it as a good sign and just didn't tell me. It's so true that meaningless sex is so bad, and ultimately really not worth it. I'm not making any sense . . .

No Picture Bye! Average	#3 by Bye! at Sep 29, 2007 at 5:21 AM EST
	hmm, something about sex and death, I can't quite understand if he's serious or not anyway

No Picture patrick Wanna Be	#4 by patrick at Sep 30, 2007 at 10:42 AM EST
	you know, this song really reminds me of the book "Beasts" by Joyce Carol Oates. Chances are that this song has nothing to do with that book but the allusions to drugs, porn, fire, and the bell make it seem so.

No Picture The Guitar Guy Lead Player	#5 by The Guitar Guy at Sep 30, 2007 at 1:12 PM EST
	Kick ass song. It sounds to me like he's being driven to suicide after having a bad sexual encounter.

No Picture devon Average	#6 by devon at Oct 1, 2007 at 8:54 AM EST
	I agree with oaferten about this one. i also read a Jeff Mangum interview where he says that he wrote this song not against sex in general but sex with people you hardly know.

No Picture The Crow Rhythm Player	#7 by The Crow at Oct 2, 2007 at 11:03 PM EST
	I believe it's, "all the looks of love were staged," referring to the bad acting in pornography. I read an interview where Jeff said this song was about people who use sex as a weapon - not necessarily like date rape but you know the type. Have you ever been to a party where everyone is getting fucked up just to get laid? It's like that. It's not a song just against sex but against lies, coercion, and sex for sex sake without regards for the other party's feelings... That's what I think anyway...

No Picture Mike Average	#8 by Mike heidkamp at Oct 3, 2007 at 10:07 PM EST
	Basically about sex without emotional involvement being fake and pointless, and being unhappy being superior to fake, drug-induced happiness, or that having sex because you've taken something that makes you feel closer to or more comfortable with someone than you actually are. The "dead and hanging man" is Jesus and I think the kiss followed by the world ending means his stance on pre-marital sex is close to that of Christians--against sex without marriage/commitment. I was kind of disappointed by the lines about drugs but I suppose he's saying doing drugs to make it easier for you to do things you wouldn't have done otherwise is bad, not necessarily doing drugs, period. The last few lines are him trying to forget what he almost did, by "burning up" the memory, himself, or the person he almost slept with.

No Picture Allen Average	#9 by Allen Stone at Oct 4, 2007 at 6:17 AM EST
	I'm having a hard time figuring out how the second verse fits in, but I think the first and second are related. The first verse is about the speaker (who could easily be a guy or a girl, by the way (and I know he says "oh boy you are so pretty", but "oh boy" could easily be an exclamation, like "oh my you are so pretty" or "oh gosh", etc.)) meeting this guy and becoming infatuated, then he looks out the window and sees that the world is burning or something. I think the "pretty girls and the burning men hanging out on the hooks" may be talking about how guys tend to have a hard time seeing girls as people, rather than just girls, and vice versa. I think the line about "mass suicide occult figurines" is a reference to the album by John Vanderslice, which bears the same name. does anyone know if it could mean something else? again, the whole second verse confuses me. then the final verse might be about the speaker going home with the guy he met, but the speaker decides he/she doesn't want to sleep with the guy because they just met and it would be loveless. the speaker decides to "sleep out in the gutter ". and then for some reason the speaker sets himself/herself on fire. I don't really know why, but there is talk of suicide in the second verse. maybe the speaker would rather die than live in a world where sex is loveless? I'm not sure.

No Picture Brennan Wanna Be	#10 by Brennan unknown at Oct 4, 2007 at 4:30 PM EST
	"That flew right out from this hands" should be "That flew right out from _his_ hands" . . . besides that, this is one of my first favorite NMH songs. it's Mangum's anti-drug song, believe it or not -- the lyrics are so dense you can find so much more to look at, though.

No Picture Mike Average	#11 by Mike heidkamp at Oct 7, 2007 at 5:07 PM EST
	this one's fun to memorize and sing along to.

No Picture gabby Professional	#12 by gabby at Oct 10, 2007 at 3:01 AM EST
	drugs suck. fake people suck. fake sex sucks. i love this song so much. its ridiculous how much.

No Picture Garland Rhythm Player	#13 by Garland Cross at Oct 11, 2007 at 1:16 PM EST
	these lyrics are genius.

No Picture The other James Wanna Be	#14 by The other James Molina at Oct 11, 2007 at 7:15 PM EST
	the first verse is about him kissing another man, and everyone freaks out about it he says "i knew the world was over", and then goes on to describe the hubbub as the world ending quite literally that's what i think anyway!

No Picture Matthew Average	#15 by Matthew Spencer at Oct 12, 2007 at 11:50 AM EST
	Woah, I don't know if I think the same as anyone else, but I'm pretty sure that I'm right just by looking at the title of this very song... SONG AGAINST SEX! People call it an anti-drug song, and maybe there are a few anti-drug lines ("don't take those pills your boyfriend gave you" and "all the drugs that I don't have the guts to take to free my mind") but MAINLY it is against sex...it's not against making love or ALL sex, he's against loveless sex for the pure purpose of pleasure...he's against everything that is a facade and everything that isn't real (which could include drug induced feelings) Look at the first stanza...it's about losing your virginity. One of the best lines in this is "Lost like a bell that's tipping over with two cracks along the side" Can a bell that's cracked ever ring again? No! Can you get your virginity back after you lose it? No! Wonderful metaphor. Anyway, so at first (as seen in the first verse) it's all young and it's the loss of innocence. "And the first one tore a picture of a dead and hanging man Who was kissing foreign fishes who flew right out from his hands" AND WHO IS IS A FISHERMEN OF FOREIGN FISHES? WHO WOULD BE KISSING THEM? WHO IS DEAD AND HANGING AND WHY WOULD ANYONE HAVE A PICTURE OF A DEAD AND HANGING MAN?" Simple...it's Jesus. And Christianity is clearly against pre-marital sex, so the tearing of the picture of Jesus is an act of rebellion against that. The fished flying right out from his hands is the idea that even though Jesus cared about everyone, he has no control over them, and like the person in this song, whose act of rebelion is sex, they're just flying away. So the next few lines are all about the lust and "crush" and "attraction" of the lost of virginity, and sometimes the possesiveness it creates "enough to wrap tight in rice paper string" and that the possessiveness is the first sign that this isn't actually love... The second verse is coming to terms with two disapointments that paralel each other. Love and Life. First this "love" that was so exciting, isn't really and isn't carrying through. It's all a show "flower stands" "pretty girls and their burning men hanging out on the hooks in the window display" and life is the same way...everything that was thought to be real, if it's not real it just won't carry through, and it's a dissapointment that can be so overwhelming, there's no reason to live. The third verse brings it full circle with the parrallels between the first lines of the first verse and the first lines of the third. "And the last one tore a pictures from a pornographic page And all the pleasure points attacking All the looks of love were stage" You can get to a point where you have sex as much as you want...you know how to stimulate a person so that they have the most physical pleasure, but with out love that's ALL you have. You can have the best sex in the world...but it ends there. The looks of love were staged is the way some people my try to have sex to convince themselves that they are in love. And the more you try to convince yourself of something that isn't true (the reoccuring underlying theme here is against fakeness) the more it hurts you and the deeper you get in to a lie the harder it is to get out. "So why should I lie here naked when it's just too far away from anything we could call loving any love worth living for so I'll sleep out in the gutter you can sleep here on the floor" Once it's realized that the "love" or meaning you gave something is fake, it's natural to after enough contemplation want nothing to do with it. It hurts. This lie of sex as love is so far away from real love that once you get too far you can't go back, and when one sees this it's so disturbing that sleeping out in the gutter is worth it just to be far away from it. And eventually all fake things will end. This is a song against sex...or maybe to be a little more clear... This is a song against fucking. This song is saying that fucking is not the same as love. Everyone saying it's an anti-drug song...first and foremost it's against sex, you might be able to claim it's indirectly an anti-drug song or secondly it's an anti drug song (because it's against fake things that people try to convince themselves are real) but the ironic thing is that I finally figured out what this song was about after smoking a crucial amoung of marijuana. Ciao, Mary

No Picture ed Average	#16 by ed lubecki at Oct 12, 2007 at 12:15 PM EST
	Everyone, read what RainSong said. I'm sorry, but this song seems so blindingly obvious to me. Betrayal and loveless sex, meaningless fake sex, and this loveless meaningless hellish life is so useless.

No Picture brent Rhythm Player	#17 by brent west at Oct 12, 2007 at 3:10 PM EST
	I think you're close, yall. But I have some different ideas on various parts. I agree with the first verse being about meeting a significant other. I think the fire might be some reference to hell, though. For verse 2: I've never heard said album, but is it a pretty emo album? He could be saying that his relationship is drawing him to listen to emoish music. And on verse three: " And the last one tore a picture From the pornographic page And all the pleasure points attacking All the looks of love were staged And it's a lie that you've been given That just hurts you every day So why should I lie here naked When it's just too far away From anything we could call loving Any love worth living for" I think he's talking about masturbation, and the emptiness of it. and then the last part, about him sleeping outside. He says: "And when I wake up in the morning I forgot to lock the door Because with a match that's mean and some gasoline You won't see me anymore" I don't think he is burning himself. I think he is burning the house to get back at his now ex-lover. Note the "I forgot to lock the door" line. Lots of interperetations can be gotten from this. I noticed that each verse mentions fire atleast once. 1st: Everything is burning. 2nd: Men are burning. 3rd: House is burning. So obviously the fire means something. And that's my 2 cents for now.

No Picture Max Wanna Be	#18 by Max Contreras at Oct 12, 2007 at 7:27 PM EST
	This song is definitely about how sex can be mistreated and perverted. Drugs completely ruin the whole meaning of sex, which is an act of love and gift. People today say they "love sex", but really all they love is themselves. Sex is not selfish and i think that is the main point of this song.

No Picture Vicky Average	#19 by Vicky Barnard at Oct 14, 2007 at 3:26 AM EST
	Drugs don't suck. I love 'em. You can like 'em or hate 'em. They're good if you don't abuse them. They can expand your mind if you want them to. Expand it greatly.

No Picture Dudevill Average	#20 by Dudevill at Oct 14, 2007 at 5:42 PM EST
	And I took out my tongue twice removed from my face i wish i was as good as him

No Picture Johan Average	#21 by Johan Soderberg at Oct 14, 2007 at 6:37 PM EST
	actually, i think this song came before the john vanderslice record. i read an interview with JV and he said it was a refrence to NMH.

No Picture Dustin Wanna Be	#22 by Dustin Cogburn at Oct 15, 2007 at 12:35 PM EST
	Personally, I think the greatest part of the lyrics of this song are the parts describing massive conflagration.

No Picture M Average	#23 by M K-O at Oct 16, 2007 at 10:15 PM EST
	I love this song so freakin' much. It sucks cuz virtually all the songs I write are about drugs, fucking, and love, and the evils of all of them, but Jeff's written a song about all of them that completely destroys anything I've written or ever will write Side note: I heard that Jeff read "But don't take those pills your boyfriend gave you, you're too wonderful to die" on a bathroom stall...how cool is that?

No Picture Josh Average	#24 by Josh Sanchez at Oct 18, 2007 at 5:35 AM EST
	It is apparently about a real straight who is also rather depressed. He is in love with the girl mentioned in verses two and three and at loss of his inhibitions decides to kill himself. Great, weird song.

No Picture J_ROC Lead Player	#25 by J_ROC at Oct 18, 2007 at 7:31 PM EST
	i agree