I was glad to see this article because I too love In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. I wish there was more from NMH but accepted long ago there won't be. Now, my totally self-indulgent comment is that I think the below lyrics from the song Holland 1945 are some of the most touching I have ever heard. Especially given the fast paced, almost upbeat music for this song.

The only girl I've ever loved
Was born with roses in her eyes
But then they buried her alive
One evening 1945
With just her sister at her side
And only weeks before the guns
All came and rained on everyone
Now she's a little boy in Spain
Playing pianos filled with flames

Five or six words per line...nine lines...but what we get is a tragic story of a girl torture-murdered by Nazis in an anonymous grave with liberating troops (American in the picture in my mind) only weeks away (think of all the people who died before liberation and all the troops who died liberating those left) and then the girl reincarnated as a boy expressing all this carry-over from the prior life through music. When I listen to this, it never fails to touch me deeply.

I couldn't agree more.

This article reminded me how amazing In the Aeroplane Over the Sea is, and prompted me to listen to it on my way to work this morning. This was a very bad idea. Suffice it to say that I arrived at work with puffy eyes and mascara running down my face. (And I'm not generally a crier.) This album, and "Holland, 1945" in particular, really gets to me.

Artistic license. They say Anne died alone, after her mother and sister, believing her father dead, at Bergen Belsen, a few months before the British liberated the camp. <link>

Jeff never said it was *about* Anne Frank. If I recall correctly, he said the record was inspired by the story of Anne Frank and a family that existed in some recurring dreams that he had around the time.