On Avery Island
On Avery Island is the debut album by American indie rock band Neutral Milk Hotel. It was released on March 26, 1996 by Merge Records.
Track listing
All songs written and composed by Jeff Mangum, except where noted. Horn arrangements composed by Robert Schneider.
Additional information
The title refers to Avery Island, a salt dome island in southern Louisiana, the band's home state. Avery Island is the headquarters of the McIlhenny Company, makers of Tabasco sauce.
The UK version of this CD has two more tracks: "Everything Is" and "Snow Song Pt. 1," both of which are taken from the "Everything Is" single, reportedly without Jeff Mangum's permission. On the vinyl LP, "Pree-Sisters Swallowing a Donkey's Eye" is 3:28 long, as opposed to the significantly longer digital version at 13:49. The UK version also has a different cover, with artwork by Jill Carnes of Thimble Circus.
Personnel
Avery Island, Louisiana
Avery Island (historically French: Île Petite Anse) is a salt dome best known as the source of Tabasco sauce. Located in Iberia Parish, Louisiana, United States, it is about three miles (5 km) inland from Vermilion Bay, which in turn opens onto the Gulf of Mexico. A small human population lives on the island.
History
The island was named after the Avery family, who settled there in the 1830s, but long before that, Native Americans had found that Avery Island’s verdant flora covered a precious natural resource—a massive salt dome. There, the Indians boiled the Island’s briny spring water to extract salt, which they traded to other tribes as far away as central Texas, Arkansas, and Ohio.
According to records maintained prior to 1999 in the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Petite Anse Island, renamed Avery Island in the late 19th century, was purchased by John Craig Marsh of New Jersey in 1818. Marsh operated a sugar plantation on the island's fertile soil. His daughter, Sarah Craig Marsh, married Daniel Dudley Avery in 1837, thus uniting the Marsh and Avery families. Daniel Dudley Avery hailed from Baton Rouge, and was a jurist. In 1849, Daniel became co-owner of his in-law's sugar plantation, and in 1855 he became sole owner.
Stephens Island (British Columbia)
Stephens Island is an island on the British Columbia Coast, Canada, located in Hecate Strait to the northwest of Porcher Island and to the southwest of the city of Prince Rupert. The island's main geographic feature is Mount Stephens, 432 m (1417 feet), on the southeast end of the island at 54°07′39″N 130°40′15″W / 54.12750°N 130.67083°W. To its northwest is Congreve Hill, 150 m (492 feet), at 54°09′29″N 130°42′31″W / 54.15806°N 130.70861°W.
Indian reserves
Squaderee Indian Reserve No. 91 is located on the west side of the island's northern part, at 54°08′00″N 130°47′00″W / 54.13333°N 130.78333°W on Skiakl Bay at 54°08′17″N 130°47′02″W / 54.13806°N 130.78389°W, in which there is a small island, Skiakl Island, at 54°07′38″N 130°45′44″W / 54.12722°N 130.76222°W.
Podcasts:
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by Neutral Milk Hotel
On Avery Island
by: Neutral Milk HotelBlistering Pree, all smiling and swollen
Makes babies to breathe
With their hearts hanging open all over the sheets
As soft as beets in some brown dresser drawer
And with bees in her breath and the rest of her ringing
They'll sting through her chest with a force hard and beating
Till wonderfully wet she will get
Until she's soaked inside her clothes
And there is no sorry to be sorry for
For a roll around the floor some afternoon so sound and soft
It made her swallow all her sweat
With every bit of breath she coughs
And when the day it came to pour all her babies
All across the bathroom floor
She will be swimming in them all forever more