Too much... radiation
This song starts slow but stick with it and you'll be rewarded. I loved this song the first time I heard it, and when I went looking to find a download way back when, I found out there was a lot going on behind it which has always stuck with me.
The song has a deep and cathartic personal meaning for lead singer Bradford Cox. From his lyrics and liner notes:
When I was sixteen I was hospitalized for extensive surgeries on my chest ribs and back because of marfan's. That entire summer was like completley erased. I was in a coma for a couple of weeks. I got to really understand what its like to not be well. I've always sort of understood, growing up with marfan's, but this was hardcore shit. I wrote this song transposing this high school acid trip where i saw my two best friends back then, Sarah and Chrissy, bathed in this golden spring light in the hallway of my highschool and felt really close to them, like we were sisters. I always felt genderless around them. I actually took a photo of them in that hallway that day which i will find and upload. If the song could be captured visually, this photo would be it. Anyways, I was trying to transpose the concepts of illness (in this case I was writing from the perspective of someone going in and out of conciousness during chemotherapy, and how they would miss their friends, their past experiences, and anything that reminded them of normalcy, or a time before misery. Nostalgia as anesthetic
The photo he refers to is at the top of the post and is found here.
The song was released on Deerhunter's album Cryptograms in January 2007 but it was essentially much older than that. The song was put together from two different demo-ish recordings made by Bradford Cox in high school: the first, using the same lyrics as the album song, was recorded on a karaoke machine in October 1998. The second part, the outro, was recorded on a 4-track in May 1999.
These were released on Deerhunter's blog here, and while the downloads are no longer working, the demos can still be heard on YouTube:
Spring Hall Sketch (October 1998)
Oh Drama (Spring Hall Outro May 1999)