Neutral Milk Hotel - Naomi (Video by Naomi Yang, made with the band’s blessing)

“The Collected Works of Neutral Milk Hotel“ is out now on Merge Records: Naomi Yang on “Naomi” How do you direct a video for a song that was written about you? The first member of Neutral Milk Hotel I met was saw player Julian Koster. Our bands were each playing the psychedelic Terrastock festival, and Julian approached me like a mischievous sprite, just as he appears onstage. “We want you to have our record,” he said. “The song ‘Naomi’ is about you.” I was charmed by the album and by the band in all its raucous joy, but wasn’t sure about the namesake song. The lyrics seemed sweet but disquieting—a fan letter with a dark edge. Then, years later, in anticipation of a retrospective box set release, I made a music video for “Naomi” with the blessing of the band. Neutral Milk Hotel had by then become enormously popular—and had probably received a fair amount of obsessive fan letters themselves. I thought about taking back ownership of a fan’s infatuati