#biggest anti uwu but it sure is spicy

[milk-and-violets]

What’s your favorite tohs song ?

Oh, the fatal question! I could not tell you, but I can say my top from each album, and why a few oddballs may have been my favorites at certain times.

Eponymous Album: I think I underrate this album so much, and honestly going back and thinking about these songs has me longing to go listen to the live versions again. Honestly, out of all the albums, this one was the hardest for me to pick my favorite, and it kinda ties between "Lay Me Down," and "Cold is the Night," and the only reason "Trees" isn't also vying with them is because I just want there to be more of it.

The fact that "Second Child, Restless Child" echoes concepts in "Lay Me Down" hits me every single time and I love it so much for that reason alone. It speaks to my experience as a curious, energetic child stuck in church when I was little, and the feeling of being driven away from a place because you deeply believe the word isn't how people around you say it is?? Slaps. (I may or may not be having full song analysis thoughts about that now, h e l p)

As for "Cold is the Night," see: take away this apathy / and bury it before it buries me. Need I say more? The lyrics in that one are also just. Hauntingly evocative. They feel like a lullaby sung by a knowing older self to a younger one. Or vice versa? Just thinking about "bitter is the thought of all that time / spent searching for something I'll never find" and *reminiscing on loss of faith noises*

Through the Deep, Dark Valley (TTDDV): I love so many of the songs in this album, obviously. Mostly the first 3 and the last 4. However, I can say that (partially due to my love of niche live performances) my true fave is the combo set of "The Truth Is a Cave" running into "Valley (Reprise)." Nothing like it. Sublime. Heart-threatening. Makes you wanna jump off of something like a big box speaker and throw a tambourine straight at someone's head.

Dear Wormwood: This album deserves the hype it gets, really and truly. If I want to go really nostalgic, I can listen to it all through and have the full experience of human emotion. However, the two songs from it that Really captured my heart are "This Will End" and "Thus Always to Tyrants."

"This Will End" is just.... I don't cry a lot. Almost never. But I would happy cry if I got to see that song played live. I know it. "Thus Always to Tyrants" is the song that makes me channel Maggie's Pickathon energy and dance barefoot on any available surface.

Notos: (my beloved) "Constellations" was the song that Got Me Into The Oh Hellos. I owe that song my life. That at "On the Mountain Tall." I was having a relapse into LOTR phase and I think I listened to those two songs almost exclusively for at least a week. They were my favorite songs for a solid month.

Eurus: Eurus, from Eurus. The OG. The song that got me Really into the Oh Hellos. That made me stop and go: oh Word? Passerine gets a shoutout for being my blog title and also for the METAPHOR??? Like Maggie and Tyler did Not mince words and I love them forever for that. They really said we're gonna roast prosperity gospel & harmful theology and we will take no prisoners.

Boreas: Like the above, Boreas, from Boreas. But only for the period of time before the rest of the album came out. This song gets a shoutout for being my Most Listened To Song from 2020 even though it came out like halfway through the year. I listened to that song non-stop for like three days, and then burned myself out enough that I couldn't listen to it again for about a month and half. The other song I really love from that album is "Cold," which I went feral enough over that I wrote my first lyrics analysis post about it! (Lapis Lazuli slaps too, but everyone knows that)

Zephyrus: Ahhh my white whale of an album. My favorite color. The season of my soul's aesthetic. This album was so different. So spicy and delightful. I pulled a Boreas-Boreas with "Soap", and now I find it too sweet to listen to often. I think of it quite fondly though. My favorite song from this album is, without a doubt, Rio Grande. It feels like an adventure song, which I adore so much. I think my first 5 listens gave me at least a year of my life back. I have (1) draft on tumblr and it's my 6 paragraph unfinished analysis of that song.