There’s an aura of romance, of doomed brilliance, that surrounds Neutral Milk Hotel’s In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
Of course, this is all complicated by the fact that the album is a suite of songs written about Anne Frank and there’s more than a whiff of the auteur about it. It’s intensely and obviously personal, from the surreal lyrics to the dense orchestration to Mangum’s emotive, nasal whine, and the devotion it inspires is nothing short of religious. For the Church of Mangum is built on passion, on doomed endeavors, on writing love songs to a girl who died in 1945, on blending commercial hooks with a lo-fi rejection of overt commercialism, on the realization that this man is pouring his everything (maybe even his sanity) into this one message to the universe. It’s so intense that at the end of “Oh Comely” – an eight-minute force of nature that stops to reflect on the mass grave in which Frank is buried before the warning, “Know all your enemies. We know who our enemies are,” knocks on your consciousness and occasionally reduces me to tears – someone in the faint distance of the studio cries out “Holy Shit!” in awe of the performance, the testimonial they have just witnessed.
Playing it as I was driving down Route 7, through the Green Mountains of Vermont and along side the glitter of Lake Champlain, I found myself thinking of how perfectly suited the songs on this album are to being on a Wes Anderson soundtrack. Speaking of estrangement and anger, sweetness and love, these songs swing from atonal distortion to melodic rapture with all the intensity and oddity of one of Anderson’s off-beat protagonists, and the album would certainly fit in to a space somewhere between The Kinks, Bowie, and Benjamin Britten in Anderson’s sonic catalogue. If you’re as willing to mix media in your mind as I am, it’s not much of a leap to imagine Max Fischer of Rushmore
Add to that the sense that Anderson is as in control of every element of his movies (even when, if not especially when, they seem on the verge of falling apart) as Mangum is in control of this album, and you’ve got a match made in synesthetic heaven.
Enjoy.
Interesting post.
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I think that Anderson’s movies are probably too lighthearted and whimsical for the intensity of Mangum’s In an Aeroplane Over the Sea. I guess I could see a few parts matching the tone, but on the whole I think it would a little dysfunctional of a syntheses.
“Now she’s a little boy in Spain playing pianos filled with flames” I love to think turned out that way for Anne Frank.
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea is my favorite song and it has been for a while.
It’s really just a piece of artistry, a work of true genius.
“All secrets sleep in winter clothes,” and “How strange it is to be anything at all” are my favorite lines.
so so so good.
I’ve always loved this CD. So sad but calming at the same time.
Amazing album, helped me get through high school. I actually have a tattoo of “The Flying Phonograph” from the disc art on my chest.
“And dad would dream of all the different ways to die, each one a little more than he could dare to trrrryyyyyyyyy…..”
I think that NMH songs could definitely play in to certain Wes Anderson movies. It just depends on the time. I imagine one replacing “Needle in the Hay” by Elliott Smith with Richie tries to commit suicide in the bathroom in the Royal Tenenbaums. I think Rushmore might be a little lighthearted, though I really do see where lots of NMH songs can be connected with teenage angst and confusion like that found in Rushmore. Interesting thought, for sure!
I have listened to this album and never thought of it this way. I actually thought of it as an over hyped album. That’s all it could be to me because it was almost a joke how much people liked it. Its not that I didn’t like it but I couldn’t appreciate it without a back story. It just didn’t hit at my emotions like other albums people rave abut like “Hospice”.
Thanks for the post it helped me understand the album and I will need to listen to it again.
Interestingly, I’ve only just stumbled across this album quite recently, so your post is quite enlightening and thought provoking. It certainly is an interesting album.
I love neutral milk hotel!! I heard them on All Songs Considered on NPR when I lived in the middle of nowhere as I was teetering on a nervous breakdown, so it fit perfectly (unfortunately fame did not come along with mine by any means haha)!! Your critique/description of them is fantastic and wonderfully written. I must follow you now.
I’ve only heard the whole album through once, but I loved that, before I knew it was supposed to be about Anne Frank, I heard “Holland, 1945″ (I don’t think I even knew the name of the song, which is sort of a spoiler), and went “is this supposed to be about Anne Frank?”
Nice Article
And she was born in a bottle rocket, 1929…
Great album, The Garage, Highbury London some 15 years ago, sandwiched between Music Tapes and Olivia Tremor Control, NMH made one of the greatest gigs I’ve ever seen too.
For a long time I didn´t appreciate this album. I´m a fan of the indie aesthetic – I don´t mind obscure lyrics, slightly off-key vocals, inexpensive production, I love it. But at first I thought it had each of those things set one notch too far.Then one day it all just….clicked.
This is without a doubt one of the greatest and most unique albums ever written. I hope this write up creates even more fans of Jeff Mangum.
I first heard of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea when NPR did a story on a highschool that made a play inspired by the album. It’s really one of those albums that seems completely timeless. Really great album.