I had loved the album for years before I realized it was an allegory for Anne Frank. In The Aeroplane Under the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel is an album of lore in many ways. Jeff Mangum, lead signer and songwriter, wouldn’t even allow video recordings of performances to take place. Short, eclipsed footage has even been posted online of Magnum halting mid-song to scream at an audience member for filming.
But there is existing merit to the record, a hodgepodge of sound at times, just the way I like it. Many songs, namely the opener “King of Carrot Flowers Part I”, explode into euphoric, colorful sound. A trumpet erupts and the amps max themselves out as Magnum vocally yearns for a time past – namely a time when Holocaust victim Anne Frank may have been saved.
Mangum explained his inspiration to compose ITAOTS came after reading the Diary of Anne Frank. He was awestruck, inspired and saddened. The product of his displaced nostalgia would go on to be one of the most notable albums of the decade. The album represents a contorted fantasy in which he goes back in time, saving the young girl and helping her to assimilate to life today. Lyrics express this niche desire, solemnly singing in “Oh Comely”:
I know they buried her body with others
Her sister and mother and 500 families
And will she remember me 50 years later
I wished i could save her in some sort of time machine
Other tracks express a similar sentiment in upbeat, celebratory songs such as “Holland, 1945” (a nod to the location of Anne’s annex and the year she died):
The only girl I've ever loved
Was born with roses in her eyes
But then they buried her alive
One evening in 1945
With just her sister at her side
And only weeks before the guns
All came and rained on everyone
Now she's a little boy in Spain
Playing pianos filled with flames
On empty rings around the sun
I'll sing to say my dream has come
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea is a hallmark of surrealist imagery and sound. Magnum concocts fantastical images as his folky, defeated voice yearns for someone gone long before he existed. The album represents a sort of helplessness, of admiration meeting inability and allowing the dust to settle after-the-fact.
The album’s closer, Two-Headed Boy Part II, has long been my favorite song of the record. Part of what cements it as special to me is my inability to decipher what exactly is being expressed, what the root of the melancholy noise may be. I once emailed a link of the song to my father without really knowing what I wanted it to say on my behalf. The song is a capsule of feeling that can’t be articulated or placed. Mangum confuses and dazzles me with his final words:
Two headed boy she is all you could need
She will feed you tomatoes and radio wires
And retire to sheets safe and clean
But don't hate her when she gets up to leave
As the final, lone guitar chord rings out into empty space, we hear Jeff rise from his seat, fumble to set his instrument down, and walk away from the recording. It’s an unresolved ending, but then again, so was Anne’s.
HAVOC MUSIC 