uneducated-critic

[uneducated-critic]

A given in any music blog, NMH’s In an Aeroplane Over the Sea.

What is there to say about this album that hasn’t been already said? A wonderous, mesmerizing, chaotic and at times dreamlike soundscape built up by Jeff Mangums vivid lyricism and haunting vocals, accompanied by hypnotizing horns, drums and guitar, this album is sure to transport you into an otherworldly experience.

From beginning to end, Aeroplane pulls me in, and makes me visualize the mind bending reality Jeff Mangum depicts with his fantastic lyricism, while also making me understand his feelings of sorrow and regret for Anne Frank, whom this album was largely inspired by. This overarching idea of Anne Frank’s untimely demise connecting each song in almost an emotional narrative is what makes this album for me. Listening to tracks like “Ghost” or “Holland, 1945,” or the title track, “In an Aeroplane Over the Sea,” and imagining Anne Frank as Mangum describes her, a beautiful ghostly figure, full of potential which unfortunately met an early and abrupt end, makes these songs all that more beautiful and heartbreaking.

Listening to this album makes me truly emotional, and helps me understand Jeff Mangum’s emotions when reading The Diary of Anne Frank, upon which he wept for days over the loss of such a young and promising girl. This, however, isn’t the only theme that can be found in here. Jeff’s strange and often ambiguous lyrics leave something to be desired in literal meaning. This isn’t a bad thing, though, if anything, this lack of definite meaning is what makes this album far more enjoyable. In fact, when asked about the “deeper meaning” behind the album, whether it’s all about Anne Frank, or religion, or his own experiences, Jeff simply answered saying that it’s about none of those things, it’s about whatever you want it to be. That is what I think gives this album the wide appeal that it has, the fact that it has a potentially infinite number of meanings that vary from person to person, helping further solidify it into music zeitgeist.

My favorite lyrics:

“And this is the room one afternoon, I knew I could love you/ And from above you how I sank into your soul/ Into that secret place where no one dares to go”

“There are lights in the clouds/ Anna's ghost all around/ Hear her voice as it's rolling and ringing through me”

“And it's so sad to see the world agree/ That they'd rather see their faces filled with flies/ All when I'd want to keep white roses in their eyes”

“I know they buried her body with others/ Her sister and mother and five-hundred families/ And will she remember me fifty years later?/ I wished I could save her in some sort of time machine”

“And she was born in a bottle-rocket 1929/With wings that ringed around a socket right between her spine”