Are the cover's protagonists waving at the "aeroplane over the sea"? This is not to insist that Mangum wrote “Ghost” with Plato in mind, of course, but there is certainly a sophisticated nucleus around which Mangum’s lyrics revolve.The album’s third song, the title track, offers perhaps its most clear and self-contained vision of Mangum’s project. Mangum illustrates love’s drama with language of the body: “How I would push my fingers through/ Your mouth to make those muscles move.” All in one song, then, we see the strange blending of bodies as a metaphor for love that seeks to unify and own. Inspired designs on t-shirts, posters, stickers, home decor, and more by independent artists and designers from around the world. The engineer feels this same rush, but his awe is compounded by a technical understanding of the immense craft and precision necessary to build such a wonder. He is originally from Indiana.Toronto composer/producer Sina Bathaie serves up Persian hammer dulcimer and progressive house beats on the meditative "Bloom".Montreal's Yves Jarvis blends folk with minimalist electronics and Afropop textures on his new single, "Semula".As the go-to producer for everyone from Lizzo to Twenty-One Pilots, Ricky Reed is at the top of his game.
But when viewed through the lens of love-merging, Mangum’s intentions -- and his genius -- snap into focus. Let's say you're in the kind of bar where someone poses a question like "What's the link between Get ready to order that beer because we've got you covered.Neutral Milk Hotel main man Jeff Mangum was the brains behind the artwork for the band's 1996 debut, Only five years into his album art career, Bilheimer had built quite a CV.
In the aeroplane over the sea karaoke texty. While Mangum illustrates the drive to merge in fairly ghastly ways, his tone changes radically when talking about separation.
The separate identities, or heads, do share a body, but their mangled form floating in formaldehyde is far from a Platonic vision. When the songwriter noted that he was torn between "Holland" and "1945" as titles, Bilheimer suggested combining the two and a future classic was born.What makes the album cover such a classic, though, is the transformation of the source material. With this framework in mind, we can begin to make sense of the incessant corporeality of Mangum’s lyrics. Recall our definition of love-merging, and how its foundation is a love that cannot bear separation, a heart that pines to beat only ever in the presence of the beloved. 1998 Experimental Rock (?)
All we can know for certain is the ever-present throb of longing.In the same way, the iconic refrain “And when we break we’ll wait for our miracle” operates on a number of levels.
I met him a few years back in Ohio, and we talked just long enough for me to ask if a particular lyric in “Oh Comely” was about Anne Frank. Then there is the engineer’s awe.
Furthermore, the LP examines how, as Mangum shows, this drive can go horribly wrong. But the album's nucleus is an exploration of the lover’s desire to merge with the loved - the human drive to become one with the people (or things) we love most. Perhaps the most iconic iteration of this phenomenon comes from the Hebrew Bible, wherein God declares: “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh” (Gen 2:24). Discussing his new solo venture, Raul Midón's "Dancing Off the Edge" balances the realities of 2020 with musical uplift and his singular soulfulness.
Procreation, God, loss: it’s all there, too. It is not enough that (presumably Anne Frank’s) “beautiful face” is there for Mangum to see and appreciate; rather, he sings, “Let me hold it close and keep it here with me.” It is not enough to merely count “every beautiful thing” that he sees; Mangum wants to keep them, again, “here with me”.
The two-headed boy may love her, yearn for her, and wish to keep her around -- all for himself -- but in the end he must come to terms with the fact that no one can possess another. He has published poetry, as well as music criticism, and is the founder of Massif Records. After all, think of the merging we’ve seen throughout: two mangled boys floating like a science experiment and two other people melting together “inside some stranger’s stomach”.
The real “miracle” of Mangum’s project is the realization that one cannot merge successfully with another, and that any love that jeopardizes the individual cannot hold.
Neutral Milk Hotel’s 1998 magnum opus In the Aeroplane Over the Sea is astounding in the same two ways that a skyscraper is astounding. Mangum had already commissioned an artist named Brian Dewan to draw both a flying Victrola and a magic radio, both of which found their way into the overall Bilheimer's design didn't stop at the album's front cover.