Neutral Milk Hotel’s “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea”: More than a Hipster Touchstone

Join Prof. Geoff Klock for a lyrical exegesis of Neutral Milk Hotel’s “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea,” presented by ThinkOlio.
“When the skies crack open and Jehovah appears - angry that we have destroyed the planet, waged war on one another, and supported Adam Sandler movies,” Klock writes, “I will brave the storm and the screaming and climb the mount with a copy of Neutral Milk Hotel’s seminal 1998 album ‘In the Aeroplane Over the Sea’ and a really good pair of headphones and God will learn what I know to be true - that because of THIS work of art, humanity should be spared destruction.”
In this special Olio, CUNY literature professor Geoff Klock leads a close reading and interpretation of Jeff Mangum’s lyrics to “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea,” guiding listeners to a better understanding of this complex and poetic concept album.
Geoff Klock has a doctorate from Oxford and is an associate professor at BMCC-CUNY, where he teaches mostly comp, but sometimes film, and old school Brit Lit. He is the author of three books, two about comic books and one about poetry.
Playlist of Album with lyrics:
• King of Carrot Flowers...
Recorded June 9, 2017

[@MrWafflezguy1]

Always nice seeing an intelectual telling me how amazing my favorite album is

[@onelastsummer4831]

lol same

[@JMD501]

Why do we feel soo good when we get validation for our good taste.

[@sk8shred]

This is my life man, I live for this shit. I wish I could be him. Anyways, this album is definitely one of the best albums I've ever heard and it will stay with me forever. It sits so deeply in my heart. It's a piece of art par excellence. Utterly tremendous and timeless.

[@blueconversechucks]

​@@sk8shred yeah ♥️

[@ThinkDifferentish]

Yeah but he also said rap. But perhaps that is just his protective shield that absolves him of all criticism.

[@imemobutitsokayiswear8403]

This is the most positively hipstery thing I have ever sat through.... Loved it

[@NicriseTheDistorted]

Nice profile picture 🤙

[@trenttournour5846]

The beauty of this album is that this lecture doesn’t do it justice. It’s a wonderful lecture and I really enjoyed it but there is an ephemeral and personal quality to this record that could never be explained in words, that needs to be listened to and felt and understood on an individual level. That is why this work is a masterpiece.

[@hj-ct2qi]

i'm a phd candidate hoping to become a professor after i get my degree, and i am obsessed with the way this guy gives lectures. so personable, so approachable, just enough humor to keep things engaging. absolute goals

[@MapleMilk]

THIS IS WHAT I NEEDED IN MY LIFE! CAN I WATCH A POETRY PROFESSOR TALK ABOUT THIS BEAUTY IN MUSICAL FORM FOREVER? I would actually buy this on dvd.

[@georgeclam1756]

I bet this guy is pretty good at annotating Macbeth, and I liked the comparison to Dante. But while I think Anne Frank is an important part of the album, I think he over-emphasizes her role. It's also more personal than he acknowledges. He still provides interesting commentary.

[@usharet]

for sure, if i remember correctly from what i've read about this album some parts on king of carrot flowers and oh comely are more so about coming of age and growing up rather than specifically anne frank. same with two headed boy part 1, there are nods to simply just young lovers in a relationship, and a few lines in communist daughter "cars careening from the clouds, the bridges burst and twist around" which are just about bombings during world war 2. not to say anne frank isn't a big part of the album, she definitely is.

[@Cabesandia]

Yeah, Anne Frank is just a part of the metaphoric imagery used to contextualize some parts of his life in which he read the book and used it to cope with whatever he had to deal with, like the biblical imagery and the sexual imagery.

[@dimitri_q]

i kinda disagree, once a fan asked jeff mangum what in the aeroplane over the sea was about, jeff mangum answered that it was about whatever you want, whatever you in the end interpret, the interpretation of the man in the video may be different from yours , but that's okay, since the album is mostly a metaphor.

[@Hartlor_Tayley]

Anne Frank is more of a dream version, more like a mythological Anne Frank that is also sometimes the literal Anne Frank. The album is not about Anne Frank but it is somewhat based on Anne Frank. Frankly

[@MrPieEducation]

This video is longer than the album itself

[@geoffklock]

Is that bad? I feel like it is not unusual - like books about hamlet are all longer than Hamlet and there are hundreds of them so that seems standard. Like it would take a physicist a long time to explain why a magnet grabs onto a bit of metal - way more than the time it would take for the magnet to pick something up. Nuclear stuff definitely takes longer to explain than the length of a bomb going off.

[@geoffklock]

Also why would he be horrified? Does he not want people talking about the album he made? Ever?

[@boieecrib8211]

Ben Pederson it goes to show it’s dense meaning through a short album

[@nietzschesmustache9483]

Jacque Derrida wrote an introduction for a late publishing of an Edmund Husserl essay. The introduction was longer than the essay but it also aided in giving birth to a school of philosophy that changed intellectual history forever.

[@WHARFRATFM]

TIMESTAMPS! The King of Carrot Flowers, Pt. 1 - 15:45 The King of Carrot Flowers, Pts. 2 & 3 - 20:04 In the Aeroplane Over the Sea - 24:03 Two-Headed Boy & The Fool - 30:19 Holland, 1945 - 40:31 Communist Daughter - 45:59 Oh Comely - 48:43 Ghost & Untitled - 52:39 Two-Headed Boy, Pt. 2 - 54:58

[@anjali.a3988]

thank you!!!

[@sarah-ru6wl]

i love how in depth this was!! exactly the analysis i was looking for and it feels so much more fulfilling to understand the album to this extent! thank you

[@joaozinho723]

i really watched an hour-long lecture about this album and i'm here watching again

[@evilsquared]

This was awesome!

[@WeShouldAllDoHeroin]

Brian Wilson, with Pet Sounds, saw the album as a unified concept before the Beatles.

[@sineadtarmey]

I will never ever be able to fully express the true love I have for my favourite album... Its so incredibly special and a testament to the beauty as well as awful aspects of being alive...

[@MuhammadAhmed-oc6ol]

this was so good. Well done sir

[@RuYevon]

Brilliant lecture thank you!

[@nathansidwell4486]

Beautiful. Thanks

[@samarjitchavan1293]

Great dude, great dog, great video.

[@csgibby3003]

great video! love your shoes!

[@ptuller99]

How have I not seen this, love it

[@neilsmith6952]

it's the beach boys, it's pet sounds, Paul has said so many times. Brian Wilson is the concept of the album guy

[@tahangrant]

Fantastic, thank you. Please please take a deep look at any mid-to-later-period Tom Waits album (Swordfish onward)...

[@zachbauman1759]

I like overall the themes that Mr. Klock brings up. Like many others, I believe in the interpretation of music and poetry being a personal experience and can change based on who is having the experience. My interpretation of Oh Comely is that he is singing about himself, and if I'm right, I feel the lyrics definitely suggest that he is saved by his music, maybe even saved by this album.

[@Brain_Barf]

Good ass video, loved it!

[@ElPalomo]

this talk kinda made me wanna start reading poetry

[@lupusalbus3795]

The piano filled with flames is a allude to the Phrosophy of Fatama, I think.

[@erich1394]

This album is seminal in so many different ways. Seriously though - as a repressed former christian with gender identity issues and a history of rape and trauma, listening to this album is like having Jeff Mangum personally acknowledge everything I've been through. The dissociation and magic combined with intimate brutality and sexuality is a rare combo that speaks to our deepest pain and desire.

[@ThatOneGuy0006]

The album starts to make alot more sense when you learn that both his wife at the time and his sister like Ann Frank.

[@postofficecb808]

It's hard to mine the meaning of this album. It's a gallimaufry of symbolisms and themes richly stewed in lyric and sound. But, as far as a lecture goes, this was quite enjoyable. Thank you.

[@daryldwayne3538]

This is amazing stuff…what an awesome theory… I am a guitar player and wordsmith and Jeff Mangum is a big inspiration to me,,, I love concept albums and am working in one right now about the Jonestown tragedy… it reminds me of this, and I really didn’t notice this was written about Anne Frank when I listened to it, I definitely listened to the entire record all the way through on one play and was floored… I really love hoe Robert Schneider engineered this album at his studio in Denver Pet Smells… lol that’s why it sounds so 60s… I love The Elephant six recording company

[@redxross]

That was so enjoyable. Please, Love's Forever Changes next time?

[@freedomkills]

nice video

[@bawkbagawk]

person upfront is on point

[@Lebowski55]

I wonder what his opinion of Conor Oberst, Aesop Rock and Billy Woods writing is.

[@joshdyer4422]

The amount of people walking in and out of the background is insane

[@BlakeBlackstone]

I remember we had to do the class reading of her diary which I thought was extremely boring and mundayne. Then the teacher had the nerve to get mad at me when I told her it was boring after she asked me what I thought about it. lmao I think she held a grudge to me after that. I'd probably appreciate it more as an adult. But for a kid it's not a good book at all.

[@TheBrogmire]

Did this gentleman write a book or anything on this topic? Trying to find a source for the quote in the introduction text

[@lairdhen1420]

mom, is this a hipster

[@user-cl6fr7mq7l]

King of carrot flowers can’t be a sister, it’s a BOY. Mangum has a number of homosexual imagery infused songs.

[@DaedBoi]

When I finally kissed him The whole world began to ring

[@speep9583]

Hey--I agree. But, as the Prof. says in the video, "in the unconscious, there are no contradictions" a la Freud.

[@yesiknow5474]

I think it’s more just writing from the perspective of a young girl

[@erich1394]

I agree. Two-headed boy, to me, is about masturbation and repressed desires. It literally ends with the singer cumming on someone's face - spirals of white softly flow over your eyelids. I appreciate that he gave the subject such beautiful, intimate treatment with his wording. I think there's a whole level of sexual content that's not quite being unpacked by this assessment. There's a whole theme about uplifting your shadow self - your dark brother wrapped in white. Seeing beauty where others would feel disgust, singing about bodily fluids, etc. "God is a place you will wait for the rest of your life" sounds like sexual repression to me. But then again, I think about sex a lot.

[@japoopypants7]

im at the beginning still and im with you so far but i have to point out that third eye blind have some great lyrics and beautiful songs that have made me cry and it's not really fair to shit talk them just because neutral milk hotel are better. I get that semi charmed life was overplayed but listen to God of Wine and tell me they weren't onto something real and emotional.

[@shalotfpv]

This rules-- of course it was at Strand lmao

[@tanermishler8564]

I always thought the i love you jesus christ lines were about jeff Mangum basically using jesus christ as a phrase to emphasize how much he loves whoever he is talkiny about

[@PaulBenjaminJenkins]

Isn't "sieve" pronounced "sih-v," not "sive" as in five? That's at least how all the pronunciations on youtube say it.

[@psychobilly42069]

Doggos!!!!!!! 😋🙈🤑😇

[@winterhalter8060]

Jeff talks about raw sensational incecst sex Professor: no no no he's talking about books 📚

[@conormcgowan4894]

How did a poetry professor miss the fact that Anne Frank is a metaphor? A character representing innocence destroyed by powerful but meaningless forces.

[@RuYevon]

he didn't

[@marks.7211]

he didn't tho

[@travisrameysadler9924]

if that's all he listens too, dude needs some serious eye opening... Neutral Milk Hotel isn't even the best Elephant 6 band, much less better than "everyone else."

[@sleepytimeslump]

I think the speaker’s great and I really like what he’s saying but, for some reason I can’t stand his voice.

[@blueconversechucks]

Hah my sister and some of my friends say the same thing about Jeff mangum

[@zeroequalsthree]

I've met Jeff Mangum and I asked him if it was about Anne Frank and he said, unequivocally, "no." So, this guy is talking bull. It's like me saying something like: "Oh, you know that bit in T.S. Elliot where he writes 'do I dare to each a peach?' & my interpretation of being 'oh right, because they're so messy when you eat them and they go everywhere?'

[@jamjardog316]

Elijah James yeah dude, I’m sure nobody except you had asked Jeff that, I’m sure he was delighted you had possibly picked up on something within in, however you were not correct... Chances are he’s just tired of being asked that same question all the time

[@PresidentHotdog]

It was about his experiences with mental health, hallucinations and dreams following reading Anne Frank's diary. I'd be pissed off at being asked that too if I were him.

[@swaggermcjagger4266]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/oaq8fJmoebOZp6M he literally talks in this song about “that one family that he’s obsessed with” dude lmao just take a listen i think it’s around oh comely

[@jamesaudiffred1140]

He was being evasive and short. It's about a lot of things that he was going through at the time right after he recorded On Avery Island. He had just read her diary. It's a part of this masterpiece.

[@mathboydrum]

There is video proof that you are wrong. When talking about and older version of Two Headed Boy part 2. ""It's about a family that lived in the 1940s europe, and I have dreams about a certain member of that family at times" and “that one family that he’s obsessed with”.

[@yoyossarian9468]

Beowulf is gay, gayer than Chaucer, and Chaucer is pretty gay... In sum, poetry is gay

[@A_29886]

This is so cringe. He does realise a lot of the lyrics are just word salad.

[@creeper1003]

Name one lyric that’s word salad

[@mathboydrum]

There is video proof that you are wrong. When talking about and older version of Two Headed Boy part 2. ""It's about a family that lived in the 1940s europe, and I have dreams about a certain member of that family at times" and “that one family that he’s obsessed with”.

[@A_29886]

@@mathboydrum I didn't say *all* the lyrics are word salad. Just a lot of them.

[@mathboydrum]

@@A_29886 up to you, don't think they are though. Check here, kzbin.info/www/bejne/oaq8fJmoebOZp6M&ab_channel=JeraldJoyce . before Oh comely and before two headed boy part 2. The songs and imagery are at least about something.

[@PaulBenjaminJenkins]

You can interpret it as word salad if you want, and it's just as beautiful.

[@scottlawrenceplus]

Rap has great lyrics?? Pockets of rap do but generally though I would disagree

[@swaggermcjagger4266]

no single genre of music has 100% great lyrics across the board

[@cameronmorgan2015]

you dont listen to rap do you

[@scottlawrenceplus]

@@cameronmorgan2015 I do listen to some rap - the rap that has great lyrics.

[@thegrinderman1090]

@@scottlawrenceplus So you listen to rap that has great lyrics but you're confused that he said he listens to a lot of rap because it has great lyrics?

[@scottlawrenceplus]

@@thegrinderman1090 I get what you are saying. :)