The personnel differs from the later "classic" lineup: Signe Toly Anderson was the female vocalist and Skip Spence played drums.

"[8] Katz was first invited to check out RCA Victor by the recently signed Rod McKuen, who had written some songs he hoped to give to the band.

McKuen introduced Katz to the label's A&R manager Neely Plumb, who sent Al Schmitt to San Francisco to hear the band.

At the time of the band's formation, many acts in pop music such as the Beatles, Bob Dylan, the Byrds, and the Rolling Stones had begun developing more mature approaches to their songwriting, and Tamarkin noted that many of Jefferson Airplane's early original works also exhibited "a sophisticated lyrical outlook and progressive instrumental arrangements".

[18] Although the majority of the album consists of love songs,[16] music journalist Richie Unterberger observed that their lyrics were written from an unusual "young adult" perspective that was "not as immediately accessible" to teenagers,[13] who were generally considered pop's target audience.

[18] In his book Jefferson Airplane: every album, every song, Richard Butterworth describes the lyrics on Takes Off as "optimistic" and exhibiting a "growing social awareness" of the era's music.

[17] Comparatively, Unterberger noted that the band's cover version of Chet Powers' "Let's Get Together", later made famous by the Youngbloods, was foretelling of a "communal idealism that transcended boy-girl relationships.

The label's executives had become concerned that certain lines in the songs would cause controversy due to them being sexually suggestive or making supposed references to drugs.

"[20] Along with these lyrical changes, the label also decided that "Runnin' 'Round This World", which included the line "The nights I've spent with you have been fantastic trips", was to be removed from the album entirely, despite having already been released months earlier as the B-side of "It's No Secret".

The band attempted to rectify this by replacing the word "trips" with a guitar arpeggio, but ultimately the song was cut from the final version of the record.

"[29] Retrospectively, David Bowling of The Daily Vault considered Jefferson Airplane Takes Off to be "a formidable debut album" and "an excellent and interesting listen".