Readers, Friday was my final Water Cooler, and this is my last post at Naked Capitalism. Friday, I put up a couple of railroad songs, and you had a great time sharing more and more tunes on the same theme. So I thought it would be fun to do the same thing again, with a different mode of transport. Also, a post like this may serve as an amuse-bouche before the ginormous tasting menu of the coming week’s events.
For me, songs that features airplanes were pretty hard to find — perhaps the inherent reciprocation of trains makes them more suitable for popular rhythms — but I am sure you can do better in comments. At first I tried to be clever with the sequencing — Paper Planes should really be juxtaposed with Deportee — but then I just gave up and went with chronological. That reveals a strong bias toward the 60s and 70s, but I can’t help it if my generation had the best music!
Flying Home (Ella Fitzgerald, 1947). Lyrics.
Come Fly with Me (Frank Sinatra, 1958). Lyrics.
Night Flying (James Brown, 1961). Instrumental.
Flight 505 (Rolling Stones, 1966). Lyrics.
The Letter (The Box Tops, 1967). Lyrics.
Back in the USSR (The Beatles, 1968). Lyrics.
Coming Into Los Angeles (Arlo Guthrie, 1969). Lyrics.
This Flight Tonight (Joni Mitchell, 1971). Lyrics.
Promised Land (Elvis Presley, 1975). Lyrics.
Mothership Connection (Parliament Funkadelic, 1976). Lyrics.
Jet Plane (Sonya Spence, 1978). Lyrics.
Deportee (Plane Wreck At Los Gatos) (The Highwaymen, 1985). Lyrics.
Airportman (R.E.M., 1988). Lyrics.
Paper Planes (M.I.A., 2007). Lyrics.
Dallas (The Flatlanders, 2012). Lyrics.
I feel that I have said farewell once, and I don’t care for performers who return to the stage again and again to milk the applause and collect more bouquets. With great appreciation for your careful reading and commentary over the many years, au revoir. Now let’s hear more airplane songs!
“Leaving on a Jet Plane” immediately came to mind too, especially since we just lost Roberta Flack. Thanks for everything you’ve done here, Lambert.
Lambert, you will be missed. Now let’s not forget Fly Like An Eagle and Jet Airliner by The Steve Miller Band, and Calling America by Electric Light Orchestra.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xn_XsOUC9s0
Eight Miles High By Roxy Music.
Better in every way, start w a monster disco beat worthy of Chic and a guitar player, Phil Manzenera, unlike Ike the Byrds, achieves lift off
https://youtu.be/-hHpKF_i8KE?feature=shared
Early morning Rain, Eve Cassidy or Elvis
The Big Country – Talking Heads. East Coast elitism that’s hard to say not groove to and then replay
When I Paint My Masterpiece – Dylan
Holiday in Cambodia – Dead Kennedys when you want to go real dark with it
Silver Wings – Merle Haggard – a crime to leave this out
Elton John – Best airplane saying goodbye song ever
I loved the haunting rendition of Jet Plane by Sonya Spence – the best version I’ve ever heard.
Godspeed Lambert.
1952 “You belong to me” by the wonderful Joe Stafford
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOkNnntdGgs
Does this count?
Brian Eno’s ambient piece – Music for Airports
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNwYtllyt3Q
Counts for me!
Of COURSE it counts!
But Burning Airlines Give You So Much More dontcha know – also according to Eno…
Great song!
From Eno’s “Here Come The Warm Jets”. The entire album is brilliant, from start to finish.
Thank you, Lambert!
Tom Petty – Straight into Darkness https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50rY18Q9M4M
I remember flying out to London
I remember the feeling at the time
Out the window of the 747
Man, there was nothing, only black sky
And:
Steve Miller Band – Jet Airliner – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHa1hiFYbFQ
Or Bob Rivers – Beat up Old Jetliner
“Early Morning Rain” by Gordon Lightfoot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B34qwRrkSvQ&t=12s
From https://www.cbc.ca/music/gordon-lightfoot-s-life-in-10-songs-1.6809171:
This folk song was written by Lightfoot in 1964, but the seeds of inspiration for it were germinating years prior, according to an interview with American Songwriter. While watching airplanes on a rainy day, Lightfoot recalled the imagery of “an airplane climbing off into overcast,” and five years later while watching his first-born child, the song finally took shape.
The famous tune would go on to be covered by artists including Ian & Sylvia, Bob Dylan, Judy Collins and even rock star Elvis Presley.
Great song. I actually like the version by The Kingston Trio the best
here is one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqUEPZOUgJU
Not a flight music, though I suppose that the TARDIS can be said to “fly”.
This is how I’ve been feeling in recent weeks:
“Things end, and that’s always sad”
Be well, Lambert, and don’t stop being brilliant.
What about Tom pettys
Free fallin
Learning to fly
We remember you–seems like it was just last week.
Sorry.
In Flying Down to Rio Astaire and Rogers sing the song of the same name while chorus girls dance on airborne biplane wings. There may be a youtube but here’s the Wiki.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Down_to_Rio
Come back again!
not sure if there is any relationship to the movie but there’s this
Rio – Mike Nesmith
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wUv89kx7Yo
For a more tongue in cheek option, there’s ‘Snakes on a Plane’ by Cobra Starship, which is actually somewhat on topic for NC (‘Tonight the sky’s alive with lizards serpentine lounging in their suits and ties’).
‘Five Miles Out’ by Mike Oldfield, about a plane flying through a storm, is one of the only songs I know that’s specifically about the air travel experience. Early 80s prog rock, more than a little ridiculous in places, but a definite ear-worm. It was the first Mike Oldfield piece I ever heard and kicked off my interest in his music. You may need a lyrics page, since neither the early-80s vocoder or Maggie Reilly’s ethereal crooning are at all easy to parse.
Most airplane songs seem to use air travel as a symbol, metaphor or emotional marker. Frequently this is for loss or parting (‘Jet Plane’, ‘Daniel’) but it can also be about reunions (‘The Letter’*) or freedom (‘Come Fly With Me’, ‘Fly Away’). There’s also a significant sub-genre involving planes as high tech aerial combat (‘Aces High’, ‘Danger Zone’, ‘Snoopy vs. the Red Baron’)
*Eva Cassidy did a fantastic cover of this one.
Reminds me of the very, very old Freight Train Freight song from the US jim crow days. Substituting “air plane” for “freight train” in the lyrics.
Air plane, air plane goin’ so fast
Air plane, air plane goin’ so fast
Please don’t tell what plane I’m on
So they won’t know where I’ve gone
[Verse 1]
Air plane, air plane , comin’ round the bend
Air plane , air plain , gone again
One of these days turn that plane around
Go back to my hometown
{chorus}
[Verse 2]
One more place I’d like to be
One more place I’d love to see
To watch those old Blue Ridge Mountains climb
When I ride plane Number Nine
[Chorus again]
Air plane, Air plane goin’ so fast
Air plane, air plane goin’ so fast
Please don’t tell what plane I’m on
So they won’t know where I’ve gone
When I die please bury me deep
Down at the end of Bleecker Street
So I can hear plane Number Nine
As she goes flyin’ by
Elizabeth Cotten, utube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2DCWfBkMSI
Thank you, this is excellent.
Thanks much. Great music is great music.
ChrisPacific: “Snoopy vs. the Red Baron”
Carolinian should be familiar with that one if C ever attended the Greenville Symphony’s Christmas concert at the Peace Center in the Oughts. The Maestro always sang it with a student from the Governor’s School for the Arts, which one year back then was our son.
Also Ornstein’s suicide in an airplane (piano only) from around WW1.
Plane songs!
“Daniel”, Elton John
“Jet Airliner”, Steve Miller Band
Gotta have “Up, Up and Away” by the 5th Dimension-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKkNlwpajNk (2:44 mins)
Bring back the 5th Dimension, when I was a pup I loved this lp. Happier days.
Escaping the craziness by inventing more craziness. Stephen Stills’ Treetop Flyer.
https://youtu.be/NUmIO_MG5IU?si=NKIK9OOHV4e4TwOQ
The Soviet Tu-104 was the USSR’s first passenger jet and (like its engine-inside-the-wing lookalike the De Havilland Comet) badly flawed. After numerous crashes, it was given an early retirement. A popular (though most unofficial!) song went: “Ту-104 – самый быстрый самолёт, за две минуты до могилы довезёт” = “The Tu-104 is the fastest airplane, it will take you to your grave in two minutes.”
Here is a more upbeat Soviet video about the glories of the Tupolev 104:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YAtdVtR1-M
Thank you for your contributions to NC, and I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.
What fun, Lambert and all. I knew no one would think of this, it’s a bit obscure. But, it’s hard hittin’ blues with quite an expression of environmentalism.
Glider by Captain Beefheart.
And then for you Jazzoids, Solo Flight by Charlie Christian
Keep ’em coming friends!
This ones appropriate for our timeline, From the Air, Laurie Anderson
Good evening.
This is your Captain.
We are about to attempt a crash landing.
Please extinuish all cigarettes.
Place your tray tables in their upright, locked position.
Your Captain says: Put your head on your knees. Your Captain says: Put your head on your hands. Captain says: Put your hands on your head.
Put your hands on your hips.
Heh heh.
This is your Captain-and we are going down.
We are all going down, together.
And I said: Uh oh.
This is gonna be some day.
Standby.
This is the time.
And this is the record of the time.
This is the time.
And this is the record of the time.
Uh-this is your Captain again.
You know, I’ve got a funny feeling
I’ve seen this all before.
Why?
Cause I’m a caveman.
Why?
Cause I’ve got eyes in the back of my head.
Why?
It’s the heat.
Standby.
This is the time.
And this is the record of the time.
This is the time.
And this is the record of the time.
Put your hands over your eyes.
Jump out of the plane.
There is no pilot.
You are not alone.
Standby.
This is the time.
And this is the
record of the time.
This is the time.
And this is the record of the time.
No shit.
My now wife of 38.5 years turned me on to this on our first date.
H is cracking up. I just read her your comment. Our experiences are not dissimilar, lol.
Mothership Connection Yo! Make my funk the P-Funk! Fire!
I got this cranking on the stereo right now, thanks!
The golden age of Parliament albums
Hey, if Mothership Connection rates as flight, then Nightflight to Venus (Boney M) works for me. Another great Afro-futurist romp:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDyndnMgCvQ
lyrics:
https://genius.com/Boney-m-nightflight-to-venus-lyrics
Best wishes!
That was a close one ladies and gentlemen, wow!
My little contribution, from the great Charly García, vos también estabas verde.
https://youtu.be/i9Sbh4m-Ssg?si=ZVdwzr8MXegNXVhg
From us millenials
Andrew Bird, Fiery Crash:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2OCbtoa2lA&list=OLAK5uy_kMiSGeNEJr_iuQEDbuTgWygHqw-qXW6q0
Vaya con dios
For the Mile High Club:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LladYTP25NY/
International Lover (2019 Remaster)
You have to listen to the end. Last couple min are…hehehehe
Did someone already mention Learning to Fly by Pink Floyd?
Here’s another airport song – Apple by Charli XCX
I guess the apple don’t fall far from the tree
‘Cause I’ve been looking at you so long
Now I only see me
I wanna throw the apple into the sky
Feels like you never understand me
So I just wanna drive
To the airport, the airport
The airport, the airport
I guess the apple could turn yellow or green
I know there’s lots of different nuances
To you and to me
I wanna grow the apple, keep all the seeds
But I can’t help but get so angry
You don’t listen to me
To the airport, the airport
The airport, the airport
The airport, the airport
The airport, the airport
I’m gonna drive, gonna drive all night
I’m gonna drive, gonna drive all night
I think the apple’s rotten right to the core
From all the things passed down
From all the apples coming before
I split the apple down symmetrical lines
And what I find is kinda scary
Makes me just wanna drive
(Drive, drive, drive, dr-dr-dr-drive, drive, drive)
(I’m gonna drive, gonna drive all night)
(I’m gonna drive, gonna drive all night)
(Drive, drive, drive, dr-dr-dr-drive, drive, drive)
I wanna know where you go
When you’re feeling alone
When you’re feeling alone, do you
I wanna know where you go
When you’re feeling alone
When you’re feeling alone, do you
(Do you, do you, do you, do you)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPWxExGk7PM
Farewell Lambert and thanks!
this is everything i love about this community: critical conversations about life and the world… and references to everyone from charlie christian to charli xcx :)
This is my airplane jam.
https://youtu.be/clvrPmTx4n4?si=1dMbfUOonlALSaZf
As the resident Jimi Hendrix fanboy, let me offer the chorus from “Angel.”
I’ll miss Lambert but not as much as I miss Jimi. (This is more a statement about my fanboyism for Jimi than anything about Lambert.) Of all the musicians and artists that died young, the one I lament the most is Jimi. Stevie Ray Vaughan, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Bob Marley, and even Mozart died tragically young. But I don’t really want to listen to any of that stuff. I want more Hendrix.
Fat Angel – the Donavan version
https://youtu.be/IAK7RRFPyWE?si=qWSicMlLG7zF3q-G
A live cover by the band that got a shout out in Donovan’s lyrics:
“Fat Angel” Jefferson Airplane
Another plane song:
“Only Living Boy in New York” Simon & Garfunkel
And a spaceship song:
“Have You Seen the Stars Tonight?” Jefferson Starship (great Nicky Hopkins accompaniment)
And a couple of train songs I missed on the earlier thread:
“500 Miles” PP&M cover
“Riding on a Railroad” Tom Rush cover (Rush was the first to record this song written by James Taylor)
Lambert, come back and do car and boat songs. ;)
I agree – this one is a lot tougher than trains.
The Replacements – Waitress in the Sky
Holly Throsby – Aeroplane
O’Shea – Smoking on a Plane
Björk – Aeroplane
Another Replacements fan?! Came to post the song, glad I was beaten to it.
Ohhhh, ja, you betcha!
For all of you not-yet Replacements fans in the commentariat, their 1985 major label debut album Tim got a box set royal treatment remix in 2023 that removed all of the 80’s production gloss and massively raised the bar for all future remix box sets. It sold out in less than six months but a 2 CD version of the remix is set to be released next month. Here are a couple more tracks:
The Replacements – Hold My Life (Ed Stasium Mix)
The Replacements – Kiss Me on the Bus (Ed Stasium Mix)
The Replacements – Left of the Dial (Ed Stasium Mix)
The Replacements – Little Mascara (Ed Stasium Mix)
Another from the Chairman of the Board, also with Count Basie and Quincy Jones, Fly Me to the Moon.
Here’s a particular favorite of mine Liz Phair’s Stratford-On-Guy
https://youtu.be/56vkjzu6nEw?si=ZtuKfia3lQOh7xn5
I was flying into Chicago at night
Watching the lake turn the sky into blue-green smoke
The sun was setting to the left of the plane
And the cabin was filled with an unearthly glow
In 27-D I was behind the wing
Watching landscape roll out
Like credits on a screen
The earth looked like it was lit from within
Like a poorly assembled electrical ball as we moved
Out of the farmlands into the grid
The plan of the city was all that you saw
And all of these people sitting totally still
As the ground raced beneath them thirty thousand feet down
It took an hour, maybe a day
But once I really listened, the noise
Just went away
And I was pretending that I was in a Galaxie 500 video
The stewardess came back and checked on my drink
In the last strings of sunlight, a Bridgette Bardot
There’s a hat on my headphones
Along with those eyes that you get
When your circumstance is movie size
It took an hour, maybe a day
But once I really listened, the noise
Just went away
It took an hour, maybe a day
But once I really listened, the noise
Just went away
I love this song. Truly evokes Chicago of a certain time in the 90s. There’s also a video with the lovely Ms. Phair in a plane…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56vkjzu6nEw&t=8
Such a good album
There was a time when a string of DC10 accidents ocurred.
And the great Charly García composed this great song
https://youtu.be/i9Sbh4m-Ssg?si=ZVdwzr8MXegNXVhg
Led Zeppelin “Going To California”
“Took my chances on a big jet plane
Never let ’em tell you that they’re all the same”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhVfuacsLDw
Dierks Bentley – Drunk On A Plane
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrM39m22jH4
Seems that the wrath of the gods got a punch on the nose
I think I might be sinking
What about Taroplane by Captain Beefheart. https://youtu.be/k_wp-4TdRAU?feature=shared
Jet Plane in a Rocking Chair by Richard and Linda Thompson; and then Snoopy and the Red Baron by The Royal Canadians (if I remember correctly).
There’s a motorcycle song around there as well!
1952 Vincent was by RT also.
From Canada, Let’s Stay Engaged, Tragically Hip.
The lp that this is off, trouble at the henhouse, is very good.
Marvin Gaye – Flyin’ High (In The Friendly Sky)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ia89aijDluk
Al Stewart’s Flying Sorcery is about Amy Johnson, the first woman to fly solo from London to Australia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OErRrkqf1s
Amelia, by Joni Mitchell, is another favorite
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsWVRN8DDjs
Thanks Wukchumni,
Amelia is a masterpiece. I once learned to play it on guitar.
Joni’s open tunings and fantastic lyrics…
Rosalie Allen Texas swing yodel: Silver Wings to San Antone
Lambert – Kudos on a an ingenious way to slip out the door…
One more song, contributed by my better half:
“Leaving” by The Indigo Girls
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWXkXvOsM1I
Anything by “The Jefferson Airplane” count?
Farewell to the Ambassador. Hope that nearly gold watch keeps good time.
Ah, my dear Lambert, (I hope you will forgive me this overly personal address to you a WASP from me another WASP).
Here from the D’Oyle Carte Company, a G&S bit from the Mikado. A bit of joyous song. Thank you for all and everything.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=On1aIXfXxOo&list=PLbNeIj4SlBGjSbWIaulW2xpQTp-hNfYAJ&index=37
much shorter: best always.
That reveals a strong bias toward the 60s and 70s, but I can’t help it if my generation had the best music!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yes, it corresponds perfectly with the French Impressionist era exactly a century before, a couple of artistic bookends~
Emmylou Harris. Boulder to Birmingham.
Fare thee well.
Altitude and farewells without a plane:
Across the Great Divide
Thank you
There is no better farewell than John Denver & Cass Elliot performing “Leaving On A Jet Plane” live on Burt Sugarman’s Special.
EIGHT MILES HIGH. Widely assumed to be about a drug trip, but the lyrics work perfectly well as a description of the surreality of modern air travel.
Thanks for everything, Lambert, and happy travels!
This deserves links;
The Byrds – Eight Miles High – 9/23/1970 – Fillmore East
Leo Kottke – Eight Miles High (Live 1977)
Thanks for the links!
Can’t forget “Learn to Fly” by the Foo Fighters!
Or Given to Fly Pearl Jam
Yep. I thought about to posting it, but had to check if it’s already here.
Peter Schilling – Major Tom (Völlig losgelöst…) | 1st German Video Version 1982
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQRaj1vcnrs
p.s. albeit not a song but its about flying…
the “Bumblee´s” cover version as used by Tarantino in Kill Bill I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwh3H8nt5r0
and here the original in – ahem – “Shine” (but it gave Rush his Oscar)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_p6-cAMr_g
Hullo and goodbye for now, Lambert.
I’ve left a message on your official last post but these are all too good suggestions to resist joining in. Unfortunately I could find a suitable Kneecap link, despite their song Harrow Road sampling the British Airways cabin announcements (I don’t think “bucket hat, furry coat, full of coke, I’m losin’ hope” becomes your leaving of us!).
Instead, here’s a song from only slightly less recent times, sung about space travel rather than atmospheric flight and filmed in performance on a supertanker (lol, autocorrect wanted superyankee, how appropriate!). It’s more driving stadium rock opera and less wistfully acoustic singer-songwriter but its still elegaic on loss and departure.
“Starlight”, by Muse
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Pgum6OT_VH8
(Odd synchronicity, Muse and Coldplay are both platinum-selling bands from nowhere, i.e. my bucolic, pastoral Hicksville of Devon, and direct contemporaries of mine – and friends of friends etc. – and Skindred are following in their footsteps).
This a song from the Byrds album Farther Along called Bagful of Money, a song about a man who didn’t complete his airplane trip. It was a plan he had, you see.
Bagful of Money
Thanks for all the musical interludes, including this final one!
As a Rush-head, I must add! Great lyrics from Neil!
Fly By Night (via YouTube)
(original lyrics)
airport scurry – flurry faces
parade of passers-by
people going many places
with a smile or just a sigh
waiting, waiting, pass the time
another cigarette
get in line – gate thirty-nine
the time is not here yet…..
Verse 1
Why try, I know why
The feeling inside me says it’s time I was gone
Clear head, new life ahead
I want to be king now not just one more pawn
Chorus
Fly by night away from here
Change my life again
Fly by night goodbye my dear
My ship isn’t coming and I just can’t pretend
Verse 2
Moon rise, thoughtful eyes
Staring back at me from the window beside
No fright, or hindsight
Leaving behind that empty feeling inside
(Chorus)
Guitar Solo
(Chorus)
(Prog Rock Beat Switch LOL)
Start a new chapter
I find what I’m after
Is changing every day
The change of a season
Is enough of a reason
To want to get away
Quiet and pensive
My thoughts apprehensive
The hours drift away
Leaving my homeland
Playing a lone hand
My life begins today
(Chorus)
I’m glad you suggested Rush’s FBN. Honorable mention should go to their instrumental “YYZ,” too, especially after the recent crash there…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XCCN5umy9lU
Absolutely! For those who don’t know YYZ is the airport code for Toronto Pearson Airport.
:)
…is there even a single song about flying to the moon that is NOT essentially about sex?…
Red Hot Chili Peppers Aeroplane
Thought I would add one more.
Beat up Old Jetliner – Bob Rivers
Goodbye to all my friends I’ve known
And the travel agent I trusted
I’m riding along on this beat-up old plane;
Look out the window. All the rivets are rusted
As that ground crew pushes us backwards
On that rickety L-1011
I’m feeling around for that flotation device
And when the safety film is shown
I’m payin’ close attention
Beat-up old jetliner
Hope you got a tune-up today
Ohhhh, beat-up old jetliner
Did they sneak you past the FAA?
Bouncin’ ’round in a thunder cloud
Landing gear won’t come down
My seatback is up and my belt is on
I see the fire crews sprayin’ foam on the ground
And if I get to my final destination
I know the next flight will surely be free
But I don’t think I’ll go back up
Into that piece of shit just to save a few pennies
Beat-up old jetliner
Won’t carry me too far today
Ohhhh, give me a fresh airliner;
I don’t care what I’ve got to pay
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Beat-up old jetliner
Don’t carry me too far today
Ohhhh, beat-up old jetliner
‘Cause it’s home that I’d rather stay
Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking
I’ve just turned off the no-smokin’ sign
I figure, hell, if the plane’s smokin’ why shouldn’t you?
Come Fly WIth Me. Frank.
A little darker: Tame Impala – Let It Happen (Official Video)
A lot darker: “Nite Flights” The Walker Brothers (or Scott Walker if you prefer):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9uIHjbt8zw&ab_channel=RochesFan
And a reprise by the honourable David Bowie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7777sdhMwFg&ab_channel=B0WIElover
Look up the lyrics, they’re marvellous. Thanks for Eno’s “Burning Airlines”, a real sing-a-long!! Here come the warm jets indeed.
Just a Song Before I Go – CSN
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuko5fhd4mA
20,000 Feet and 747 by Saxon, better known for songs about motorcycles.
Leaving On A Jet Plane
Daniel
Jet Airliner
Lou Reed deserves a listen. Dirty Blvd
This dude was the east village version of Bowie.
“This room cost $2, 000 a month
You can believe it, man, it′s true
Somewhere there’s a landlord′s laughing till he wets his pants”
Been fabulous swapping favorites at the Water Cooler and beyond Lambert. Cheers
Stardust – The Music Sounds Better With You
Soothing, the music of the spheres, thanks, again. Miss you, again. Be well.
Thank you for everything Lambert.
Nancy Griffith “Outbound Plane”
‘Cause if love won’t fly on its own free will
It’s gonna catch that outbound plane!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA4CYKUJSbU
This was great, thanks Lambert!
Susan Raye LA International Airport. 1971
Steve Miller Jet Airliner
From the Vietnam era
Lambert already provided
The Letter — the Boxtops
Sky Pilot – Eric Burdon & The Animals
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lroU7apzma8
Do helicopters count?
This one brings back harsh memories.
More a spoken poem than a song.
Man in the Doorway — Michael Rierson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fq0vFuIcOac
Thank you for this one. Harsh memories indeed.
Best wishes and so many thanks Lambert
lyrics from Summertime…
One of these mornings
You’re going to rise up singing
Then you’ll spread your wings
And you’ll take to the sky
Being bad and embedding entire song, but in part because Jay Leonhart is greatly undererrated and Salamader Pie was a wonderful album.
Thank you Yves for this gem – a real bell-ringer on several levels! My dearly beloveds and their NYC friends and family were all Greenwich Village and Harlem Jazz aficionados- they all piped up in my subconscious saying, “Oh Yeah! More please!” Made my day.
Thank you for the words and for the music Lambert. I wrote a longer comment but somehow don’t succeed in posting it. You will be missed for your writing, especially on Covid and on plants. Your love of life speaks through it all. Wish you the best.
This song, by Cuban singer poet Silvio Rodríguez, is about the men on a fishing boat, the Playa Girón, on which the author spent some time. The boat is named after the beach of the failed invasion of Cuba known in US as the Bay of Pigs.
https://youtu.be/gmOK3NmcDOE?si=Dk3gFrvKKiKQvsVu
https://www.ecured.cu/Playa_Giron_(canci%C3%B3n)
Several Husker Du songs about flight, literal and otherwise:
“Private Plane”
“Dead Set on Destruction”
“Deadly Skies”
“Turn on the News”
“Everything Falls Apart”
“Eight Miles High”
“She Floated Away”
It occurs to me that #4, recorded in 1983, is what everyone said to their friends on 9/11.
WW1 aerial combat maybe? The Royal Guardsmen, Snoopy vs the Red Baron (1966):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icsHJhMeXYo
I loved this song as a little kid.
Alright well someone’s already named Captain Beefheart’s “Glider”, which I adore as both a huge Beefheart fan and a hang glider pilot (and sailplanes and licensed private pilot). The day I heard this song being played in the supermarket is the day I realized I wasn’t totally alone in the world.
And someone else brought up Nancy Griffith’s wonderful “Outbound Plane”, though I do prefer the Tom Russell original; he really belts out those lyrics with the fury that they require.
And another reminded us of The Animal’s “Sky Pilot”, the song which finally explained to me why my dad never came along when mom dragged the family to church every third weekend.
So I’m just going to have to go with something abstract here!
“Mojave” by Afro Celt Sound System
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flB3Ow4gAQ0
This instrumental is all. about. flight. Exhilirating, energetic, aerobatic flight. Trust me (see above for credentials).
Yes, it’s loooong. Engines don’t even frickin’ start until 3:20
Takeoff roll begins at 5:22
Liftoff at 5:36
Landing at 10:23
SPEAKING OF TOM RUSSELL
“Blue Wing” by Tom Russell Band
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgLWE-HLw1o
“It’s dark in here; can’t see the sky
But I look at this blue wing and I close my eyes
And I fly away beyond these walls
Up above the clouds where the rain don’t fall
On a poor man’s dream”
Lambert- Thank you for everything; helping keep us aware, engaged, safe, sane, alive, amused, and in awe.
Safe travels, hope to see you on the road…
Helpers- “We’d like to help you make your trip”- Country Joe and the Fish, “Flying High” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtfXPFRg2gw
“Watching Airplanes” Gary Allan.
https://youtu.be/HnYsyfEJ-i8
If it needs to be said..
https://www.raygunsite.com/products/be-a-helper
A song about one of the Ur-flights
Flight of Icarus by Iron Maiden
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p4w2BZXL6Ss&pp=ygUZSXJvbiBtYWlkZW4gZmxpZ2h0IGljYXJ1cw%3D%3D
Iron Maiden – Aces High
A Keir Stormer Agent 008 dream – boots on the ground, planes in the air
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg9aQvjMS60&pp=ygUVSXJvbiBtYWlkZW4gYWNlcyBoaWdo
Motörhead Bomber
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=R9-smBLCGbM&pp=ygUQbW90b3JoZWFkIGJvbWJlcg%3D%3D
Status Quo Paper Plane
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4QTp8lTzqUI
A song of the Soviet jet fighter pilot plus a lot of rare footage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYfBr1gay4Y
Russian song about SU-25 pilots (The Rooks Have Arrived)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCQ46JNwyKs
Thanks. Here’s the same song I posted earlier with English subs but worse quality. My Russian is a bit rusty, seems to be ground support/bomber too. Lyrics are rather relevant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85eR3y-W3ds
That one’s about Su-24 (two in a cockpit shoulder to shoulder, variable-sweep wing), a tactical bomber.
Three Byrds numbers come to mind ……
8 miles high (Untitled album version is recommended)
Gunga Din (Gene Parsons from Ballad of Easy Rider)
Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos) (also from Easy Rider album)
The most relevant to current US politics would seem to be the Byrds version of Woody’s “Deportee” plane crash from 1969.
The crops are all in, and the peaches are rotten
The oranges are all packed in the creosote dumps
They’re flying them back to the Mexican Border
To save all their money then wade back again
My father’s own father, he waded that river
Others before him have done just the same
They died in the hills, and they died in the vallies
Some went to heaven without any name
Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita
Adiós mi amigo, Jesus y María
You won’t have a name when you ride the big airplane
All they will call you will be “Deportee”
Some of us are illegal, and others not wanted
Our work contracts out, and we have to move on
Six-hundred miles to the Mexican Border
They chase us like rustlers, like outlaws, like thieves
Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita
Adiós mi amigo, Jesus y María
You won’t have a name when you ride the big airplane
And all they will call you will be “Deportee”
The sky-plane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon
A fireball of thunder, it shook all the hills
Who are all these dear friends scattered like dry leaves?
The radio said they were just deportees
Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita (Adiós a mi Juan, adiós Rosalita)
Adiós mi amigo, Jesus y María
You won’t have a name when you ride the big airplane (No tendrá un nombre en aquel aeroplano)
All they will call you will be “Deportee” (Le van a poner “Deportee”)
Adiós a mi Juan (Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita)
Adiós Rosalita
Adiós mis amigos, Jesus and Maria (Adiós mi amigo, Jesus y María)
No tendrá ningún nombre en el aeroplano (You won’t have a name when you ride the big airplane)
El nombre que le van a poner (All they will call you)
Va a ser
Deportee
Poor bastards then poor bastards now
I used to know a version of that about US-backed dictators who had been overthrown. “Goodbye Ferdinand, Goodbye my Imelda, Jose Duvalier, Anastasio Somoza. You won’t have a name when you ride that big airplane, and all they will call you will be deposees.”
Neutral Milk Hotel “In the Aeroplane over the Sea,” from the album of the same name — really to be listened to in its entirety, but still:
https://youtu.be/0_5qaeIAl5E?list=OLAK5uy_nOx8AXAeiL92BmZv5ss13uKbkWGRXs79E
Godspeed Lambert.
Ian and Sylvia’s version of Gordon Lightfoot’s “Early Morning Rain”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyhZXdJ_4l0
I loved Ian and Sylvia, so thanks. Brings back a lot of memories. It’s been an incredible ride, Lambert. Be well.
Kenny Loggins (and Giorgio Moroder) – Danger Zone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siwpn14IE7E
I’m a bit late but this reflects my late 80s musical tendency…Jet City Woman by the Seattle band Queensryche. Geoff Tate on lead vocals had an amazing range.
Fare thee well Lambert, into the next iteration of where your path is leading and many thanks for all of your work and keen witticism. And to add one last thing, so eloquently summarized by Yogi Berra, when you come to a fork in the road you should take it.
Lambert, I really can’t thank you enough for all you’ve done. Here are a few more jawns to send you off:
Cannonball Adderley Quintet “Hi-Fly”
Jay Dee/J Dilla “Flyyyyy”
RZA “Flying Birds”
Yokota Susumu “Flying Cat”
…and a remix: Three 6 Mafia & Dazz Band “Let It Stay Fly“
They didn’t really have any airplane songs, but the Flying Burrito Brothers definitely had the name for this thread…
The Train Song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBaEVOSRK2A
Sorry to be late to the party. Oh Atlanta by Little Feat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osuvybCkK4g
Thanks Lambert. Happy Trails!
“Flight” by Craig Carnelia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4TsrTLfY70
From Broadway…
“Come From Away”
————————-
“38 Planes”
“Me and the Sky”
Catch Me if You Can
————————-
“Jet Set”
“Fly, Fly Away”
Always a good time for flying with A3:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_yt8_vs_HU
Helikopter Quartett – Stockhausen
If you dare
Alles Gute, Lambert!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PD_zJdPEd4&t=1477s
Travelin’ Band – Credence Clearwater Revival
If helicopters count, ‘If I Had a Rocket Launcher’ – Bruce Cockburn
‘Ride of the Valkyries’ may bring images of flight to mind via various movies.
To Live is to Fly Townes Van Zandt
When I heard the Grateful Dead song Casey Jones ( ” drivin’ that train, high on cocaine, Casey Jones you better watch your speed . . . etc.) , I thought that could be re-written for airplanes. But I could only come up with a few line fragments. . . Flyin’ that plane, high on cocaine, Casey Jones you better watch your speed. . . and flight 202, on the wrong flight path headed for you . . . stewardess screams and engines just gleam . . etc.
Maybe someone else can do the whole song.
A little hip hop from B.o.B. and the singer Hayley Williams from Paramore, “Airplanes”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn6-c223DUU
‘Contrails’ by Hikouki Gumo (from Studio Ghibli’s ‘The Wind Rises’).
Not following protocol but this seems right.
Thanks for everything, Lambert.
Bird on the Wire, Leonard Cohen
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BGvwvxA83Cs&pp=ygUeYmlyZCBvbiB0aGUgd2lyZSBsZW9uYXJkIGNvaGVu
Silver Convention – Fly, Robin, Fly (NDR 1975)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8XrB3u7oZY
Guided by Voices have several
White striped jets
Mighty pro jet
Not behind the fighter jet
From Dayton after all
Elvis may be the King, but – the rhymes, the guitar riffs, even the duck walk – Promised Land is really Chuck Berry’s song.
Utah Philips’ “Enola Gay” comes to mind:
Look out, look out from your schoolroom window
Look up young children from your play
Wave your hand at the shining airplane
Such a beautiful sight is Enola Gay
It’s many a mile from the Utah desert
To Tinian Island far away
Standing guard by the barbed wire fences
That hide the secret of Enola Gay
High above the clouds in the sunlit silence
So peaceful here, I’d like to stay
But there’s many a pilot who would swap his pension
For a chance to fly Enola Gay
What is that sound high above my city?
I rush outside and search the sky
Now we are running to find the shelter
The air raid sirens start to cry
What will I say when my children ask me
Where was I flying upon that day?
With trembling voice I gave the order
To the bombardier of Enola Gay
Look out, look out from your schoolroom window
Look up, young children from your play
Your bright young eyes will turn to ashes
In the blinding light of Enola Gay
I turn to see the fireball rising
“My God, My God” all I can say
I hear a voice within me crying
My mother’s name was Enola Gay
Look out, look out from your schoolroom window
Look up, young children from your play;
When you see those war planes flying
Each one is named Enola Gay
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark – Enola Gay
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5XJ2GiR6Bo