Top 5 Flying Songs of All Time
In recent articles, we covered top aviation books, movies, games, and more. There’s been a lot of great music written over the years with flying themes. Next time you’re on a long flight or drive you can access Pandora’s flying songs and enjoy 100 songs all about aviation – over five hours worth. From that list, we’ve chosen the top 10 as a teaser to get you going.
1. Learning to Fly
Tom Petty’s classic “Learning to Fly” has to be number one for us. “I’m learning to fly but I ain’t got wings,” is just too appropriate to pass over for a flight school. Whether or not Tom was actually singing about something else aside from flight school we’ll never know. It was probably flight school though. Check out the live acoustic version featuring Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks.
2. Leaving on a Jet Plane
John Denver should be in every pilot’s music rotation. This classic song has been in countless movies over the years. Denver was not only a world-famous musician, but he was a pilot with over 2,700 hours of experience. Tragically Denver died when his experimental Rutan Long-EZ plane aircraft crashed into Monterey Bay in 1997.
3. Rocket Man
One of Elton John’s most famous songs had an aviation theme. “Rocket Man” was written by Sir Elton and his longtime partner Bernie Taupin. The song was about the isolation of space travel during the 1970s Apollo moon explorations. “Rocket Man” became a top 10 hit on the Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. Today the song can still be heard on the airwaves and in a number of Hollywood movies.
4. Wind Beneath My Wings
Bette Midler’s Grammy Award-winning song reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1990. The song was first recorded by Kamahl in 1982 for a country-western album. The Bette Midler version was released for the soundtrack of the movie “Beaches” starring Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey.
5. Learning to Fly
No, we’re not repeating ourselves, there are two songs on our top 5 with the same name. Because we’re a flight school? Maybe, or could be that these songs are just too good to not list. The second “Learning to Fly” is written and performed by one of the all-time icon British rock bands – Pink Floyd. The song takes listeners up on an imaginary flight starting with a preflight check. The official video featuring a hang glider and low-flying single-engine airplane is a must-watch.
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