In memorial of Maurice White, I was listening to Earth, Wind, & Fire tonight.

"Let's Groove" (1981) features the lyric, "...fly like a 747".

It got me thinking about music in which specific aircraft are mentioned.

The first words of "Travelin' Band" by Creedence Clearwater Revival (1970) are, "737 coming out of the sky, won't you take me down to Memphis..."

Any other songs, mainstream or obscure, that give nods to specific aircraft types?

In the Early Morning Rain (707)

ELO: Calling America. Across the water on a 747...
Albert Hammond: It never rains in Southern lCalifornia Got on board a west bound 747

[Edited 2016-02-05 16:26:34]

"Tom Ford" by Jay-Z has the line "...international, bring back the Concorde."

Jet Airplane by Steve Miller Band. "As I get on the 707"

"Barcelona" in Stephen Sondheim's "Company" mentions "on a Boeing", but not a specific model.

The Clash - "Spanish Bombs": "Spanish bombs on the Costa Rica / I'm flying in a DC 10 tonight"
Tinie Tempah - "Pass Out": "I’m pissed, I never got to fly on a Concorde"

Not a type, but a tango song from the 90's that I read about in a book (I forgot the name) mentions American Flight 587.

Not a type of aircraft, but an airline if that counts...

Chase & Status ft. Tinie Tempah - Hits

"I don't wanna hear another n**** say you fly
If you ain't never been on business class on the Emirates"

Not saying this in a "look it up yourself" manner at all, but IIRC some of Wikipedia's pages for particular types have references to appearances in popular culture, including music.

Like a G6 - FEM
Referring to gulf stream IV

Pink Floyd, Money: "And I think I need a Lear jet."

http://www.pink-floyd-lyrics.com/html/money-dark-lyrics.html

Who remembers Laurie Anderson, Oh Superman? "They're American planes, made in America. Smoking or non-smoking."

http://youtu.be/QH2x5pARGdE

For classic country fans -- Joe Ely, "Dallas From a DC9 At Night"

Lil Wayne - Well, I'm fly as son of a gun a son
Of a Stunner (yep)
High as a 757 going to heaven (no)

Rodney O - Everlasting Bass: We fly 747s not DC10s

Drake 2 On "Your man's gone and you don't miss him
Book you flights and confirmation
Southwest Airlines you'll still take it"

B.G. : I ride the best from a benz to a jag to a beamer to a lex
Might fly first class on Delta, helicopter or a jet
I'm a stunter, I'm a reppa

Rodney-O, Everlasting Bass (mid 80s rap song):

"We ride on 747's, not DC-10's"

There have been some earlier threads on this subject. A few here:
Songs About Planes... Add Them Here (by Mortyman Nov 1 2007 in Civil Aviation)#110
Airplane Types Mentioned In Songs (by THUD Feb 9 2005 in Civil Aviation)
http://iwww.airliners.net/aviation-f...ums/non_aviation/read.main/2588066

Quoting Yflyer (Reply 13): For classic country fans -- Joe Ely, "Dallas From a DC9 At Night"

Australian artist Paul Kelly references that song in his, "Sydney from a 747":

Quote: Have you ever seen Sydney from a 747 at night? Me, I've never seen Dallas from a DC-9

A more contemporary Australian example: The Jezabels' "No Country":

Quote: I bet you're at some kind of party. I bet you're like a superstar there. I hope you're on an A380 outta here.

Not an aircraft but a flight type I suppose.

"I Don't Care" by New Boyz

"let's swim in alcohol and hop up on our red-eye kush flight."

Dierks Bentley's "Drunk on a Plane" - "got this 737 rocking like a G6"

Liten og Grønn (Small and Green)

About Widerøe's Twin Otter, by Øystein Sunde, Norway

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDOAcANgqRo

Text: (Google translated from Norwegian)

I am a Twin Otter on the way from Mo I Rana
A green and small knob in a hurry
I cavort among fjords and mountains and clouds
Sightseeing in Our Lord's funfair

But here's more than you think
Between Heaven and Earth
I have the body stuffed full of people and livestock
Here is the mail which shall forward
And newspapers likewise
And a scared folk singer on tour

Morning, morning Sandnessjøen, here I am
Green and small, seasick, but happy
I am a Twin Otter on the way from Mo I Rana
I have a hundred miles again
Before I get docked

It isn't easy being green when you are small
But it's worse to be livid when one is big
People are supposed to travel so damn fast nowadays
And NSB are stuck in old tracks

So when it storms from south-west
Then I like myself best
I arm wrestle with Odin and Thor
So when SAS will not
And when Braathen dares not
Then I'm dancing around Torghatten as before

Morning, morning Sandnessjøen, here I am
Green and small, seasick, but happy
I am a Twin Otter on the way from Mo I Rana
I have a hundred miles again
Before I get docked

But many believe that I am too old
A faithful servant of time is soon past
Demoted to hopelessly old lumber
A graphics tablet fossil forever

But yet hovering mother
High above Mother Earth
And taking a ceiling where the roof is most needed
Although the weather opposes
I put my foot down
Just as safe as any mountain horse

Morning, morning Sandnessjøen, here I am
Join a tour, you shall see
On a Twin Otter on the way from Mo I Rana
Having two or three more years
Before it's all over

Quoting drerx7 (Reply 14): Well, I'm fly as son of a gun a son Of a Stunner (yep) High as a 757 going to heaven (no) " B.G. : I ride the best from a benz to a jag to a beamer to a lex Might fly first class on Delta, helicopter or a jet I'm a stunter, I'm a reppa

This is an English language forum. Please consider in future posts. Thank you.

Bandits at 8 o'clock move in behind us
Ten ME-109's out of the sun
Ascending and turning out spitfires to face them
Heading straight for them I press my guns.

Rolling, turning, diving
Rolling, turning, diving, goin' again
Run, live to fly, fly to live, do or die
Run, live to fly, fly to live, Aces high.

UP THE IRONS!

"Scream a thousand miles
Feel the black death rising moan
Firestorm coming closer
Napalm to the bone
Because, you know we do it right
A mission every night
It's a Bomber
It's a Bomber
It's a Bomber"

Motorhead
The lighting rig for subsequent tours was designed to look like the He-111 bomber. IT"S A BOMBER!IT"S A BOMBER!ITS A BOMBER!

"Imagine a man when it all began
The pilot of 'Enola Gay'
Flying out of the shockwave on that August day
All the powers that be, and the course of history
Would be changed forevermore..."

Rush - Manhattan Project

Larry Norman - Stop This Flight

"Sixteen hours from London, flying on a DC-10
"

One of my fav Hip-Hop groups A Tribe Called Quest made up an aircraft in their song "Award Tour"

"The wackest crews try to diss, it makes me laugh
When my track record's longer than a DC-20 aircraft
So, next time that you think you want somethin here
Make something def or take that garbage to St. Elsewhere"

Waaay too much time on my hands, but I read carefully through this thread as well as the others listed above and I believe I have a pretty obvious one that everyone missed:

"then you flew your Learjet up to Nova Scotia to see the total eclipse of the sun"

(Carly Simon - "You're So Vain")

Not a well known song, but one from the hip hop underground by an up and coming artist known as PEK777:

"I have it all, but still got one wish
I need a plane that can fly all these fish

Had it with these Boeing seven-threes
No mid-cabin lav and I need to pee

80,000 pound Rolls at the throttle
Honey, hand me that Jack Daniels bottle

Bring back that seven-five-seven
Turn left at 2L and I'm in heaven

And playa, you know that I am not fooling
Cuz everybody knows Boeing still has the tooling...."

Quoting caoimhin (Thread starter): Any other songs, mainstream or obscure, that give nods to specific aircraft types?

Stuka-Lied dedicated to the JU-87
Lied der Junker dedicated to JU-88
ME 109 Lied dedicated to the ME-109

Not a plane type, but LH had its own march (Lufthansa Marsch) as did many other companies, e.g. C&A (C&A Marsch)

Audio Adrenaline DC-10 mentions both the DC-10 and the 747:

"Do you know where you will go?
If a DC-10 ever fell on your head
Laying in the ground all messy and dead"

And further:

"747 fell out of heaven
Crashed through the roof of a 7-11
You're working on a slurpee
Things get hazy
Reach for a twinkie now you're pushing up daisies
Do you know where you're gonna go?"

Lady Antebellum and JJ Sheridan with songs named "747" as well.

Quoting skyhawkmatthew (Reply 17): Australian artist Paul Kelly references that song in his, "Sydney from a 747":

Actually, I think it's "Sydney From a 727".

Golden Oldie from the 70´s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRrHkST-4cA

Silver Convention - Dancing in the aisle...on a 747

Cheers   

[Edited 2016-02-05 23:59:15]

"G5 dealer US to Taiwan"

"Good feeling" Flo rida

Best regards
Thomas

Roger Miller - Boeing 707
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oauujbL_dH8

We danced to the music
At the Mardi-Gras
Then jumped on the Concorde
You're so lah-di-dah

Bill Wyman - Si Si Je Suis Un Rock Star - the song also references BEA.

We've got a 747 coming down in the night
There's no power, there's no runway lights
Radio operator try to get a message through
Tell the flight deck New York has no lights

Saxon - 747 (Strangers in the Night)

This makes me think of the Dutch song "KL 204" by Peter Koelewijn. Eventough the song doesn't mention any specific aircraft type it clearly is about a KL flight out of AMS.

Google translation:

The Utrecht-Amsterdam motorway I ride in Vinkeveen
No more than one further Caballero exit Schiphol Amstelveen
I take the bend then sharply
Some ash falls on your skirt and you look at me
I turn the radio softly, but I know nothing more
From everything I have just said to myself
Do you think this time the same?
But to go back we went too far
You give me fire for a new Caballero
And in the distance rises a jet of Martinair
Ooh, I love you, I believe in the hall
The whole world is where we stand between
And a voice says: Would all passengers
For KL 204 go to the exit

If I were God
And silver bird flew past
Together with you far away from me
If I were God
If I were God
Then picked my hands u'm from the air
And I brought you back to me again
If I were God
Oh ho ....

But ten kilometers high in your flying machine
Can you give me all would not you want to see more

You still says softly: I write you when everything is settled
I nod only okay, but you know I'm already too much wrong
Then you go through passport control
You look a bit around and wave at me, huh
I smile, but something in me dies
Because I know that now it's really over
I stare out the window of the restaurant
And see Schiphol at night
On a runway far flashing light
Since an El Al is introduced
The coffee is hot and bitter
A flight attendant laughs and it sounds hollow:
The last call for passengers
The KL 204, oh I hate Schiphol

Because if I was God
And silver bird flew past
Together with you far away from me
If I were God
If I were God
Then picked my hands u'm from the air
And I brought you back to me again
If I were God
Oh ho ....

But ten kilometers high in your flying machine
Can you give me all would not you want to see more

The Utrecht-Amsterdam motorway I drive off in Vinkeveen
There are about three clubs in Hilversum
And there I go thither

"LA Internaional Airport" by Susan Raye

"Flying high above the heaven in a seven forty seven......

the Beatles 'Back in the USSR' starts with

Flew in from Miami Beach BOAC
Didn't get to bed last night
On the way the paper bag was on my knee
Man, I had a dreadful flight
I'm back in the U.S.S.R.

So no type mentioned but it starts and ends with the sound of a Vickers Viscount (Rolls Royce Dart engines).
BOAC didn't fly them but in theory the 'I' person (Paul McCartney) could have changed on Heathrow onto a BEA Viscount although they didn't fly east of the Iron Curtain by 1968 when he wrote and recorded this song.

Slightly off topic but relevant.... Rush-YYZ. While no lyrics in this song the beginning notes are Y-Y-Z tapped out in morse code on percussion. The song is a tribute to the home airport in Toronto.

Just found another one.

Iron Maiden - Tailgunner

Nail that Fokker kill that son
Gonna blow your guts out with my gun

Quoting PatrickZ80 (Reply 36): This makes me think of the Dutch song "KL 204" by Peter Koelewijn. Eventough the song doesn't mention any specific aircraft type it clearly is about a KL flight out of AMS.

Singer Frans Halsema mentions Buitenveldert and a DC-9...in the song "Buitenveldert".


No Tax On Rotax

Quoting PEK777 (Reply 28): "I have it all, but still got one wish I need a plane that can fly all these fish

Quoting Revelation (Reply 34): !!! THE WINNER !!!

Dude! Now I want to hear this for real.. 


My contribution : there's a band called El Ten Eleven, you can listen to one of their songs here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfM46XR8wGQ

Iron Maiden - Empire of the Clouds

A beautiful song about the crash of the R101 on its maiden flight.

Travelin' Band by CCR:

"737 falling out of the sky"

Not surprisingly included in the list of songs banned on the radio for a while following 9/11...

The Foo Fighters have a song called A320. Its all about flying.

"close my eyes and hope that its a real smooth flight this time"

Great song!!

"Fashion Pack", a disco song from late 70s by Euro-diva Amanda Lear:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klzzOfCZU98


"In people always have to smile in Vogue
They only travel by Concorde
Doing things you can't afford.
They are the fashion pack
People you see in the magazines..."

Blue Oyster Cult had a song titled Me262.

There was a Greek song in 1973 that had these lyrics:
" on a boat, on a train, on a jumbo jet
going to Hamburg, or to Melbourne, even to Quebec..."

(Jumbo jets were all in fashion in 1973 and Olympic had just taken delivery of its first one).

Quoting johns624 (Reply 47): Blue Oyster Cult had a song titled Me262.

Yea!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMG1WCVff0I