foxmonkey | Lyrics I Love. #1

I love words. I love the history of words, and how they came to be, and how they're strung together to voice our thoughts to others. It amazes me, listening to other languages as well as my own, that mankind has the capacity to process so many different sounds to mean so many different things. Meaningful vocalization. You gotta love it.

I had a habit in my Lit classes, of underlining bits and snippets of sentences that I loved or found interesting. I might even underline a single word, just one thing that stood out and caught my attention. I used an ultra-thin orange pen, because - and the English majors will know what I'm talking about - those Norton anthologies? Pages like rice paper, dude.

Anyway.

So. I mentioned this in my one hundred things meme:

29) I love "Learning to Fly" by Pink Floyd. Also "Comfortably Numb." Wrote a story for lit class based on that song.

I'm a freak about flying. It terrifies me in ways I can't begin to relate. I love these lyrics because for just a few minutes, I can relate. I see planes overhead and like structured language, I'm amazed at what humans can do. We can defy gravity to get us to the places we need to go. It freaks me out, but it's pretty damn amazing. We can friggin' fly.

I'm feeling inexplicably random, and as a result, I'm going to randomly ramble here in my little space and invite you along for the ride.

God, I love this song.

LEARNING TO FLY
Pink Floyd 1986

Into the distance, a ribbon of black,
stretched to the point of no turning back.
A flight of fancy on a windswept field,
Standing alone my senses reeled.
A fatal attraction is holding me fast,
How can I escape this irresistable grasp?

Can't keep my eyes from the circling sky,
Tongue-tied and twisted just an earth-bound misfit, I.

Ice is forming on the tips of my wings,
Unheeded warnings, I thought I thought of everything.
No navigator to guide my way home,
Unladen, empty and turned to stone.

A soul in tension that's learning to fly,
Condition grounded but determined to try.
Can't keep my eyes from the circling skies,
Tongue-tied and twisted just an earth-bound misfit, I.

Above the planet on a wing and a prayer,
My grubby halo, a vapour trail in the empty air.
Across the clouds I see my shadow fly,
Out of the corner of my watering eye.
I dream unthreatened,
By the morning light,
Could blow this soul right through the roof of the night.

There's no sensation to compare with this,
Suspended animation, a state of bliss.
Can't keep my eyes from the circling skies,
Tongue-tied and twisted just an earth-bound misfit, I.