MLT Club Member Jürgen
MLT Club MemberForum Replies Created
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Hallo Tobias,
politically committed musicians have had very hard time in recent years. No, they have not disappeared, they have been disappeared. If you say or think the wrong thing as a musician or artist at the moment, your career will suddenly end very quickly. In our society there is no longer discussion but strife and defamation. Freedom of expression and fundamental rights have suffered greatly. The society is divided. It makes me very sad to see this.
U2 have always been a politically engaged band. Also the Simple Minds and Bob Geldof. Some Depeche Mode songs are also thought provoking, as is Eddie Grant in the tradition of Bob Marley. I never saw Reinhard Mey as particularly political. But you could be right, some of his lyrics are quite socially critical.
It is true that musical lyrics can be interpreted in different ways. And that’s the nice thing about it: everyone can pull the part out of it that gives him courage. It stimulates discussion. To talk to each other and not against each other.
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No matter how hard we humans try, we will probably never achieve the elegance and lightness with which Mother Nature takes off to the skies (but we don’t have to…). The earth from a very unusual perspective:
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The Evolution Of Flight
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What must it have been like to fly around the world in a passenger plane at the time the Beatles were touring? In the so-called golden age of air travel.
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The Beatles got around quite a bit during their tours. They saw places and locations that were inaccessible to many of their contemporaries. And they probably enjoyed it. Except for George Harrison: he is said to have had quite a fear of flying. No wonder. The flights of that time were really much rougher than today. I read somewhere, in some Beatle biography, the following anecdote (I can’t remember where and I’ll try to reproduce it): During a domestic flight with a multi-engine propeller plane, the co-pilot joined his guests after he had noticed what prominent musicians he had on board. The pilot also joined them after a while. He had activated the autopilot. And while they were sitting there chatting comfortably several thousand meters above the ground, George looked out of the window and said: “Hey, is that one of the engines of our plane on fire?” The pilots also looked out the window and sure enough, one of the engines emitted smoke. The pilots managed to bring the fire under control and land the plane with the remaining engines. Did it really happen that way? Maybe. In any case, it is a nice story. From that point on, I would also have boarded any plane with mixed feelings.
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In the 30’s, a song for a movie was composed , which over the decades became the aviation anthem: “Flieger grüss mir die Sonne“. There is hardly a pilot among us who has not heard or sung the chorus at least once (there was also a New Wave version that was played in discos in the 80s).
„Flieger grüß mir die Sonne“ (Aviator/Flyer many greetings from me to the sun)
From the North Pole to the South Pole
It's just a stone's throw
We fly the route
In any weather
We don't wait, we start
Whatever happens
Through wind and weather
Sounds the flyer song:
Flyer, say hello to the sun
Say hello to the stars
And hello to the moon!
Your life,
This is the levitation
through the distance
Which nobody inhabits!
Faster and faster and faster
Spins the propeller
How I like it
pilots
Nothing is forbidden!
And at full throttle
Jet around the world -
When Mike Oldfield’s album „Five Miles Out“ was released in 1982, it received negative reviews: Mike Oldfield had dared to include chart-worthy songs in his album. „Five Miles Out“ was my first LP by Mike Oldfield and it is still one of his favourite albums for me: not because of the singles, but as a complete work: once started, a wild ride through space and time begins, which unfortunately ends after 50 minutes.
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Perhaps the following video clip will inspire you (sorry, some video links are shown here without a preview):
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„Ladies and Gentlemen, we would like to inform you that this is a smoking flight. Smoking is also expressly permitted in the toilet cabins. The cabin crew will be glad to help you with the lighter“
Jung that’s how the announcement might have sounded in the golden age of scheduled flights. Well, I really don’t miss smoking now. The aviation industry experienced its first big crash after 09/11. And the last three years have also been pure poison for the airline and travel industry. Luxurious flying still exists, but it is almost no longer affordable. Airlines are really struggling. I can live with the dwindling board service, but not so much with the dwindling space inside the planes.
Yeah, you saw right: George used John’s head as an ashtray. Really not nice. But John wasn’t always nice to George either…
Thank you for the beautiful song “Spicks and Specks”. I had heard the song before but never associated it with the BeeGees. The video is imaginatively designed.
Maybe not 100% a „flyer“ song, but a beautiful and melancholy song about flying and letting go:
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Jung we flew regularly for a few years. Sandra behind the flight stick, I behind my camera (see photos below). The Ruhr area and also the Rhineland as far as Düsseldorf and Cologne are a very varied landscape when seen from the air. Unfortunately, we haven’t taken off in recent years because helicopter charters have become very expensive. Too bad. Sandra flew to Spain with her flight instructor during her training. Once over the Alps. My longest helicopter flight was from Essen to Berlin for the International Aviation Show. It was quite windy that day and although we flew with a large modern helicopter model, it wasn’t really relaxed flying. Less gliding than rodeo riding. And I didn’t envy the professional pilots who had to complete their flights in almost any weather and always under time pressure and every day of the week. Passion gave way to routine.
Your idea to try skydiving sounds exciting. Too exciting for me: I don’t think I could bring myself to jump out of a plane. The 5-meter diving tower, in an open-air swimming pool, used to be a real challenge for me. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that you’ll take off or levitate sometime, depending on the situation. And if not, we have a saying: “If the prophet does not come to the mountain, then the mountain comes to the prophet”. Perhaps the following video clip will inspire you:
https://youtu.be/xVgxeuK7i90?t=90
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David, at the same time as the series launch of Battlestar Galactica in the US, a slightly shortened version of the pilot plot was shown in cinemas in some countries. Including Europe, Canada and Japan (according to wikipedia). I saw this version in the cinema in 1978. At least that fits into my personal chronology. The series was broadcast in our country much later (as usual, because the film rights had to be acquired first and the whole thing still had to be syncronised). Sometime in the 80s the time had come. Which brings us to Tron. Yes, I also saw it in the cinema. An impressive and great movie at the time. Even if the computing power was not yet sufficient to depict the evil MCP as computer animation.
In the 60s, Germany even produced its own science fiction series: Raumpatrouille Orion (I know, nobody here but me will know it, but I mentioned it once…). The whole thing reminded me a little of Star Trek. It was a real Blockbuster.
Oh yes, and then there was Buck Rogers (1979-1981 series). Unfortunately, only the pilot film was broadcast here. But it was very entertaining. And of course „2001: A Space Odyssey“. I still haven’t really understood the movie, but fortunately I’m not the only one…
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Wow, Star Wars. Goosebumps feeling. Darth Vader who was looking for his asthma spray for 90 (film) minutes and couldn’t find it. The manic and constantly chattering C-3PO. The lovely but snappy Princess Leah. The notoriously badly coiffed Chewbacca and of course Yoda, whose wisdom and insight makes Confucius look like an amateur:
„When you look at the dark side, careful you must be. For the dark side looks back“
-Yoda-I must have been around ten years old when I saw Star Wars in the cinema for the first time. From today’s point of view: a surprisingly little plot, but an endless fun factor. After that, Battlestar Galactica was shown in the cinemas. Not as good as Star Wars, but food for my young, inquisitive soul. I was actually hooked by the TV series Star Trek. Still absolutely worth seeing today (even if partly trashy). After that, “Space: 1999” was broadcast. I can’t remember the content, but I can remember the strange spacecraft called “Eagle”. My friends gave me one of these for my birthday (no, just a model…). I still own that today.
The following aircraft from the newer science fiction era still inspired me:
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Hi Daryl,
the party isn’t over until all the lights are out and the last guest has left. Thanks for the photo: a very nice machine. I can well imagine that you really miss your time as an active pilot and that you can certainly tell many exciting anecdotes. You’ve probably also seen wonderful landscapes from above (although as a commercial pilot you certainly didn’t always have the time to enjoy the view). What did you fly: passengers or cargo? Did you only fly in the North West Canada area or did you have other flights as well? I think small planes often give a much more intense and direct feeling of flying than the big machines can do.
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Hi JP,
thank you for sending us this interesting song by Pink Floyd. And thanks also for the lyrics. It’s noticeable that this song was written during a period of change for Pink Floyd. The song still sounds a bit like the album “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn” but also more grown up. I think the song marks a point in their career where they literally relaunched and pointed in a new direction. They soon learned to fly, even without Syd Barrett.
A soul in tension that's learning to fly
Condition grounded but determined to try
Can't keep my eyes from the circling skies -
I’m in the loop now, thanks David. When I was a child, we had a four-part TV show “Robbi, Tobbi und das FlieWaTüt”. The story was about the young inventor Tobbi, his robot friend Robbi and their flying companion FlieWaTüt (it can fly -fliegen- = “Flie” / it can swim on the water = “Wa” and honk like a car = “Tüt”). It was a mixture of marionette puppets and real film material accompanied by a groovy title music. Unbelievable for me at that time. A real cult for some of my generation to this day:
