Entertainment For Lively Minds
Tobias Wilcock
Posted by Fraser Lewry on 23 February 2011 - 12:24pm.
In Typically Tropical's 1975 smash hit Barbados, Captain Tobias Wilcock welcomes psassengers aboard "Coconut Airways flight 372 to Bridgetown Barbados." Meanwhile, there's a version of Fela Kuti's Ololufe Mi in which a stewardess greets listeners on "flight 002 to Africa".
Are there any more examples of fake airline passenger announcements being used to set the tone of a song?
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I'm Mandy Fly Me
I think.
And I'm sure
Clouds Across The Moon does something along those lines too.
Clouds Across The Moon
Can't believe you didn't post the video. Fantastic.
Oh yes
Now that's what I call a wonderful song! The drama! The pathos! the key change! Marvellous.
Runs like pervy love letters through the rock of
Prince's International Lover.
International Jet Set
by the Specials as far as I rememeber, plus another bonus closing one at the end of the More Specials album version
Here it is.
"Ladies And Gentlemen...
..We are floating in space...sorry about the crap music."
Hawkwind
I never heard the album, Xin Search Of Space (I think the X before 'in' is correct) by Hawkwind, so I don't know if the words were voiced, but the cover carried a message that read something like "Citizens Of Planet Earth, this is your Captain speaking. Your Captain is dead".
Almost right..
on a 40-year-old album. How obscure! The album's called In.. but the cover art does sneak an x in there, making Xin. Hmm, never noticed that before.
The album is nicely packaged, but the material and playing are dull, meaning it isn't a patch on the debut album featuring a real axe hero, Huw Lloyd Langton, and good songs. Don't need to try and hear it then, Carl (the In.. album, obviously).
Does 'Starfleet Control' count?
"Arcadia, X-Ray X-Ray Delta Niner Niner Zero
This is Starfleet control
You are clear to go hyper space
Acknowledge..."
(Sarah Brightman & Hot Gossip - I Lost My Heart To A Starship Trooper)
Blondie dun it
From 'Bermuda Triangle Blues' off their best elpee ('Plastic Letters'), a certain doomed Flight 45 is mentioned.
although..
to be fair, it's not an announcement as such. In my defence though I would like to cite the onstage intro given The Hot Rats (ex-Supergrass) at the Highbury Garage 2 years ago, given in perfect airline pilot-ese. Most amusing!
State Of Bengal's
banging tabla'n'bass epic 'IC408' takes off with an announcement from Captain Das Gupta, en route to Calcutta. Memories of Anokha at the Blue Note in the mid 90s! Happy days..
Almost Famous
Clearly not a song, but Heather Graham (as Penny Lane) doing the whole "lift your tray, move the seat to the upright position and extinguish your cigarettes" bit is really rather good.
747
No passenger announcement, but some exchanges between plane and air traffic control.
Scandinavian 101 - for God's sake get your ground lights on etc
U-Roy
"Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome to flight 002 to Africa.
Flight time will be 10 hours and 45 minutes, cruising at an altitude of 40,000 feet.
For your listening pleasure there are 12 channels,
On channel 7, there is U-Roy.
So with your relaxation, enjoy some cool vibration......"
"Jah, Son of Africa"
Which reminds me... :-)
OK, it's notta plane, it's a train, mon
but I think it's in the spirit of jah thread
Aha!
That'll be the source of the sample used on the Fela Kuti track I mentioned in the OP.
Flight 1203
This is the The Byrds showing off
their new rock star toy presumably
"The next flight...
...to London will be boarding in five minutes..."