Learning to Fly

In preparing to write this piece, I checked several websites for the lyrics to Pink Floyd's "Learning to Fly" (see The Audio File, left). Disappointed with each of them, I decided that the problem lies not so much with the listeners' ability to transcribe Gilmour's words, but with the very attempt at transcription itself. After all, orality is the essence of rock, which Marshall McLuhan describes as "a kind of education based upon an oral tradition, an acoustic experience, which is quite strangely remote from literacy" (Understanding Me, 229). Therefore, my approach remains strictly oral, but in order to work in the typographic medium that is blogging, I must type the lyrics in some manner. Because I could find no agreement on punctuation--never mind the words themselves--I chose to completely eliminate all punctuation marks (which do not exist in the spoken word) as well as all capitalization with the exception of the word I.

I am doing so because one of the most interesting aspects of the lyric is Gilmour's emphasis of the word I. While the alphabet that we use in English typography is, in fact, entirely phonetic--i.e., the letters represent sounds (phonemes) not meaning (morphemes)--there is one exception, and the exception is the letter i. While inarguably phonetic, the letter I also represents the most central meaning known to conscious beings: selfhood. And, as we shall see, this I, this point of view, is central to the lyric.

So how does this I learn to fly? Through the hero's journey, naturally, and along the way, it shows us the struggle to return -- to return to the tribal orality that is rock.

into the distance a ribbon of black
stretched to the point of no turning back

Entering the scene in medias res, we are immediately thrust into a, supposedly, civilized hero's journey, standing, literally, at the point of departure, described by Joseph Campbell:

As apprehended by the mystic, it marks what has been termed "the awakening of the self." [...] But whether small or great, and no matter what the stage or grade of life, the call rings up the curtain, always, on a mystery of transfiguration--a rite, or moment, of spiritual passage, which, when complete, amounts to a dying and a birth. The familiar life horizon has been outgrown; the old concepts, ideals, and emotional patterns no longer fit; the time for the passing of a threshold is at hand. (The Hero With a Thousand Faces, 51)

In this case, that horizon is made visual through the use of verbal perspective--a ribbon of black stretched to the point of no return.

a flight of fancy on a windswept field
standing alone my senses reel

We move into the unreal world of imagination--a flight of fancy--but Gilmour has just a little fun with us on the way. Remember, this is orality, and though most listeners would transcribe the fourth line as "my senses reel" for the sake of cliche, the ear really cannot make that distinction, and just as readily picks up a Kantian pun: "my senses real." As McLuhan points out, "Joyce never tired of explaining how in Finnegans Wake the words the reader sees are not the words that he will hear'" (The Gutenberg Galaxy, 83).

a fatal attraction is holding me fast
how can I escape this irresistible grasp

Here we see a classic example of the hero's refusal of the call; however, it may be a rhetorical question. The hero is both drawn and repelled by the prospect of this journey.

cant keep my eyes from the circling sky
tongue tied and twisted just an earthbound misfit I

What is the crux of the hero's problem? As a rock hero, it can only be the tension between his visual education and his auditory nature, as McLuhan makes clear:

The hero has become a split man as he moves towards the possession of an individual ego. And the "split" is manifest as pictorialized models or "machinery" of complex situations such as tribal, auditory man had made no effort to visualize. That is to say, detribalization, individualization, and pictorialization are all one. The magical mode disappears in proportion as interior events are made visually manifest. (The Gutenberg Galaxy, 52).

As humans can learn to fly only in manmade machinery, and this lyric clearly indicates learning to fly in a propeller-driven aircraft, the hero finds himself crossing the first threshold in a solo journey of self-doubt, sitting alone in the belly of the whale:

ice is forming on the tips of my wings
unheeded warnings I thought I thought of everything
no navigator to find my way home
unladened empty and turned to stone

At this point, there is some disagreement as to the words in the lyric. Each of the sources I found transcribed the next line as

a soul in tension thats learning to fly;

however, I believe it is just as reasonable to hear the line as

sole intention its learning to fly

This was my initial hearing of the verse, and frankly I prefer it. Either way, it sets up the road of trials for our hero:

condition grounded but determined to try
cant keep my eyes from the circling skies
tongue tied and twisted just an earthbound misfit I

This is the essence of the human situation--the lifelong yearning to fly, the undeniable fact of gravity. Our hero, however, overcomes his humanity:

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
a dream unthreatened by the morning light
could blow this soul right through the roof of the night

In a clear example of apotheosis, the hero defies gravity and, in doing so, as he must, experiences deification.

theres no sensation to compare with this
suspended animation a state of bliss

The hero is now free to enjoy his magic flight, the mastery of himself. As Campbell puts it:

I don't know what being is. And I don't know what consciousness is. But I do know what bliss is: that deep sense of being present, of doing what you absolutely must do to be yourself. If you can hang on to that, you are on the edge of the transcendent already. (Pathways to Bliss, xxiii).

The hero is now master of the two worlds, which we see in a telling change in the refrain. Recall that in each of the previous instances of the refrain, the hero can't keep his eyes from the circling sky; now, however, he has slipped into the acoustic, non-viewpoint reality of the auditory man, and he's gone:

cant keep my mind from the circling sky
tongue tied and twisted just an earthbound misfit I