Pink Floyd – Learning To Fly
Richard Wright left Pink Floyd in 1979 due to getting less and less musical contribution. Roger Waters left in 1985 due to very complicated personal and professional reasons between David Gilmour and himself.
Prior to 1987, Rogers sued Gilmour and co-founding member and drummer Nick Mason for trying to continue on as Pink Floyd. Eventually, the case was settled with Gilmour and Mason getting to keep the name, Punk Floyd and continuing on without Waters. Eventually, Wright rejoined the duo as a session member (not a full-time member) to record the 1987 album, ‘A Momentary Lapse Of Reason’.
While many hardcore PF fans do not consider this album to be a “true’ Floyd album, others like myself, happily accept into the canon of records in the band’s discography.
The first single, “Learning To Fly” was a song re-developed by Gilmour from a demo from co-writer, Jon Carin, who had worked with Gilmour and many others as a session musician. Legendary producer Bob Ezrin (KISS, Alice Cooper, etc.) and experimental music composer/ producer Anthony Moore as get writing credits for their input on the sound of the song.
While the song is very much a fantasy of being able to fly without wings, as if becoming a bird (both Gilmour and Mason are licensed pilots with multiple ratings) it’s also an analogy of becoming free for the first time and finding one’s own way. This referring to Gilmour leading the “new” Pink Floyd.
“Learning To Fly” played in medium rotation on MTV with a video directed by long-time PF cover artist, Storm Thorgerson. He captured the dreamy, fantastical visuals PF is known for in the music as well as visual art. It peaked at a #8 on the MTV Video countdown in November of 1987 and even won the band its only MTV Video Music Award for “Best Concept Video” in 1988.
The song hot the Hot 100, but only peaked at #70, however, it did top the Billboard Album Rock Tracks chart for three consecutive weeks. I averaged those number and gave it a #35 on my imaginary Top 40.
