Okay, here's Flying Sorcery

FLYING SORCERY
by Al Stewart

With your photographs of Kitty Hawk
And the biplanes on your wall
You were always Amy Johnson
From the time that you were small.
No schoolroom kept you grounded
While your thoughts could get away
You were taking off in Tiger Moths
Your wings against the brush-strokes of the day
Are you there?
On the tarmac with the winter in your hair
By the empty hangar doors you stop and stare
Leave the oil-drums behind you, they won't care
Oh, are you there?

Oh, you wrapped me up in a leather coat
And you took me for a ride
We were drifting with the tail-wind
When the runway came in sight
The clouds came up to gather us
And the cockpit turned to white
When I looked the sky was empty
I suppose you never saw the landing-lights
Are you there?
In your jacket with the grease-stain and the tear
Caught up in the slipstream of the dare
The compass roads will guide you anywhere,
Oh, are you there?

The sun comes up on Icarus as the night-birds sail away
And lights the maps and diagrams
That Leonardo makes
You can see Faith, Hope and Charity
As they bank above the fields
You can join the flying circus
You can touch the morning air against your wheels
Are you there?
Do you have a thought for me that you can share?
Oh I never thought you'd take me unawares
Just call me if you ever need repairs
Oh, are you there?

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Some comments on this song by Charlie Hulme (an A.S. fan):

Amy Johnson was a British pilot who made an epic solo flight to Australia in 1930. My mother, born in 1912, has often talked of the admiration of the working-class girls of the day for Amy and her flying escape from the hard life of the depression, which makes me wonder whether this is a song for Al's own mother, who I think is a little younger than mine and would have been a schoolgirl in 1930. Certainly Al thinks a lot of the song, as it very often opened his concerts in the late 1990s.

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Alex
O..O
=o=