Learn to Fly

Infobox Single
Name = Learn to Fly


Artist = Foo Fighters
from Album = There Is Nothing Left to Lose
Released = October 18, 1999
Format = CD
Recorded = 1999
Genre = Alternative rock
Length = 3:55
Label = Roswell/RCA Records
Producer =
Reviews =
Last single = "Walking After You"
(1998)
This single = "Learn to Fly"
(1999) | Next single = "Stacked Actors"
(2000)
Misc = Extra album cover 2
Upper caption = Alternative cover
Type = Single


Lower caption = (CD2) "Learn to Fly" is the first single from the Foo Fighters' third album "There Is Nothing Left to Lose". It was released on two different singles in the UK in 1999. "Learn to Fly" is one of the band's most successful singles, including a #19 peak on the Billboard Hot 100 and a #1 peak on Modern Rock Tracks.

Music video

The music video for the song takes place on an airplane, parodying the movie "Airplane!". Two airline mechanics (played by Tenacious D) hide "World Domination brand 'Erotic' Sleeping Powder" [http://www.foofighters.com/faq.php?id=06.04#goto Foo Fighters FAQ. Accessed December 27, 2006] in the coffee-maker, which ends up incapacitating everyone who drinks the coffee. The band, having avoided the coffee, finds themselves forced to land the plane. For the video, each band member (Dave Grohl, Nate Mendel and Taylor Hawkins) portrays himself as well as several other roles.

Accompanying the opening and closing scenes of the film clip is a muzak version of "Everlong". The video was filmed in London, England in a cabin crew training airplane. The video won the 2001 Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video.

Characters Dave Grohl portrays

*Himself
*The Pilot
*A flamboyant flight attendant
*A teenage girl who is a big fan of the band
*One of the overweight ladies
*An FBI agent

Characters Nate Mendel portrays

*Himself
*One of the co-pilots of the plane
*A nerd-like man sitting between the two obese women portrayed by Grohl and Hawkins
*A flight attendant who accidentally mixes the drugs with the coffee
*A baby

Characters Taylor Hawkins portrays

*Himself
*A female flight attendant
*One of the co-pilots of the plane
*One of the overweight ladies

Track listing

CD1:
# "Learn to Fly"
# "Iron and Stone" (Weinrich)
# "Have a Cigar" (Waters)

CD2:
# "Learn to Fly"
# "Make a Bet"
# "Have a Cigar" (Waters)

Chart positions

fnb|1 Billboard's [http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/retrieve_chart_history.do?model.vnuArtistId=121501&model.vnuAlbumId=683219 artist chart history for the band] shows the peak as #13. However, the Billboard Hot 100 chart which ran in the March 4, 2000 issue of "Billboard Magazine", the song's final appearance on the chart (at #50), lists the peak of the song as #19. ("Learn to Fly" reached #19 on January 22, 2000.)

Trivia

* The song was played in space as a wake-up call for Space Shuttle Mission STS-118 on 2007-08-18 (day 11 of the mission). It was the second Foo Fighters wake-up call played on that mission. [cite news
first=Colin | last=Fries
coauthors=
title=Chronology of Wakeup Calls
date=2007-06-25
publisher=NASA | url =http://history.nasa.gov/wakeup%20calls.pdf
work =
pages =
accessdate = 2007-08-13
language = ]

* The song was played in an episode of "Scrubs" (entitled "My Unicorn") as J.D was being chased by a toy airplane.

* Jack Black and Kyle Gass from Tenacious D make an appearance in the music video playing the maintenance crew who drug the plane and are arrested at the end. Grohl has done the drum work on both Tenacious D albums, and has played the demon in the "Tribute" music video, and The Devil in the feature-length film The Pick of Destiny. Tenacious D and Grohl have also collaborated as cast members in the film clip for I Want You So Hard (Boy's Bad News) by the Eagles of Death Metal.

ee also

*List of songs deemed inappropriate by Clear Channel following the September 11, 2001 attacks

References