Icarus imagery in contemporary music
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The theme of the myth of Icarus and Daedalus from Greek mythology frequently appears in contemporary popular music, which can be interpreted philosophically. The following is a list of songs that refer to Icarus, alphabetized by artist.
| Artist | Title | Date | Album/Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alesana | "Icarus" | 2006 | On Frail Wings of Vanity and Wax (album) |
| Angra | "Metal Icarus" | Fireworks (album) | |
| Annelie van Rooyen | "Treffers op Versoek" | 2008 | http://www.annelivanrooyen.co.za/pers4.htm" |
| Aria | "Икар" ("Icarus") | 1986 | S kem ty? (album) |
| Pete Atkin | "Femme Fatale" | 2002 | The Lakeside Sessions "...though Icarus flew near the sun and fell" |
| The Back Horn | "イーカロスの空v ("Icarus' Sky") | 2006 | |
| BTS | "Blood Sweat and Tears" | 2016 | Wings (album) - "many references to Icarus in the Music video" |
| Bastille | "Icarus" | 2011 | "Icarus is flying too close to the sun" |
| The Big Push | "Icarus" | 2020 | "Watch me fly into the sun, I want to be like Icarus" |
| Bjørn Riis | "Icarus" | 2019 | A Storm Is Coming |
| Michael McCann | "Icarus" | Main Theme - Deus Ex: Human Revolution Soundtrack | |
| Black Tape for a Blue Girl | "For You Will Burn Your Wings upon the Sun" | 1996 | Remnants of a Deeper Purity |
| Blasted Mechanism | "Vôo de Ícaro (Feat. Marcelo D2)" | 2009 | |
| Boards of Canada | "Satellite Anthem Icarus" | 2005 | |
| Bombay Bicycle Club | "The Hill" | "We flew too high let the sun burn our wings" | |
| Bon Iver | "Flume" | 2008 | "Gluey feathers on a flume" |
| Bury Tomorrow | "Waxed Wings" | 2009 | Portraits |
| Jen Cass | "Daedalus" | 1996 | Brave Enough to Say (album) |
| Caedmon's Call | "Not Enough" | 1994 | My Calm, Your Storm (album) "I mount up with waxen wings, high to reach the sun" |
| Celldweller | "The Wings of Icarus" | 2010 | (Featuring James Dooley) Soundtrack for the Voices in my Head Vol. 2 (album) |
| Clutch | "Droid" & "Mercury" | 1995 and 2004 | "Flight of Icarus, down into flames." & "Daedalus, your child is falling and the Labyrinth is calling." respectively |
| Coldplay | "Fun" | 2015 | A Head Full of Dreams (album) - "'I know it's over,' Icarus says to the sun" |
| Miranda Cosgrove | "Hey You" | 2010 | "If you fly like Icarus to the edge" |
| Counting Crows | "Insignificant" and "Sundays" | 2008 | "I am Icarus falling out of the sun" |
| Brian Current | Airline Icarus | 2004 | |
| Diablo | 2008 | Icaros (album) | |
| Ani DiFranco | "Icarus" | Evolve (album) | |
| Dreamtale | "Wings of Icaros" | Difference (album) | |
| Danny Elfman | "The Little Things" | 2008 | "With a mountain of maybes And some Icarus wings" |
| DAY6 | "Like that Sun" | 2015 | "Too lifted, I’ll end up like Icarus. I wanna be by your side, even if I burn black" The Day (album) |
| Doomtree | "The Bends" | 2015 | "So fly took a bullet in the wax wing / So high but didn't get the chance to melt / So tight how when he came down didn’t even look scared " |
| EDEN | "icarus" | 2018 | vertigo (album) |
| Emperor | "An Elegy of Icaros" | 1999 | IX Equilibrium (album) |
| Enter the Haggis | "Icarus" | 2001 | Aerials (album) "You think I am weak 'til your strength starts to go / and you reach for my hand as I take to the sky / my father, I've waited and awful long time for this - / rot in your labyrinth, I have learned to fly." |
| Epik High | "Icarus Walks" | Pieces, Part One (album) | |
| Eddi Reader | "East of Us" | "...just like Icarus who kissed the sunlight..." | |
| Emma Blackery | "Icarus" | 2018 | Villains (album) "You believe you hold the answers but your feathers are all frayed" |
| Eyes Catch Fire | "At the Seams" | 2006 | "... You've given yourself wings but you're too far You're too close to the sun..." |
| Faith No More | "Just a Man" | 1995 | "...like Icarus, to fly too high..." |
| Foals | "10,000 Feet" | 2019 | "...Flew to close to the sun, With my wings all bound and twisted into one..." |
| William Fitzsimmons | "The Problem of Pain" | 2005 | "Icarus they caught you where you tumbled on" |
| Flutlicht | "Icarus (Original Daedalus Mix)" | 2001 | Icarus (The Flight) EP released on Drizzly Songs (catalog no. DRIZ2010/62) |
| Dan Fogelberg | "Icarus Ascending" | 2003 | Full Circle |
| The Forms | 2003 | Icarus (album) | |
| Jon Foreman | "Light & Heavy" | I'm feeling Icarus | |
| Bing Futch | "Icarus" | ||
| Garfunkel and Oates[1] | "Such a Loser" | 2014 | "Icarus is bullshit, that's why it's called 'mythology'" |
| Thea Gilmore | "Icarus Wind" | "Soon there’ll just be feathers and the quiet of the fall" | |
| Goanna | "Common Ground" | 1984 | "Icarus beware the sun, your youthful feathers come undone, we watch them fall we count them one by one" |
| Nina Gordon | "Tonight & The Rest Of My Life" | 2000 | "Down to Earth I fell with dripping wings Heavy things won't fly And the sky might catch fire And burn the axis of the world that's why I prefer a sunless sky To the glittering and stinging in my eyes" |
| Steve Hackett | "Icarus Ascending" | 1978 | Please Don't Touch, with vocals by Richie Havens |
| Hawklords | "The Only Ones" | 1977 | 25 Years On (album) |
| Hibria | "" | 2008 | The Skull Collectors (album) |
| Hopesfall | "Icarus" | 2004 | A Types |
| The Hours | "Icarus" | "Like Icarus he flew too close to the sun" | |
| Hozier | "Sunlight" | 2019 | Wasteland, Baby! (album) |
| Immortal Technique | "That's What It Is" | 2008 | " " |
| Indigo Girls | "Go" | "Did they tell you you would come undone / When you tried to touch the sun?" | |
| Iron Maiden | "Flight of Icarus" | 1983 | Piece of Mind (album)[1] |
| Iron Maiden | "Satellite 15... The Final Frontier" | 2010 | "Too close to the sun, and surely will burn, like Icarus before me or so legend goes" |
| It Dies Today | "A Romance by the Wings of Icarus" | 2002 | Forever Scorned (album) |
| Ivan Torrent | "Icarus" | 2014 | (Feat. Julie Elven) Reverie - The Compilation Album (album) |
| Jars of Clay | "Worlds Apart" | 1996 | "I flew too high and like Icarus I collide" |
| Jordin Kare | "Fire in the Sky" | "Gagarin was the first, back in nineteen sixty-one, when like Icarus, undaunted, he climbed to reach the sun." | |
| Kansas | "Icarus (Borne on Wings of Steel)" | 1975 | Masque (album) |
| "I Can Fly" | 1995 | "...this foolish pride where Icarus died" | |
| "Icarus II" | 2000 | Somewhere to Elsewhere (album) | |
| "Carry on Wayward Son" | 1977 | "Once I rose above the noise and confusion. Just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion. I was soaring ever higher, but I flew too high" | |
| Kanye West | "Wolves (feat. Vic Mensa & Sia)" | 2015 | "Yeah I feel you burning, everything's burning / Don't fly too high / Your wings might melt, you're much too good to be true" |
| Keldian | "The Ghost of Icarus" | 2008 | Journey of Souls (album) |
| Paul Kelly | "Dumb Things" | 1987 | "I melted wax to fix my wings" |
| Killer Be Killed | "Wings of Feather and Wax" | 2014 | "Now I'm falling, like Icarus to land..." |
| Eugene Kurtz | "" | Solo flute work written by the composer for , published by , Paris. | |
| Demi Lovato | "Heart Attack" | 2013 | "I'm flying too close to the sun and I burst into flames." |
| Lullaby for the Working Class | "Jester's Siren" | 1997 | "Take this biplane made of wax - just don't fly too close to the sun" |
| Machinae Supremacy | "Sid Icarus" | 2008 | Overworld (album) |
| Madeon | "Icarus" | 2012 | Single Release |
| Yngwie Malmsteen | "Icarus Dream Fanfare" | 1998 | Concerto Suite for Electric Guitar and Orchestra (album) |
| Måneskin | "Zitti e buoni" | 2021 | Con ali in cera alla schiena / Ricercherò quell'altezza ("With wax wings on my back I'll seek that high").[2][3] |
| Marillion | "The Great Escape" | 1994 | Brave (album) |
| Marilyn Manson | "Deep Six" | 2015 | The Pale Emperor (album) "As if my feathers were wax" |
| Mastodon | "Oblivion" | 2009 | Crack the Skye (album) " I flew beyond the sun before it was time, burning all the gold that keep inside my shell " |
| mclusky | "Icarus Smicarus" | 2004 | The Difference Between Me and You Is That I'm Not on Fire |
| Vic Mensa | "Codeine Crazy (Icarus Story)" | 2015 | |
| Joni Mitchell | "Amelia" | 1976 | Hejira, describing the flight of Amelia Earhart "like Icarus ascending on beautiful foolish arms" |
| Mutton Birds | "The Heater" | "Come close and listen while I sing / I won't melt your precious wings" | |
| Nine Inch Nails | "Somewhat Damaged" | 1999 | "So impressed with all you do. Tried so hard to be like you. Flew too high and burned the wing. Lost my faith in everything." |
| OHM | "Icarus Falls" | 2005 | |
| Onitsuka Chihiro | "蝋の翼 (Wax Wings)" | 2007 | LAS VEGAS (album) |
| Alan Parsons | "Too Close To The Sun" | 1996 | from the On Air album; relates the escape of Daedalus and Icarus from the labyrinth of the minotaur. |
| Periphery | "Icarus Lives!" | 2010 | Periphery (album) |
| Perpetual Groove | "Too Close To The Sun" | 2009 | Heal (album) |
| Phish | "The Squirming Coil" | "I'd like to lick the coil some day. Like Icarus, who had to pay. With melting wax and feathers brown, he tasted it on his way down." | |
| Pierrot | "Ikarossu" | Finale (album) | |
| Pink Floyd | "Learning To Fly" | 1987 | "Ice is forming on the tips of my wings/Unheeded warnings I thought I thought of everything" |
| The Puhdys | "Ikarus" | 1973 | Single, released along with Sommernacht |
| Punch Brothers | "Icarus Smicarus" | 2012 | "Get out of those shoes and grow wings" |
| Queen | "No One But You" | "They're only flying too close to the sun" | |
| R3hab | "Icarus" | 2016 | "Fallen like Icarus" |
| Race the Sun | "To Icarus with all sincerity" | 2004 | The Rest of Our Lives is Tonight (album) |
| Rammstein | "Dalai Lama" | 2004 | Reise, Reise (album) |
| Regina Spektor | "Lacrimosa" | 2002 | "Hi, I'm Icarus, I'm falling down from the dust of earth returning..." Songs (album) |
| Reinhard Mey | "Ikarus" | "...um wie Ikarus aus Gefangenschaft zu fliehen" | |
| Rush | "Bravado" | "If we burn our wings flying too close to the sun" | |
| Santigold | "Icarus" | 2008 | Top Ranking (mix tape) |
| Savatage | "" | The band's guitarist Criss Oliva, who died in a car accident, is compared to Icarus | |
| Starset | "Icarus" | 2021 | HORIZONS (album) |
| Jaden Smith | "B" | 2017 | Syre (album) - "Nah, cause I fell for you, see I'm the living Icarus" |
| Spinal Tap | "" | 1969 | Tap concept album that was identical to We Are All Flower People but without the title track. |
| Tupac Shakur | "Hit 'Em Up" | 1996 | "Niggas think they learned to fly. But they burn, motherfucker, you deserve to die" |
| Sirah | "Icarus" | 2013 | Inhale (EP) |
| The SmashUp | "Icarus Flies" | 2007 | "Pissing it all away this is the unsold story wishing it all could go to hell Icarus flies today the is the unsung glory cradle to the grave" SmashUp (album) |
| Smashing Pumpkins | "A Song For a Son" | 2009 | "...Who flew into the sun, Never to return" |
| The Staves | "Icarus" | 2011 | "Like icarus before me, these wings are not my own", Mexico EP |
| Sufjan Stevens | "John My Beloved" | 2015 | Carrie & Lowell (album) - "Icarus, point to the sun" |
| Sunset Rubdown | "Idiot Heart" | "The way that Icarus thought he might own the sky" | |
| Switchfoot | "Light and Heavy" | 2016 | (album) - "I'm feeling Icarus / I might have flown too high" |
| "Icarus (feat. CoMa)" | 2015 | "like Icarus, we flew into the sun" | |
| Lee Tae-min | "Rise" | 2017 | From the "Move" album. The Korean title of the song translates to Icarus. Lyrics include many references to flying close to the sun, burning and flight. |
| Billy Talent | "Cut the Curtains" | "Now here seems our wax wings have melted away; And we've only been here for one day; My faith fades away" | |
| Textures | "Laments of an Icarus" | 2008 | Silhouettes (album) |
| Third Eye Blind | "Blinded" | "Icarus is not a tee shirt or a swan song" | |
| Thrice | "Daedalus" | 2008 | Alchemy Index, Vol. III AIR (album) |
| "The Melting Point Of Wax" | 2003 | The Artist In The Ambulance (album) | |
| Toy Matinee | "Last Plane Out" | 1990 | "I like the part where Icarus hijacks the little red hen." |
| To/Die/For | "Fragmented | "I ran too close to sun, I flied too high" | |
| 2002 | "Icarus" | 1992 | Wings (album) |
| U2 | "Even Better Than the Real Thing" | "We're free to fly the crimson sky; the sun won't melt our wings tonight." | |
| Unheilig | "Ikarus" | 2001 | Phosphor (album) |
| Andreas Vollenweider | "The Secret Shrine of Icarus" | 1993 | Eolian Minstrel (album) |
| Andreas Vollenweider | "Oxygenia & Icarus" | 2009 | AIR (album) |
| Jason Webley | "Icarus" | Only Just Beginning (album) | |
| White Hinterland | "Icarus" | 2010 | Kairos (album) |
| Paul Winter Consort | "Icarus" | 1972 | Icarus (album) |
| Wolfgang | "Weightless" | 1996 | "Let Icarus plummet as sun melts his wax" |
| Xandria | "Fire of Universe" | "I'm an angel / Born from the breath of life / An Ikarus / Burning and falling down." | |
| Yngwie J. Malmsteen's Rising Force | "Icarus' Dream Suite Op. 4" | 1984 | |
| Zao | "The Icarus Complex" | 2008 | This is Solid State Vol. 3 (album) |
| Andalusia | "Icarus" | 2001 | Such a Heavenly Eyesore (album) |
| San Fermin | "Daedalus" | 2013 | San Fermin (album) |
| Haken | "Falling Back to Earth" | 2013 | - "Now that my feathers are broken/Crestfallen my head is bowed/Splashing down into the ocean/Something seems different now." |
| Sieben | "A Firebug Nature" | 2014 | Each Divine Spark (album) - "We fashion our wings/as fire-fascination./We fashion our wings/ over the sea,/smack-front of the black, facing void." |
| Lin-Manuel Miranda | "Burn" | 2015 | Hamilton (album) - "Do you know what Angelica said when she read what you'd done? She said, 'You have married an Icarus. He has flown too close to the sun.'" |
| BTS | "Wings"(album) | 2016 | "I went on the road I was told not to go. I did things I was told not to do. I wanted things I couldnt want." |
| JJ Project | "Icarus" | 2017 | "Verse 2" (album) |
| Guano Apes | "Close to the Sun" | 2014 | Offline (album) - "It was so beautiful / Before the fall / I'm flying too close / I'm flying too close to the sun" |
| Halsey | "Angel On Fire" | 2017 | Hopeless Fountain Kingdom (deluxe album) - "I flew too closely to the sun that's setting in the East, and now I'm melting from my wings." |
| Saltatio Mortis | "Daedalus" | 2004 | Erwachen (album)" |
| Zayn | "Icarus Interlude" | 2018 | "Icarus Falls" - Album |
| Gustavo Cerati | "Tu Cicatriz en Mí | 2002 | "Cocinarme lento como un Icaro en el sol" ("Cook myself slowly Like an Icarus near the Sun") |
| Dave | "Professor X" | 2019 | "Little man wanna jump on FIFA / So I'm close to the son like Icarus" |
| "Genocide" | 2020 | "No, do not be a fool Icarus, you flew too high" | |
| Mahmood | Icaro è libero | 2021 | "Icaro è libero libero/ Nel corpo e lo spirito/ Libero libero si/ Anche se poi non lo dicono" |
| Panic! At The Disco | "(Fuck A) Silver Lining" | 2018 | "No wings of wax or endless mountains"[4] |
| Dream & PmBata | "Roadtrip" | 2021 | "Ayy, for a minute we was cool/Then we flew just a little too close to the sun."[5] |
References[]
- ^ http://www.garfunkelandoates.com/
- ^ Lorizio, Giuseppe (7 March 2021). "Sanremo: elogio della singolarità". SettimanaNews (in Italian). Retrieved 16 June 2021.
- ^ Campana, Andrea (18 March 2021). "Maneskin – Zitti e Buoni: Significato del Testo". LaScimmiaPensa (in Italian). Retrieved 16 June 2021.
- ^ Panic! at the Disco – (Fuck A) Silver Lining, retrieved 2021-08-01
- ^ "Ayy, for a minute we was cool / Then we flew just a little too close to the sun". Genius. Retrieved 2021-12-12.
Categories:
- Lists of songs
- Classical mythology in music