Icarus imagery in contemporary music
Icarus imagery in contemporary popular music expresses artistic disengagement and isolation or anomie through the figure of Icarus from Greek mythology. 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) |
|
Aria |
"Икар" ("Icarus") |
1986 |
S kem ty? (album) |
The Back Horn |
"イーカロスの空v ("Icarus' Sky") |
2006 |
|
Bastille |
"Icarus" |
2011 |
"Icarus is flying too close to the sun" |
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 |
Bombay Bicycle Club |
"The Hill" |
"We flew too high let the sun burn our wings" |
|
Bon Iver |
"Flume" |
2008 |
"Gluey feathers on a flume" |
Jen Cass |
"Daedalus" |
1996 |
Brave Enough to Say (album) |
Clutch |
"Droid" & "Mercury" |
1995 and 2004 |
"Flight of Icarus, down into flames." & "Daedalus, your child is falling and the Labyrinth is calling." respectively |
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" |
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" |
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..." |
|
Faith No More |
"Just a Man" |
1995 |
"...like Icarus, to fly too high..." |
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) |
The Forms |
2003 |
Icarus (album) |
|
Jon Foreman |
"Light & Heavy" |
I'm feeling Icarus |
|
Bing Futch |
"Icarus" |
||
Thea Gilmore |
"Icarus Wind" |
"Soon there’ll just be feathers and the quiet of the fall" |
|
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 |
"Wings of Wax" |
2008 |
The Skull Collectors (album) |
Hopesfall |
"Icarus" |
2004 |
A Types |
The Hours |
"Icarus" |
"Like Icarus he flew too close to the sun" |
|
Immortal Technique |
"That's What It Is" |
2008 |
"Your wax is useless, Rappers are dropping like Icarus" |
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) |
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) |
Kansas |
"I Can Fly" |
1995 |
"...this foolish pride where Icarus died" |
Kansas |
"Icarus II" |
2000 |
Somewhere to Elsewhere (album) |
Keldian |
"The Ghost of Icarus" |
2008 |
Journey of Souls (album) |
Paul Kelly |
"Dumb Things" |
1987 |
"I melted wax to fix my wings" |
Eugene Kurtz |
"Icare" |
Solo flute work written by the composer for Craig Goodman, published by Les Editions Jobert, Paris. |
|
Led Zeppelin |
trademark |
1974 |
Swan Song Records (publishing company) |
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) |
Yngwie Malmsteen |
"Icarus' Dream Suite op. 4" |
1987 |
Rising Force (album) |
Manatees |
"Sunclimber" |
2009 |
Icarus The Sunclimber (album) |
Marillion |
"The Great Escape" |
1994 |
Brave (album) |
mclusky |
"Icarus Smicarus" |
2004 |
The Difference Between Me and You Is That I'm Not on Fire |
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 |
Amino Acid Flashback |
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) |
|
Queen |
"No One But You" |
"They're only flying too close to the sun" |
|
Race the Sun |
"To Icarus with all sincerity" |
2004 |
The Rest of Our Lives is Tonight (album) |
Regina Spektor |
"Lacrimosa" |
"Hi, I'm Icarus, I'm falling down from the dust of earth returning..." |
|
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 |
"Alone You Breathe" |
The band's guitarist Criss Oliva, who died in a fatal car accident, is compared to Icarus |
|
Tupac Shakur |
"Hit 'Em Up" |
1996 |
"Niggas think they learned to fly. But they burn, motherfucker, you deserve to die" |
Smashing Pumpkins |
"A Song For a Son" |
2009 |
"...Who flew into the sun, Never to return" |
Sunset Rubdown |
"Idiot Heart" |
"The way that Icarus thought he might own the sky" |
|
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" |
Alchemy Index, Vol. III AIR (album) |
|
"The Melting Point Of Wax" |
2003 |
The Artist In The Ambulance (album) |
|
Toy Matinee |
"Last Plane Out" |
"I like the part where Icarus hijacks the little red hen." |
|
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) |
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." |
|
Zao |
"The Icarus Complex" |
2008 |
This is Solid State Vol. 3 (album) |