Let’s create a “Masters of the Air” playlist together.
🎶 ✈️ When you get this, list 5 songs you like to listen that remind you of Masters of the Air (MOTA) and publish them. Then send this ask to 10 of your favorite followers (positivity is cool) (don't forget to tag @onyxsboxes so i can add your replies to the playlist) ✈️ 🎶
You can include more or fewer songs (as you prefer), I'll collect all the replies and put them together in a playlist that I'll share during the MOTA Advent (I'll update it as I receive replies, so no rush and no pressure).
Dusting off my Tumblr these hours and honestly so glad to find this message — even if I’m extremely late to the party 😅
I actually have three songs in mind:
the Mountain Goats - Peru [link]
This wasn’t even my discovery. @agarthanguide linked it to me and… yes. Just yes. The lyrics fit the story painfully well.
It’s a very Gale-coded song, with a quietly tender pace that sneaks up on you. And the opening lines? That’s unmistakably Bucky, yapping from the crack of dawn:
You were already talking when I woke up today
For a man on combat rations, you sure do find a lot to say
Try to fix my attention - can't clear my head.
And this part,
Fear in my heart like a shadow
I can't let it lingеr too long
When your gift begins to consume you
Onе of us will have to be strong
it's clearly Gale trying to keep John sane in the Stalag. Fight me.
Zucchero Fornaciari - Il volo [link]
The most immediate association, even during the vision. I mean, the title is literally “the flight,” and yes, it’s a love song.
There is an English version (with Ronan Keating, for whatever reason), but the translated lyrics don’t quite land (pun intended). Something crucial gets flattened in the process. So I’m translating parts of the original here.
I could paste the whole song, given how uncannily fitting it is, but where’s the fun in that?
I saw the sun in your eyes
sink into the evening.
It only takes a moment to say goodbye. (Just shoot.)
(If this is not the scene of Gale’s eyes lit by the sun filtering through the shrapnel hole in the B-17, the exact moment he realizes their missions are basically suicidal, then honestly I do not know what art is.)
Such beautiful stillness along the shores.
You chill my heart and my soul.
It only takes a moment to say goodbye —
but where will the days go, and us?
The escapes, and then the returns?
the escape...the returns!?
you chill my heart and my soul!?
Come on!
But wait.
We fell while flying,
my sun.
We fell while flying,
my sky.
Yep.
They fell from the sky while flying.
screams internally
For this immense love... for us,
and for the great pain I carry.
Please, no. Please... you know.
I dream of something good,
something that lights up my world,
good like you.
I need something real,
something that lights up the sky,
just like you
Anyway. You can now listen to this and cry. You’re welcome.
Impressioni di settembre - PFM [link]
Yeah, another Italian song — but this one is a ’70s prog-rock ballad masterpiece, full stop.
Beyond that, its atmosphere fits perfectly with Gale’s escape from the Stalag: that morning in the snow, the silence, the cold, the unreal sense of being finally free.
And then there’s the music itself. The slow build, the gradual crescendo of the synthesizer, almost imperceptible at first, mirrors the moment exactly: breath returning, awareness widening, life coming back online step by step. It’s not triumphant, not yet. It’s tentative, fragile, earned.
Which is precisely why it works.
No, wait. It works because it’s basically a beat-by-beat description of the Pale Horse Scene.
A horse stretches its neck toward the field,
standing still, just like me.
I take a step, it sees me, and it’s already gone.
I breathe in the fog and think of you.
No, what am I? I don’t know anymore.
I’m a man, a man searching for himself.
No, what am I? I don’t know anymore.
I’m alone, just the sound of my own footsteps.
And yet the sun is already filtering through the fog.
The day, as always, will come.
I think it’s probably a little too late to tag anyone, but this is the first time I’ve really felt like sharing some MOTA songs, and this was the perfect occasion. Thanks so much to @onyxsboxes for tagging me! 💛
