Learn to Fly

"Learn to Fly"
Song

"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 what appears to be drugs in the coffee-maker (it is revealed in the band's official website that the package is actually labelled "World Domination brand 'Erotic' Sleeping Powder"), 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:

1. "Learn to Fly"
2. "Iron and Stone" (Weinrich)
3. "Have a Cigar" (Waters)

CD2:

1. "Learn to Fly"
2. "Make a Bet"
3. "Have a Cigar" (Waters)

Chart positions

Chart (1999)	Peak position
Australian Singles Chart	35
Dutch Singles Chart	72
Eurochart Hot 100 Singles	65
New Zealand Singles Chart	23
Swedish Singles Chart	52
UK Singles Chart	21
U.S. Billboard Hot 100	19 Template:Fn
U.S. Hot Modern Rock Tracks	1
U.S. Mainstream Rock Tracks	2

Template:Fnb Billboard's 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 is featured as a playable track in the music video game Rock Band.

• 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.

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

• The song "Make a Bet" is one of the oldest known Foo Fighters songs. It was first demoed by Grohl and some friends in 1992, under the guise of Allister Lob. This version had no vocals. It was later reworked and re-recorded with vocals during the The Colour and the Shape sessions but went unreleased until the "Learn to Fly" single was released. Finally, another reworking of the song entitled "Win Or Lose" was recorded during the One By One sessions and was released on the "All My Life" single in 2002.

• The song "Learn To Fly" was used as the background music for the Alta/Snowbird segment in Warren Miller's 1999 film "Fifty."

• 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.

• The song is used in the closing scene of an episode of the CBBC program Best Of Friends.

• Dave Grohl had reportedly said that it was his least favorite song off of the album, despite being a fan favorite.

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

External links

• Video on YouTube