90s Flashback

"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. It was one of the band's most successful singles, including a #19 peak on the Billboard Hot 100 a #1 peak on Modern Rock Tracks.

The music video for the song takes place on an airplane, parodying the movie Airplane!. Two airline mechanics/cleaning crew (played by Jack Black and Kyle Gass from Tenacious D) hide "World Domination brand 'Erotic' Sleeping Powder" 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.

The video was filmed in London, England in a cabin crew training airplane. It won the 2001 Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video.

Inside Skinny:

• The song was played in space as a wake-up call for Space Shuttle Mission STS-118 on 08-18-07 (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 term foo fighter was used by Allied aircraft pilots in World War II to describe various UFOs seen in the skies over the European and Pacific theatres.
• The song was one of many on a list deemed inappropriate for airplay by Clear Channel radio following the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Walter