Musical Airs
Songs inspired by the early age of flight.
- By Rebecca Maksel
- AirSpaceMag.com, February 19, 2009
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Smithsonian Institution Libraries
Written specifically for the Boston 1912 Aero Meet, this little ditty probably would not be remembered if Landauer hadn’t gathered it into her collection:
Now there is a girl as bright as a pearl who’s crazy about aviation,
To each aeroplane show she will go with her beau
She knows every airplane in creation.
Each day just as warned as o’ the day dawns
She’s waiting outside the field gates
Theaters and wine are not in her line
And this song she sings while she waits
Take me down to Squantum, I want to see them fly
Bleriot and Beechy, flying round so high
We’ll eat peanuts and popcorn and watch them in the sky
We’ll ride down in the car, or we’ll walk it’s not far,
If you’ll take me to Squantum Field
An airman took the tip, took her for a trip
Away up above all the crowds
In the midst of their ride, he started to glide
When high up among the blue clouds
He commenced to descend, they both thought was their end,
When the engine blew up with a bang,
Then oh, such a drop, the ground was first stop,
but they both jumped up and both loudly sang:
Take me down to Squantum, I want to see them fly
Bleriot and Beechy, flying round so high
We’ll eat peanuts and popcorn and watch them in the sky
We’ll ride down in the car, or we’ll walk it’s not far,
If you’ll take me to Squantum Field.
In 2003, the National Air and Space Museum recorded several of the songs in the Bella C. Landauer Aviation Sheet Music Collection for the exhibition "The Wright Brothers & the Invention of the Aerial Age." Click here to listen to "Take Me Down to Squantum, I Want to See them Fly" and other musical selections.
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Comments (2)
I believe that, from the final sentence of this snippet from the song, you can interpret that the song's lyricist intended the title to be a shortening of something like, "My bomber and I fly high in the sky." Other than that, I'm a long time fan of this site. Keep up the great work!
Posted by Mike Burkholder on February 25,2009 | 01:27 AM
I'm not sure how my submitted comment of 2/25/09 lost its first lines but, in them, I disagreed with the author of this article. "My bomber and me" would be the grammatically incorrect form. If one were to use a pronoun rather than "My bomber and I" that pronoun would be "we" as in "We fly high in the sky." In the same vein, "My bomber and me" would need to be replaced with "us" which would result in the grammatically incorrect "Us fly high in the sky." Although it is the more colloquially popular, "X and me" followed by a verb is still grammatically incorrect. I stand with Jay Garside and his lyrics. I hope that this comment does not make me appear to be a grammar goon because I don't normally point out bad grammar but, when I see correct grammar being identified as being wrong, I feel compelled to respond. Thanks for your great website!
Posted by Mike Burkholder on February 28,2009 | 01:11 PM