The Aeroplane Flies High (Turns Left, Looks Right)

You look left and you look right but you don't really see, you're stuck in your body and something else is controlling you and you're just the audience experiencing your life. This song is about being numb to feelings. In this mind space you don't care if it's sunny or dark day it's a consistent state of suffering.

[Edit: Edited my bad grammar this is my first post on this site]

Nothing else to say that TAFH is one of the best song ever created. It ROCKS. There are some spoken words in this song : at the beginning : 'I really don't wanna look stupid when I'm sleeping I never really liked sunny days The black wings just reach out to me over a distance... And I can feel the wind from the wings I see the clouds, I feel the ocean with my feet, and I'm home again It requires an ability to judge distance The airplane flies high...turns left, looks right

After the first chorus : If I knew where I was going I would already be there (Laugh) I wish I had more time Judicious, beautiful, uh, demented, whatever I've always been afraid to die, but I think I'm more afraid to live

And at the end : And in the heart I know you're there And in my heart I know you care And in my heart I know you don't

Actually, I believe everyone here is wrong on this song. This song was actually written about the Pumpkins drummer, Jimmie Chamberlain!

During the Melancholy tour on 1996, Chamberlain and touring keyboardist Jonathan Melvoin (who's sister is Lisa Melvoin from Prince's Revolution), were shooting up heroin in a New York hotel room that resulted in the overdose death of Melvoin on July 11th and subsequent firing of Chamberlain on July 17th.

The remainder of that tour on drums was filled by Matt Cameron from Soundgarden and Matt Walker of Filter.

During the recording of Melancholy, the Pumpkins recorded over a hundred tracks, some of them rocked a lot harder and sounded better, but somehow didn't make it on the final cut for that double album.

If you listen to the song "Pastichio Medley" from the Zero EP, you can pick out the medley of "The Aeroplane Flies High" which started out as a song with a different name. Corgan went on to record "Aeroplane" after the tragic, and very stupid death of Jonathan Melvoin and Chamberlain's betrayal of the band with that incident clearly in mind. :-)

whay do ya think its about, alexboy?

Those speech are beautiful and can make me cry... it reminds me many many things...

This is a beatiful song. So meaningul, so melancholic.

This song does rock. The disconnected way he speaks about this scene in the beginning. It's beautiful... I really like the last one, though... "And in the heart I know you're there And in my heart I know you care And in my heart I know you don't" Seems to say so much more... makes me feel like I'm alone yet crowded... I don't know exactly why I think this song is so great, it just is.

To me it's about how he's with a girl who he loves but knows the feelings aren't returned. maybe she's doin some bad shit (maybe some kind of drug or something) and that might be why he says "Always knew I couldn't save you" and about the idea that the feelings aren't returned, that may be the cause of the parts where he's singing,"Wishing you were real to me..."
I don't know.. it all just reminds me of the girl I used to live with. I loved her, but felt she didn't love me. I never told her how I felt, and it always tormented me. I was always "disconnected by her smile"... Now when I hear this song, I feel that that's what he's going through when he wrote it... I may be way off, but this is just my interpretation and why it is so fucking beautiful to me that it makes me all teary eyed. And the speaches in the beginning and middle just sort of accent the lonliness I felt even though I had her with me. I never could say anything in fear of a damaged friendship. She did cocaine, and I knew I couldn't stop her... this song just seems so perfect. Billy Corgan was a genius and he is great at projecting his feelings. He doesn't even have to make it obvious and the feelings you get from the way he sings and the way the music goes... It's just perfect.

heheh, I know I write a lot... sorry...

But another way to view this song could be about drug use. "The black wings carry me so high, up to meet you in the sky" maybe he's talkin about getting high with friends. "Disconnected by your smile" perhaps another metaphor for the drugs and the line about disconnect a million miles may be about how the drug makes him feel like he's completely alienated from the rest of life. I don't know if Billy did drugs, not saying he did, so don't waste time trying to argue that point, just saying it's another way of looking at it for some of you out there. Personally i stick with my first opinion. I may be way off in both, only Billy truly knows what he was singing about. He's a great artist, though, and this song is beautifully tragic, no two ways about that fact. Take it easy and enjoy the music...

This song was released with the aeroplane flies high box set shortly after the release of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, however i have a feeling this song was written earlier.

Yes, the entire smashing pumpkins band was on a lot of drugs around the Gish and Siamese Dream album releases (especially Gish.. jesus christ daydream is a fuckin trip), so its possible this song was written around that time too. I think kaisute's interpretation is correct.