At 30,000 Feet Lyrics
Is beyond my control.
Emotion has abandoned me.
Faded away and left me…cold.
I’m here, dependent on the atmosphere
Contained inside this mask I wear.
My breathing is all I hear.
I just feel numb, scanning the
Ground at the hell that I’ll make.
I’m above it in the air.
Flying high above the city walls
As the insurgents run.
Can’t stand their ground against the hell
That I’ll make.
I’m above in the air,
At 30,000 feet above the enemy.
No one can see me.
Press execute.
I’ll send the “Pigs” away.
The tortured painful cries
Will never fall upon my ears
And never stain my elder years.
My heartbeat is all I’ll feel.
As the weapons lock.
There’s no defense against
The Hell that I’ll make.
I’m above it in the air. I’m above it.
Moving past the speed of sound,
I won’t see them when they hit the ground.
No hiding from the Hell that I make.
I’m above it in the air.
I’m a shadow.
Travels fast from cell phone to cell phone.
“They demand to see their faces!”
“Of the women…hidden behind the veil?”
It's about a soldier in the airforce, or in an airplane
This song is about a pilot and their experience, which is very different from ground personnel. Pilots have a very different perspective on things, a very different job. The song deals with this particular soldier’s feelings of being separate from the devastation that he was inflicting. He’s above it all, flying 30,000 feet in the air, dropping bombs on targets then going back to the base. He’s not involved in ground combat where you stare someone in the face and kill them hand-to-hand. He said it’s a strange feeling to know that you’ve just wiped out an entire city with a touch of a button, and then you’re back at the bass watching reruns of a TV show. It’s just another day at the office, there’s no emotional attachment to it like a guy who was in a platoon and may have lost buddies. The pilot is dealing with a whole different set of issues that is a lot harder to define… I wrote this song, then months later I got a chance to play it for Lynn, the pilot I wrote it about, and we have it on camera. He was reading it and tears were running down his face. I asked him what moved him, and he said the line, “their tortured, painful cries will never fall upon my ears, and never stain my elder years. My heartbeat is all I’ll feel.” He said that’s what he feels every day. He was disconnected, but he does still think about it every day… Actually, when the breakdown happens and the bombing is taking place, Michael wanted the guitar solo to be representative of the airplane flying over the city dropping missiles and bombs. As per Geoff Tate on www.queensryche.com