Talk:Sky Pilot (song)

I didn't link slice of life because that article is really... what's a nice euphemism for 'crappy'? – B.Bryant 02:58, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Sub-optimal. It's still pretty poor, three years later. -Ashley Pomeroy (talk) 20:28, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Anti-war song???

I don't believe this song an anti-war song...i think it is a tribute song. I don't hear anything anti-war anywhere.

Wolfdog406 (talk) 02:08, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

And why do Americans assume that the war is Vietnam? That may have been the war that they were engaged in at the time, but British bands were writing for British audiences, for whom WW2 was more relevant, or simply war in general. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.197.15.138 (talk) 07:10, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Speaking as a person who was a young teenager then and who listened to that song on Amercian top-40 radio, it was always generally understood to be an anti-war song. ("...remember the words, thou shalt not kill...") And the War in Vietnam was protested in England, one demonstration notably organized by a young Bill Clinton:

"Bill Clinton, while a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, organized and participated in the demonstration in England; this later became an issue in his Presidential campaign."

Opposition to the War was international, I assure you. And the British pop artists, by that time, were very much writing songs with American audiences in mind. Burdon was well-known as an "Americianophile." They did put out "San Francisco Nights" after all. See this article from Burdon's official website:

"Eric Burdon and the original Animals were making history throughout this time until they went their separate ways in 1966. But Burdon re-appeared in California with his new group at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. His new Animals went on to characterize the era musically with many songs now considered non conformist classics. In 1968, they released a two part single called, “Sky Pilot” that reached number 14 on the U.S. pop charts. It was split across due to it’s length and for the same reasons, it was rarely aired. It was considered their first “Anti-War” song. The ballad is about a chaplain who blesses a body of troops just before they set out on an overnight raid. He then retires to await their return. The band continued on throughout the late 1960’s. They released a song called “San Francisco Nights,” a song that would mark their usage of hallucinogens and accumulate many 1960’s American themes as possible. When performing at the Monterey Music Festival in 1967, it was clear that Eric had re-invented himself on stage. He had a new kind of vibe and edgy approach as the 1970’s where drawing near."JMax555 (talk) 16:45, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

I heard it was World War I and that the plane heard is one used from that era. Wolf O'Donnel (talk) 09:52, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Authorship Clarity Lacking

My musician roommate was humming the tune and became curious about who wrote the song itself, noting that the lyrics were as biting as Mark Twain's The War Prayer. So here I am.

Nearly all wiki song articles start out with a paragraph on the song writers themselves. You know, pertinent information like their full names, any songwriter aliases, and the like. This one curiously does not state that information, stating only that the song was done "by Eric Burdon & The Animals." Why not just say directly that the writers were the second incarnation of the band, namely Eric Burdon, John Weider (guitar/violin/bass), Vic Briggs (guitar/piano & orchestration for the song), Danny McCulloch (bass), and Barry Jenkins (drums)? This wasn't readily apparent in this article, and I had to dig through the wiki article on "The Animals" to figure that out. And this lack of clarity was compounded by the fact that the member line up in that article only listed the original members, and did not list the members of the second line up in the margin summary. Almost as if they were persona non grata. I'm not trying to diss anyone here, but the authorship could be a whole lot clearer.

And, having brought up the point, how did Burdon resolve the "sampling" of the bagpipe issue? Back then, it could have been considered a copyright infringement, not music sampling (a musical grey area that took a lot of court fights to semi-define). Granted, there might not have been much that could have been done about the pilfered song recording, as the tune itself was traditional, my citation here Still ...

Curious omissions. Curiouser and curiouser. DTavona (talk) 22:01, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

References

Bumbled lyrics

The lyrics as quoted in the article are accurate insofar as what (presumably) was originally written. But in singing them, Burdon messes up a line.

What was written is: But he'll stay behind

What is sung is: But he stay'll behind 68.9.129.203 (talk) 23:02, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

There is no "verse quoted above"

Please tell what the referred to verse is. 2600:8804:5709:C600:3851:BC5C:C166:8E51 (talk) 20:55, 2 May 2024 (UTC)