Icarus imagery in contemporary popular music expresses artistic disengagement and isolation or anomie through the figure of Icarus from Greek mythology. The following is a list of songs that refer to Icarus, alphabetized by artist.
| Artist | Title | Date | Album/Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alesana | "Icarus" | 2006 | On Frail Wings of Vanity and Wax (album) |
| Angra | "Metal Icarus" | Fireworks (album) | |
| Aria | "Икар" ("Icarus") | 1986 | S kem ty? (album) |
| The Back Horn | "イーカロスの空v ("Icarus' Sky") | 2006 | |
| Bastille | "Icarus" | 2011 | "Icarus is flying too close to the sun" |
| Michael McCann | "Icarus" | Main Theme - Deus Ex: Human Revolution Soundtrack | |
| Black Tape for a Blue Girl | "For You Will Burn Your Wings upon the Sun" | 1996 | Remnants of a Deeper Purity |
| Bombay Bicycle Club | "The Hill" | "We flew too high let the sun burn our wings" | |
| Bon Iver | "Flume" | 2008 | "Gluey feathers on a flume" |
| Jen Cass | "Daedalus" | 1996 | Brave Enough to Say (album) |
| Clutch | "Droid" & "Mercury" | 1995 and 2004 | "Flight of Icarus, down into flames." & "Daedalus, your child is falling and the Labyrinth is calling." respectively |
| Miranda Cosgrove | "Hey You" | 2010 | "If you fly like Icarus to the edge" |
| Counting Crows | "Insignificant" and "Sundays" | 2008 | "I am Icarus falling out of the sun" |
| Diablo | 2008 | Icaros (album) | |
| Ani DiFranco | "Icarus" | Evolve (album) | |
| Dreamtale | "Wings of Icaros" | Difference (album) | |
| Danny Elfman | "The Little Things" | 2008 | "With a mountain of maybes And some Icarus wings" |
| Emperor | "An Elegy of Icaros" | 1999 | IX Equilibrium (album) |
| Enter the Haggis | "Icarus" | 2001 | Aerials (album) "You think I am weak 'til your strength starts to go / and you reach for my hand as I take to the sky / my father, I've waited and awful long time for this - / rot in your labyrinth, I have learned to fly." |
| Epik High | "Icarus Walks" | Pieces, Part One (album) | |
| Eddi Reader | "East of Us" | "...just like Icarus who kissed the sunlight..." | |
| Faith No More | "Just a Man" | 1995 | "...like Icarus, to fly too high..." |
| William Fitzsimmons | "The Problem of Pain" | 2005 | "Icarus they caught you where you tumbled on" |
| Flutlicht | "Icarus (Original Daedalus Mix)" | 2001 | Icarus (The Flight) EP released on Drizzly Songs (catalog no. DRIZ2010/62) |
| The Forms | 2003 | Icarus (album) | |
| Jon Foreman | "Light & Heavy" | I'm feeling Icarus | |
| Bing Futch | "Icarus" | ||
| Thea Gilmore | "Icarus Wind" | "Soon there’ll just be feathers and the quiet of the fall" | |
| Nina Gordon | "Tonight & The Rest Of My Life" | 2000 | "Down to Earth I fell with dripping wings Heavy things won't fly And the sky might catch fire And burn the axis of the world that's why I prefer a sunless sky To the glittering and stinging in my eyes" |
| Steve Hackett | "Icarus Ascending" | 1978 | Please Don't Touch, with vocals by Richie Havens |
| Hawklords | "The Only Ones" | 1977 | 25 Years On (album) |
| Hibria | "Wings of Wax" | 2008 | The Skull Collectors (album) |
| Hopesfall | "Icarus" | 2004 | A Types |
| The Hours | "Icarus" | "Like Icarus he flew too close to the sun" | |
| Immortal Technique | "That's What It Is" | 2008 | "Your wax is useless, Rappers are dropping like Icarus" |
| Indigo Girls | "Go" | "Did they tell you you would come undone / When you tried to touch the sun?" | |
| Iron Maiden | "Flight of Icarus" | 1983 | Piece of Mind (album) |
| Iron Maiden | "Satellite 15... The Final Frontier" | 2010 | "Too close to the sun, and surely will burn, like Icarus before me or so legend goes" |
| It Dies Today | "A Romance by the Wings of Icarus" | 2002 | Forever Scorned (album) |
| Jars of Clay | "Worlds Apart" | 1996 | "I flew too high and like Icarus I collide" |
| Jordin Kare | "Fire in the Sky" | "Gagarin was the first, back in nineteen sixty-one, when like Icarus, undaunted, he climbed to reach the sun." | |
| Kansas | "Icarus (Borne on Wings of Steel)" | 1975 | Masque (album) |
| Kansas | "I Can Fly" | 1995 | "...this foolish pride where Icarus died" |
| Kansas | "Icarus II" | 2000 | Somewhere to Elsewhere (album) |
| Keldian | "The Ghost of Icarus" | 2008 | Journey of Souls (album) |
| Paul Kelly | "Dumb Things" | 1987 | "I melted wax to fix my wings" |
| Eugene Kurtz | "Icare" | Solo flute work written by the composer for Craig Goodman, published by Les Editions Jobert, Paris. | |
| Led Zeppelin | trademark | 1974 | Swan Song Records (publishing company) |
| Lullaby for the Working Class | "Jester's Siren" | 1997 | "Take this biplane made of wax - just don't fly too close to the sun" |
| Machinae Supremacy | "Sid Icarus" | 2008 | Overworld (album) |
| Yngwie Malmsteen | "Icarus' Dream Suite op. 4" | 1987 | Rising Force (album) |
| Manatees | "Sunclimber" | 2009 | Icarus The Sunclimber (album) |
| Marillion | "The Great Escape" | 1994 | Brave (album) |
| mclusky | "Icarus Smicarus" | 2004 | The Difference Between Me and You Is That I'm Not on Fire |
| Joni Mitchell | "Amelia" | 1976 | Hejira, describing the flight of Amelia Earhart "like Icarus ascending on beautiful foolish arms" |
| Mutton Birds | "The Heater" | "Come close and listen while I sing / I won't melt your precious wings" | |
| Nine Inch Nails | "Somewhat Damaged" | 1999 | "So impressed with all you do. Tried so hard to be like you. Flew too high and burned the wing. Lost my faith in everything." |
| OHM | "Icarus Falls" | 2005 | Amino Acid Flashback |
| Onitsuka Chihiro | "蝋の翼 (Wax Wings)" | 2007 | LAS VEGAS (album) |
| Alan Parsons | "Too Close To The Sun" | 1996 | from the On Air album; relates the escape of Daedalus and Icarus from the labyrinth of the minotaur. |
| Periphery | "Icarus Lives!" | 2010 | Periphery (album) |
| Perpetual Groove | "Too Close To The Sun" | 2009 | Heal (album) |
| Phish | "The Squirming Coil" | "I'd like to lick the coil some day. Like Icarus, who had to pay. With melting wax and feathers brown, he tasted it on his way down." | |
| Pierrot | "Ikarossu" | Finale (album) | |
| Queen | "No One But You" | "They're only flying too close to the sun" | |
| Race the Sun | "To Icarus with all sincerity" | 2004 | The Rest of Our Lives is Tonight (album) |
| Regina Spektor | "Lacrimosa" | "Hi, I'm Icarus, I'm falling down from the dust of earth returning..." | |
| Reinhard Mey | "Ikarus" | "...um wie Ikarus aus Gefangenschaft zu fliehen" | |
| Rush | "Bravado" | "If we burn our wings flying too close to the sun" | |
| Santigold | "Icarus" | 2008 | Top Ranking (mix tape) |
| Savatage | "Alone You Breathe" | The band's guitarist Criss Oliva, who died in a fatal car accident, is compared to Icarus | |
| Tupac Shakur | "Hit 'Em Up" | 1996 | "Niggas think they learned to fly. But they burn, motherfucker, you deserve to die" |
| Smashing Pumpkins | "A Song For a Son" | 2009 | "...Who flew into the sun, Never to return" |
| Sunset Rubdown | "Idiot Heart" | "The way that Icarus thought he might own the sky" | |
| Billy Talent | "Cut the Curtains" | "Now here seems our wax wings have melted away; And we've only been here for one day; My faith fades away" | |
| Textures | "Laments of an Icarus" | 2008 | Silhouettes (album) |
| Third Eye Blind | "Blinded" | "Icarus is not a tee shirt or a swan song" | |
| Thrice | "Daedalus" | Alchemy Index, Vol. III AIR (album) | |
| "The Melting Point Of Wax" | 2003 | The Artist In The Ambulance (album) | |
| Toy Matinee | "Last Plane Out" | "I like the part where Icarus hijacks the little red hen." | |
| 2002 | "Icarus" | 1992 | Wings (album) |
| U2 | "Even Better Than the Real Thing" | "We're free to fly the crimson sky; the sun won't melt our wings tonight." | |
| Unheilig | "Ikarus" | 2001 | Phosphor (album) |
| Andreas Vollenweider | "The Secret Shrine of Icarus" | 1993 | Eolian Minstrel (album) |
| Andreas Vollenweider | "Oxygenia & Icarus" | 2009 | AIR (album) |
| Jason Webley | "Icarus" | Only Just Beginning (album) | |
| White Hinterland | "Icarus" | 2010 | Kairos (album) |
| Wolfgang | "Weightless" | 1996 | "Let Icarus plummet as sun melts his wax" |
| Xandria | "Fire of Universe" | "I'm an angel / Born from the breath of life / An Ikarus / Burning and falling down." | |
| Zao | "The Icarus Complex" | 2008 | This is Solid State Vol. 3 (album) |
Famous quotes containing the words imagery, contemporary and/or music:
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“See where my Love sits in the beds of spices,
Beset all round with camphor, myrrh, and roses,
And interlaced with curious devices
Which her apart from all the world incloses!
There doth she tune her lute for her delight,
And with sweet music makes the ground to move,
Whilst I, poor I, do sit in heavy plight,
Wailing alone my unrespected love;”
—Bartholomew Griffin (d. 1602)