Music Review // Ryan O'Reilly "Fear Of Flying"

 

Ryan O'Reilly brings to song what many people feel but something which doesn't get talked about quite enough with "Fear Of Flying".   Statistically, you are more likely to get into a car accident than you are to have a plane crash while you're on it.  Yet, at the same time, much like the subject of this song, I am afraid of flying.  I do not like it.  I do not do it.  And perhaps most importantly, I feel like we are not meant to do it.  I feel as if I am a land mammal, not an air mammal.

Through soft acoustics, winding guitars and a big finish this song reminds me a bit of Chris Isaak at times.   It has this mellow way about it though which can feel comforting.  If you're going to sing about having a fear about anything, really, you shouldn't have a song which seems to also create more fear, so the way that this is presented just feels perfectly done by Ryan O'Reilly.  It can make the point to even the most fearful of us listening.

I have a lot of nerves about a lot of things, but flying was one of the biggest ones.  I remember having to get to the airport so early to check in and then just kind of be stuck there, waiting for your fate like someone on death row.  In this song, Ryan O'Reilly does say: "My teeth are clenched / My stomach churns" and it does feel like that.  One of the last times I flew, I was in the airport bathroom and just remember hearing someone in a stall violently throwing up.

As much as I don't like to fly and simply choose not to, this song is about that fear but also the act of flying, as throughout the song the lyrics show.  For me, I am fortunate to live somewhere that is close to everybody I know, but if I was ever in a situation where I had to be somewhere in an emergency and fly for the fastest trip I would do it.  This reminds me of the lyric here: "I tell myself I'm coming home / And in the end I have no choice".  So, yes, while the fear is there, I suppose the only way you could get me to fly as well is if I felt like I had no choice.