This week goes to the plane. I couldn't help but hum this song every so often (along with John Denver's "Leaving on a Jetplane") as I was on one of my many connecting flights from Auckland, New Zealand to Toronto, Canada.

Air New Zealand had exceptional service and on the way to New Zealand I semi-enjoyed all of my special ordered VGML meals. On the way home, I had the bad luck to be stuck on the horrible United Airlines which had horrible food, and on one flight offered no food I was able to eat at all. So in my hungered state I would hum Air Miami's "Airplane Rider."

This song, though it appeared first on the Air Miami single, showed up in March of 1995's issue of CMJ along with a profile of Teenbeat at the age of 10.

Click above to download the CMJ article (.pdf format)

Though in the article Michael Vazquez writes, "The name "Air Miami" is... [taken from] a riff on real life Air Jamaica," also mentioned in the song, a quick search turns up Miami Air, a thirteen-year-old charter airline flying Boeing 727 and 737 aircraft.

Is it merely a coincidence that the Air Miami 7" ends in the sequential 47 (7"+47) and that all other releases also end in seven? These dark questions may never be answered.

"Billie": a Miami Air chartered plane.