Woman in the Sky: My Renewed Fascination with Amelia Earhart
By Aaron Goldstein (07/03/08)
It was 71 years ago this week, Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Frederick Noonan, took off from Lae, New Guinea for Howland Island on what was to be the penultimate leg of their flight around the world only to vanish, never to be seen or heard from again.
The disappearance of Amelia Earhart has fascinated people the world over for more than seven decades. It will undoubtedly fascinate yet another generation. In 2009, a major motion picture simply titled Amelia will be released starring two time Academy Award winning actress Hilary Swank as the doomed aviatrix which is currently in production. It will co-star Richard Gere who has been cast as Amelia’s publicity seeking husband, George Palmer Putnam. The film is being directed by Mira Nair.
Amelia Earhart first entered the recesses of my consciousness when I was a little boy in the late 1970s. Her disappearance was profiled on the television program In Search Of which was hosted by actor Leonard Nimoy. I seem to recall watching the program on more than one occasion. In all likelihood, I watched the program in Victoria, British Columbia where our family lived for one year while my father was on sabbatical. I also recall seeing that same program while visiting my maternal grandparents in Coleman, Alberta at around that same time.
Naturally, at the age of five or six I could understand very little in the way of the program’s content apart from the fact that she was a pilot and had disappeared. But that program made an indelible impression upon me. Here was this woman who appeared to be not of her time. Her hair was short and tousled. She usually wore men’s clothing. She was photographed around airplanes. Amelia Earhart seemed to belong to the 1970s rather than the 1930s.
Earlier this year, my interest in Amelia Earhart was rekindled. This renewed fascination did not come about as a result of the forthcoming movie. Rather it was through the music of Iain Matthews.
For those unfamiliar with Iain Matthews, he can be best described as a British folk musician who has performed both as a solo act and as the lead singer of several groups for the past four decades. Matthews began his career as a vocalist for the folk group Fairport Convention appearing on their debut album released in 1968. Matthews is probably best known as the founder and lead singer of the group Matthews’ Southern Comfort which had its heyday in 1969 and 1970. Matthews’ Southern Comfort was best known for its cover of the Joni Mitchell song “Woodstock” which was more famously covered by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. The MSC version was a number one hit in Britain and received a fair amount of airplay in both Canada and the United States. While CSNY’s version of “Woodstock” is hard rocking, MSC’s rendition is quieter and more introspective with a very subtle country flair. I heard MSC’s “Woodstock” a great deal when I listened to Oldies 1310 while living in Ottawa during the early to mid 1990s. That station also played another MSC song called “Tell Me Why” which was written by Neil Young, who is also a member of CSNY.
As so often happens when I haven’t heard a song a long while I make a determined effort to go find it on CD. This is not always an easy task because the material in question is often out of print. Although hunting for such material is half the fun. Eventually, I found not one but two Matthews’ Southern Comfort compilation CDs at a little second hand record shop in Harvard Square last fall and have listened to those CDs exhaustively. Naturally, I wanted more.
After Matthews left MSC in 1970, he recorded two solo albums before fronting another group called Plainsong. They would put together only one album before Matthews resumed his solo career. Plainsong’s one album was titled In Search of Amelia Earhart and it was released in 1972. I would find this CD one Saturday afternoon at Newbury Comics on (where else?) Newbury Street.
In Search of Amelia Earhart has moved me in a way that few pieces of recorded music ever have. As a source of musical nourishment, it is an album I would want with me if I were to be stranded on an island in the Pacific. It is a cross between West Coast folk/rock music and country music if it were performed along the English countryside. Lead vocal duties are shared by Matthews and Andy Roberts. The mood alternates between hope and despair often from song to song. It is a shame that Plainsong did not have a longer life (although Matthews and Roberts have come back together occasionally since the early 1990s). Then again better to have a single masterpiece than a dozen mediocre non-descript works.
Despite its title, Matthews insists In Search of Amelia Earhart is not a concept album. In an interview that appears in the liner notes of the expanded In Search of Amelia Earhart CD released in 2005 Matthews states:
It’s not a concept album in any sense of the word. Never was, never will be. Andy and I wanted to draw attention to our fascination with Amelia and decided to do that via the cover art, but it got a little out of hand and people presumed it was a concept album. But listen to it, there are two songs on it about Amelia and that’s it. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to realize there’s no concept.
It is true there are only two songs on the album that specifically refer to Amelia – “Amelia Earhart’s Last Flight” (originally written and recorded by David D. McEnery in 1939) and the Matthews penned “True Story of Amelia Earhart”. Perhaps Matthews and Roberts did not consciously set out to make a concept album about Amelia Earhart. However, when one listens to other songs on the album such as the gospel standard “I’ll Fly Away”, Jerry Yester and Judy Henske’s “Raider” and Matthews’ compositions “For The Second Time” and “Even The Guiding Light” images of flight are conveyed. So even if those songs aren’t about Amelia Earhart per se their inclusion does make one think of Earhart’s achievements along with her tragic fate.
One must also consider the original liner notes for “In Search of Amelia Earhart” were written by Fred Goerner, a CBS Radio correspondent who wrote the book The Search for Amelia Earhart which was released in 1966. Goerner was of the view that Amelia and Fred Noonan were American spies who were captured and killed by the Japanese. Much of Goerner’s case is based on eyewitness testimony of natives of Saipan in the Marshall Islands who claim to have seen the two pilots in Japanese custody. Indeed, Mattthews’ “True Story of Amelia Earhart” is based in part on Goerner’s account of those events.
While “True Story of Amelia Earhart” is one of the most beautifully arranged songs I have ever heard at the same time I am not convinced Earhart and Noonan fell into the hands of the Japanese. After all, it is worth remembering that they disappeared more than four years before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Japan also assisted the U.S. Navy’s search for Earhart and Noonan after their disappearance sending out two of their naval vessels. In those days, the Japanese were more occupied with the Soviet Union than the United States. As Goerner himself notes the day Amelia and Noonan vanished, Soviet troops withdrew from the islands along the Amur River which averted war between the two countries that was but the latest in the long line of discontent in Sino-Soviet relations. In her biography of Earhart titled The Sound of Wings, Earhart biographer Mary Lovell asked if the Japanese had captured Earhart why didn’t they tell anyone? Wouldn’t capturing Earhart have made grand propaganda?
I am more inclined to believe the accounts of Elgen and Marie Long. In their book Amelia Earhart: The Mystery Solved, the Longs argue that the Lockheed Electra simply ran out of fuel before falling into the Pacific Ocean. They estimate the plane probably crashed about 40 miles northwest of Howland Island. It must be remembered that Howland Island is two miles long and half a mile wide with an elevation of less than 20 feet. In one of Earhart’s final transmissions to the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Itasca she said, “We must be on you, but cannot see you – but gas is running low. Have been unable to reach you by radio. We are flying at 1,000 feet.” Elgen Long, an accomplished pilot who flown around the world solo over both the North and South Poles, believes Earhart and Noonan were frantically trying to find a dot on the Pacific and simply ran out of time. Amelia falling into the ocean might not be as glamorous as a tale of espionage but it is in my view it is the most plausible explanation of what happened to her and Noonan. Just because no one has found her or the Electra at the bottom of the Pacific doesn’t mean that they aren’t there.
Whatever befell Amelia Earhart, her life and death have inspired creativity. Her life and death inspired Iain Matthews’ creativity. Her life and death have inspired my own creativity with some help from Iain Matthews.
I am not the first person to have written a poem about Amelia Earhart. But I might be the first person to write a poem about Amelia Earhart and John McCain. While many have speculated that Earhart was held in captivity by the Japanese, we know for a fact that McCain was held in captivity for five and a half years by the North Vietnamese. How does one cope with such an ordeal? How does one block out the physical and mental torments that accompany a trauma that seems without end? Does one find comfort in sleep? What does a prisoner of war dream about? Here’s “Woman in the Sky”:
The naval aviator’s plane was shot down
While in combat over the Pacific
His captors knew his name, rank & pedigree
Their orders were quite specific
Leave right now or we will take your life
You know our plans and coordinates
But the commander disobeyed and stayed put
Demonstrating loyalty to his subordinates
They did not kill him but made his life hell
Inside a place they considered a luxury hotel
Broken arms & legs; he never diminished
Although on the inside he wondered if he was finished
Sleep, or what little he had, was enough to keep him alive
Dreaming of going home or wearing stars that numbered five
Yet the one vision that would move him to cry
Was the appearance of the woman in the sky
One night he gathered the strength to ask
I’ve seen your face; do I know of your glory?
She tossed her short hair and replied
Everyone from paupers to Presidents knows my story
He then realized to whom he was speaking
What happened to you & your navigator?
She smiled & gently said
That’s a tale to be told later
Why have you chosen to reveal yourself to me
Is there something you think I ought to see
Lieutenant McCain, the reason I am now here
Is to give you something to assuage your fear
What can a hallucination possibly give
To a man who needs every ounce of strength to live?
Your disdain and derision are forgiven
Remember I too have seen men with no arms, legs or vision
We have very much in common
In my humblest opinion
Speaking as your sister pilot
Let me direct you to your soul’s dominion
My dear lady you have great courage
To give me a piece of your mind
Perhaps now I can rise over these clouds
Which have fogged my sanity blind
Lieutenant, you now have the courage
Necessary to get you through this dark day
With my mission accomplished
I will now fly away
He was then abruptly awoken
Before he could ask why
Much less say thank you
To the woman in the sky
Years later he was freed from captivity
Exercising his freedom through political activity
He would never see the aviatrix again
Though he gave thought to her now and then
He wondered what happened to her that day in the air
But declined to launch an investigation that would lead nowhere
What mattered to him was that her life took flight
And in turn gave his glimmer of light
(Printer friendly version) Email: Aaron Goldstein
