Broken Wings

This mainstream classic Pop song was inspired by a book the lyricist John Lang read called Broken Wings, which was written by the Lebanese poet-philosopher Kahlil Gibran. The book is about picking up the pieces of your life and moving on.

The line, "Take these broken wings and learn to fly" appears in The Beatles song "Blackbird." Paul McCartney and John Lennon both drew from the work of Kahlil Gibran, as the first 2 lines of The Beatles "Julia" came from Gibran's 1926 poem Sand And Foam: "Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it just to reach you, Julia."

The book The Broken Wings, which was written in 1912 is a story of a love that is doomed by oriental social convention.

Clay Aiken covered this on his 2006 album A Thousand Different Ways, adding an original poem spoken by Erin Taylor. Richard Page of Mr. Mister was very complimentary of Aiken's version of the song.

In 2001, this song was sampled for a posthumous Tupac Shakur song "Until The End Of Time," which featured Richard Page. It only reached #52 in the US but peaked at #4 in the UK. (thanks, Edward Pearce - Ashford, Kent, England, for all above)