This introspective and inspirational song reminds us that time is always ticking away, so we'd better make the most of it. The message of freedom through revolution is one Steve Miller picked up when he formed his Steve Miller band in San Francisco in 1966, a time and place that centered him in the counterculture as America was ramping up the Vietnam War.
There's a message of compassion in the song, as Miller sings:
Feed the babies
Who don't have enough to eat
Shoe the children
With no shoes on their feet
House the people
Livin' in the streetMost of Miller's hits from this time period were lighthearted story songs ("
Take The Money And Run") or tunes about having a good time ("
Rock 'N Me," "
Swingtown"). "Fly Like An Eagle" stood out for its powerful message and call to action.
Miller used a lot of synthesizer on this song, but he kept it simple, using it mostly for sound effects and atmosphere. Because he was a guitar player, he didn't feel the need to get too intricate with it, and he got a very basic model that was easy to use: an ARP Odyssey.
"I kept finding that the people who played them were way too complex, and could never remember how they got their sounds or anything," he explained in The Guitar Greats. "So I went to a little local music store and asked them if they had an idiot synthesizer, one with a stop that says 'flute' or 'French horn' or whatever, and they said they had just what I needed, and showed me this very simple synthesizer that none of the players would ever be seen with – it really hurt my keyboard player to have to use it, because he didn't want the other guys to see him with it. I took it home and started fooling around with it, and got all these sounds – it was very easy to use, and there were no problems with it."
The Steve Miller Band is often considered a jam band, and Miller gives this song as an example why. In a 2008 interview to promote his Live In Chicago DVD, he said: "'Fly Like An Eagle' is always about 12 minutes long (in concert). We have always built our recordings so they have room for spontaneity. My jazz and blues influence is what started us as a jam band originally. 'Fly Like An Eagle' was developed over a period of time as a jam. To me it's much more interesting to see a musician be spontaneous than it is to see someone perform perfectly something they do note for note the same way every night."
The song begins with a 1:14 instrumental section called "Space Intro" on the original 1976 album, which made the whole piece two separate tracks. On some Greatest Hits releases, it shows up as one song. Some radio stations play both "Space Intro" and "Fly Like An Eagle" as one song. Miller's next album,
Book Of Dreams, opens with an instrumental intro to the song "
Jet Airliner" called "Threshold."
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Suggestion credit:
Jim - Oxnard, CA
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The song echoes out on the fade with some beeps that Miller and his mastering engineer, Jim Gains, found during the mixing process on a piece of tape that had been erased. Those little beeps are typical of what could be left behind on analog tape that didn't get thoroughly erased.
The radio edit is cut down to 3 minutes from the 4:42 album version, with most of the outro, including the beeps, removed. This is the version used on the Greatest Hits 1974–78 album, which outsold all of Miller's studio albums combined.
The guitar work was cloned from earlier Steve Miller song, "My Dark Hour."
Miller wrote and recorded most of his albums Fly Like An Eagle and Book of Dreams (1977) in the same sessions from 1975-1976. After taking a year off, he got together with his drummer Gary Malliber and bass player Lonnie Turner, and they worked up about 25 songs in less than two weeks. Over the next 18 months, Miller worked on them at his home studio, doing vocals and arrangements. Both albums were ready in 1976, but Book of Dreams was held back a year.
According to drummer Gary Mallaber, there are no overdubs on this song other than the ending sound effects - it was recorded live and took them just three takes.
A key component to this song is the Hammond B3 organ, which was played by an outside musician, Joachim Young.
Seal covered this song, incorporating a bit of his hit "
Crazy" in the lyrics. His version was used in the 1996 movie
Space Jam, starring Michael Jordan. Seal's cover reached #13 in the UK and #10 in the US.
In 1998, the US Postal Service started using "Fly Like An Eagle" in their commercials, drawing emphasis to their logo, an eagle.
The heavy metal band In This Moment
covered "Fly Like An Eagle" for their 2020 album
Mother. Their version came about when vocalist Maria Brink and guitarist Chris Howorth were up in Albany working on the record. The pair came up with a groovy synthwave piece both loved.
"I don't remember why, but we started singing 'The time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping' from 'Fly Like An Eagle' and Maria's eyes lit up," Howorth recalled to
HMV. "I wanted to keep it as the original and not use it as a cover, but she loved it so much that we stuck with Steve Miller."