Satellites

Album: Flying Cowboys (1989)
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Songfacts®:

  • This song about wonder and opportunity centers on the image Jones came up with of a little with magic runes, which she casts on rooftops and alleys. It channels cosmic possibility:

    We were born forever
    Tunneled into the fugitive night
  • Walter Becker of Steely Dan produced the Flying Cowboys album and played synthesizer on this track. The other personnel:

    Drums: John Robinson
    Acoustic guitar: Buzz Feiten
    Bass: Neil Stubenhaus
    Steel guitar: Dean Parks
    Keyboard: Greg Phillinganes
    Saxophone: Bob Sheppard
    Percussion: Bob Zimmiti
  • Rickie Lee Jones was never an MTV star, but she did make a video for this song with director Ethan Russell, who made a short film with Jones in the '70s that aired in many record stores. In a Songfacts interview, she talked about the video for "Satellites."

    "The look of the video made it hard to really see what was going on," she said. "And the director just gave it to someone to edit and didn't even sit there and say, 'I like this, I don't like that.' So I was... slightly disappointed. But I learned that directors make their film, and you, the artist, are a guest. The idea that an artist makes a video is ridiculous, unless they direct it themselves. So that was a good lesson."

Comments: 1

  • Paul B. from OhioI like the song Satellites but the video looks like a couple who don't want the responsibility of raising a child and just abandon her outside a storefront, where consequently a man takes her away. Maybe his intentions are good but the video leaves me wondering. Is this a comment about not judging a book by its cover as the attractive young couple do something reprehensible and a not so attractive person has the good heart to rescue the unfortunate child. In the end the couple seems to go on their merry way while the man is holding the child's hand protectively.
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