On Wings of Song

UNDER CONSTRUCTION!

On Wings of Song is a 1979 novel by Thomas M. Disch, originally serialized in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. It follows the life and career of Daniel Weinreb, who aspires to become a singer—and to experience "flying", a form of electronically-assisted astral projection triggered by singing—in a deeply dysfunctional near-future America where Midwestern states have fallen into religious fascism.

Title

This is the English translation of the title of Heinrich Heine's poem "Auf Flügeln des Gesanges" (1827), which was set to music by Felix Mendelssohn in 1834 (known as Mendelssohn's Opus 34, No. 2). In English, the poem's first and last stanzas are:

On wings of song,

Sweetheart, I carry you away,

Away to the fields of the Ganges,

Where I know the most beautiful place. ....

There we will lie down

Under the palm tree

Drink in peace and love

And dream our blissful dream.

Epigram

Proficiscere, anima Christiana, de hoc mundo.

This is the beginning of an eighth-century Roman Catholic prayer that is traditionally used in ministry to a dying person, advising the soul to begin its journey. It is generally known as the "Commendation of the Soul", or sometimes referred to simply as the Proficiscere.

Like the novel's title, the Proficiscere is associated with choral music. Text from the prayer, in both Latin and English, appeared in the poem The Dream of Gerontius (1865) by John Henry Newman, which Edward Elgar used as text for his orchestral/choral work The Dream of Gerontius (1900). The translation in Newman and Elgar renders the first line as:

Go forth upon thy journey, Christian soul! Go from this world!

Part One: 1

Amesville, Iowa

No such town exists, although there is a city of Ames in Iowa—not far from Des Moines, where Disch was born and lived until age 13. Amesville sounds smaller, and not so close to a big city; in chapter 2 we learn that it's 40 miles from Fort Dodge, and several references to Fort Dodge make it sound like that's the next largest town in the area, in which case Amesville could be standing in for any number of small towns in Webster County.

She would sit watching him ... people shouldn't let fairies into their houses

Fairies, as we will pick up pretty quickly from context, are the invisible presences of people who are "flying." All other references to fairies in Daniel's childhood are steeped in paranoia about being observed—but his daydreams here are a reminder that being watched over by an unseen dead family member or guardian angel is a standard religious idea meant to be comforting to children. The crucial difference is that Daniel's mother is a living person.

a collect call from New York

Throughout the 20th century there was a large price difference between local and long-distance calling, so calling collect would be a typical way for someone to call home from another state without affecting their phone bill. This is now rare since many phone providers don't have a separate long-distance rate.

the Iowa Stamp Tax

A stamp tax is a tax on property purchases and other transactions, typically at the state level in the US.""

Otto Hassler Park

If this is a historical reference, it would be a misspelling of Otto Haesler (1880-1962), a German architect best known social housing. There would be no obvious connection to this novel or to Disch's life, so it may be that this is just a random fictional name; Hassler, Haesler, Haessler, etc. would be plausible German names to find in Iowa.

to help him take up his indenture

This is only briefly mentioned in connection with Daniel's father's dentistry career; it's unclear if he is in some kind of formal contract such as an apprenticeship or indentured servitude (which would fit with the general sense that capitalism in Iowa has taken a neo-feudal direction), or if Millie is just metaphorically talking about his level of debt.

fans whirling everywhere you went

The way that fans and other rotating objects can harm "fairies" is described by Barbara Steiner in chapter 4.