A Letter from Adam Young

Dearest friends,

Where do I even begin?

Though it seems like it happened yesterday, an entire year has passed since I put out Ocean Eyes and I cannot begin to tell you how amazed I am due to all that has happened between then and now. A tremendous amount of asphalt has passed under the tires, a lot of miles put on the odometer and a lot of marvelous memories made along the way. It’s an overwhelming, invigorating feeling that can’t even be put into words. I catch myself thinking about the future often and I truly couldn’t be more excited. I’ve been immensely blessed by each and every opportunity I’ve had via Owl City and your endless support only continues to encourage me. I wholeheartedly cannot thank you enough.


Thus far, I’ve been quite a busy bee this summer, hidden away in the cavelike warmth of my basement, working like a mad scientist on the next Owl City record and I absolutely cannot wait for you to hear it. Things are coming together nicely but there’s still a lot of work to be done.


However, there’s something I’d like to share with you in the meantime.

Three and a half years ago, I recorded a collection of songs in my parent’s basement during the bleary-eyed hours of night when sleep and I could not bring ourselves to meet. I was a metalworker, working 6 AM to 4 PM at a warehouse in my little southern Minnesota town. I was writing, creating, thinking, imagining and breathing music with every second I had to spare. Music has always been my dream, but at that point in time, it was merely a feather tossed to the wind. Regardless, my spirits were far from dampened and I created music as fast and as furiously as I could. In my little basement bedroom, I had an old Dell computer, Reason 2.5, a friend’s borrowed Behringer C-1 condenser, a Behringer 8 channel analog mixer and my uncle’s old Alvarez. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing but I was a dreamer and music was my escape so I gave it everything I had. Never expecting my music to be heard anywhere but by my parents through the floorboards above, I wrote for my own ears. I was both artist and audience and I called myself Sky Sailing.

I’ve kept these recordings secret for a long time and they’ve never seen the light of day until now. Long before Owl City was ever a spark of a flame, a lot of blue-collared working days were spent absentmindedly daydreaming about what would ultimately become this collection of songs. From the perfectionist musician’s perspective, a song is never truly “finished” but rather “abandoned” and thus, after a lot of inspiration and reckless experimentation, I emerged from the basement with a 11 song record which I affectionately entitled, An Airplane Carried Me To Bed.

This album is a step into the past, the documented account of a shy boy from Minnesota with more hopes and dreams than he knew what to do with. When you listen to this record, you can hear naivety, innocence, inexperience and the wide-eyed imaginings of a wishful thinker. It’s both light and dark, optimistic and melancholy. Unpolished and dusty, it’s an antique and therefore holds a truly unique and graceful aesthetic within. Though there has always been just one artist behind the music, before there was Owl City there was Sky Sailing and I consider it a great honor to finally find this opportunity to share it with you. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed creating it.

If by chance you ever feel as though you’ve come to know these songs or empathize with the emotions therein, please consider yourself a friend of mine because in a manner of speaking, you know me. As the saying goes, one can truly glimpse the artist through his/her art, and that expression certainly proves faithful in my case. This music is my heart and soul. This is who I am.

With that being said, I am so very glad to meet you.

With all due respect,


Adam Young

Posted in: Music