Icarus imagery in contemporary popular music expresses artistic disengagement and isolation or anomie through the figure of Icarus from Greek mythology. The following is a list of songs that refer to Icarus, alphabetized by artist.
| Artist | Title | Date | Album/Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alesana | Icarus | 2006 | On Frail Wings of Vanity and Wax (album) |
| Angra | Metal Icarus | Fireworks (album) | |
| Aria | Икар (Icarus) | 1986 | S kem ty? (album) |
| The Back Horn | イーカロスの空 (Icarus' Sky) | 2006 | |
| Black Tape for a Blue Girl | For You Will Burn Your Wings upon the Sun | 1996 | Remnants of a Deeper Purity. |
| Bombay Bicycle Club | The Hill | "We flew too high let the sun burn our wings" | |
| Bon Iver | Flume | 2008 | "Gluey feathers on a flume" |
| Jen Cass | Daedalus | 1996 | Brave Enough to Say (album) |
| Clutch | Mercury | "Daedalus, your child is falling and the Labyrinth is calling." | |
| Miranda Cosgrove | Hey You | 2010 | "If you fly like Icarus to the edge" |
| Counting Crows | Insignificant and Sundays | 2008 | "I am Icarus falling out of the sun" |
| Diablo | Icaros | 2008 | Icaros (album) |
| Ani DiFranco | Icarus | Evolve (album) | |
| Dreamtale | Wings of Icaros | Difference (album) | |
| Danny Elfman | The Little Things | 2008 | "With a mountain of maybes And some Icarus wings" |
| Emperor | An Elegy of Icaros | 1999 | IX Equilibrium (album) |
| Epik High | Icarus Walks | Pieces, Part One (album) | |
| Eddi Reader | East of Us | "...just like Icarus who kissed the sunlight..." | |
| Faith No More | Just a Man | 1995 | "...like Icarus, to fly too high..." |
| William Fitzsimmons | The Problem of Pain | 2005 | "Icarus they caught you where you tumbled on" |
| Flutlicht | Icarus (Original Daedalus Mix) | 2001 | Icarus (The Flight) EP released on Drizzly Songs (catalog no. DRIZ2010/62) |
| The Forms | Icarus (album) | 2003 | |
| Jon Foreman | Light & Heavy | "I'm feeling Icarus" | |
| Bing Futch | Icarus | ||
| Thea Gilmore | Icarus Wind | "Soon there’ll just be feathers and the quiet of the fall " | |
| Nina Gordon | Tonight & The Rest Of My Life | 2000 | "Down to Earth I fell with dripping wings Heavy things won't fly And the sky might catch fire And burn the axis of the world that's why I prefer a sunless sky To the glittering and stinging in my eyes" |
| Steve Hackett | Icarus Ascending | 1978 | Please Don't Touch , with vocals by Richie Havens |
| Hawklords | The Only Ones | 1977 | 25 Years On |
| Hibria | Wings of Wax | 2008 | The Skull Collectors (album) |
| Hopesfall | Icarus | 2004 | A Types |
| The Hours | Icarus | "Like Icarus he flew too close to the sun" | |
| Immortal Technique | That's What It Is | 2008 | "Your wax is useless, Rappers are dropping like Icarus" |
| Indigo Girls | Go | "Did they tell you you would come undone / When you tried to touch the sun?" | |
| Iron Maiden | Flight of Icarus | 1983 | Piece of Mind (album)[1] |
| Iron Maiden | Satellite 15... The Final Frontier | 2010 | "Too close to the sun, and surely will burn, like Icarus before me or so legend goes" |
| It Dies Today | A Romance By The Wings of Icarus | 2002 | Forever Scorned (album) |
| Jars of Clay | Worlds Apart | 1996 | "I flew too high and like Icarus I collide" |
| Kansas | Icarus (Borne on Wings of Steel) | 1975 | Masque (album) |
| Kansas | I Can Fly | 1995 | "...this foolish pride where Icarus died" |
| Kansas | Icarus II | 2000 | Somewhere to Elsewhere (album) |
| Keldian | The Ghost of Icarus | 2008 | Journey of Souls (album) |
| Eugene Kurtz | Icare | Solo flute work written by the composer for Craig Goodman, published by Les Editions Jobert, Paris. | |
| Led Zeppelin | trademark | 1974 | Swan Song Records[1] (publishing company) |
| Lullaby for the Working Class | Jester's Siren | 1997 | "Take this biplane made of wax - just don't fly too close to the sun" |
| Machinae Supremacy | Sid Icarus | 2008 | Overworld (album) |
| Yngwie Malmsteen | Icarus' Dream Suite op. 4 | 1987 | Rising Force (album) |
| Marillion | The Great Escape | 1994 | Brave (album) |
| mclusky | Icarus Smicarus | 2004 | The Difference Between Me and You Is That I'm Not on Fire |
| Joni Mitchell | Amelia | 1976 | Hejira, describing the flight of Amelia Earhart "like Icarus ascending on beautiful foolish arms" |
| Mutton Birds | The Heater | "Come close and listen while I sing / I won't melt your precious wings" | |
| Nine Inch Nails | Somewhat Damaged | 1999 | "So impressed with all you do. Tried so hard to be like you. Flew too high and burned the wing. Lost my faith in everything." |
| Ohm | Icarus Falls | 2005 | Amino Acid Flashback |
| Onitsuka Chihiro | 蝋の翼 (Wax Wings) | 2007 | LAS VEGAS (album) |
| Alan Parsons | Too Close To The Sun | 1996 | from the On Air album; relates the escape of Daedalus and Icarus from the labyrinth of the minotaur. |
| Periphery | Icarus Lives! | 2010 | Periphery (album) |
| Phish | The Squirming Coil | "I'd like to lick the coil some day. Like Icarus, who had to pay. With melting wax and feathers brown, he tasted it on his way down." | |
| Pierrot | Ikarossu | Finale (album) | |
| Queen | No One But You | "They're only flying too close to the sun" | |
| Race the Sun | To Icarus with all sincerity | 2004 | The Rest of Our Lives is Tonight (album) |
| Regina Spektor | Lacrimosa | "Hi, I'm Icarus, I'm falling down from the dust of earth returning..." | |
| Reinhard Mey | Ikarus | "...um wie Ikarus aus Gefangenschaft zu fliehen" | |
| Rush | Bravado | "If we burn our wings flying too close to the sun" | |
| Santigold | Icarus | 2008 | Top Ranking (mix tape) |
| Savatage | Alone You Breathe | The band's guitarist Criss Oliva, who died in a fatal car accident, is compared to Icarus | |
| Tupac Shakur | Hit 'Em Up | 1996 | "Niggas think they learned to fly. But they burn, motherfucker, you deserve to die" |
| Smashing Pumpkins | A Song For A Son | 2009 | "...Who flew into the sun, Never to return" |
| Sunset Rubdown | Idiot Heart | "The way that Icarus thought he might own the sky" | |
| Billy Talent | Cut The Curtains | "Now here seems our wax wings have melted away; And we've only been here for one day; My faith fades away" | |
| Textures | Laments of an Icarus | 2008 | Silhouettes (album) |
| Third Eye Blind | Blinded | "Icarus is not a tee shirt or a swan song" | |
| Thrice | Daedalus | Alchemy Index, Vol. III AIR (album) | |
| The Melting Point Of Wax | 2003 | The Artist In The Ambulance (album) | |
| Toy Matinee | Last Plane Out | "I like the part where Icarus hijacks the little red hen." | |
| 2002 | Icarus | 1992 | Wings (album) |
| U2 | Even Better Than the Real Thing | "We're free to fly the crimson sky; the sun won't melt our wings tonight." | |
| Unheilig | Ikarus | 2001 | Phosphor (album) |
| Andreas Vollenweider | The Secret Shrine of Icarus | 1993 | Eolian Minstrel (album) |
| Andreas Vollenweider | Oxygenia & Icarus | 2009 | AIR (album) |
| Jason Webley | Icarus | Only Just Beginning (album) | |
| White Hinterland | Icarus | 2010 | Kairos (album) |
| Wolfgang | Weightless | 1996 | "Let Icarus plummet as sun melts his wax" |
| Xandria | Fire of Universe | "I'm an angel / Born from the breath of life / An Ikarus / Burning and falling down." |