Critic's Notebook; In the Pop Kingdom, Flying Is the Reigning Metaphor

In her new song ''Butterfly,'' Mariah Carey entreats, ''Spread your wings and prepare to fly.'' In its current hit ''Fly,'' Sugar Ray pines, ''I just want to fly.'' In a forthcoming single from its debut album, Hanson dreams, ''Fly on the wings of an eagle, glide along with the wind.'' In his most recent Top 10 single, R. Kelly emotes, ''I believe I can fly.'' Every one of these songs is upbeat and every one, if it isn't already a hit, has the makings of a hit. And these are just a few of the songs about flying on the pop charts. Even Elton John's ''Candle in the Wind 1997,'' modified to mourn the Princess of Wales instead of Marilyn Monroe, has added a flying metaphor, changing the line ''Who sees you as more than sexual'' to ''Who'll miss the wings of your compassion.''

To the pantheon of popular song subjects like love, sexuality, rebellion and the passing of time, one must now add flight. One of the most common fantasies of childhood is to be able to conquer gravity and fly around the bedroom or the block. In adulthood, psychologists say, dreams of flying represent freedom and the desire to rise above the limitations of day-to-day life. The intent of most good pop songs is the same: to enable the listeners, for three or four minutes, to transcend their problems, worries and concerns. (Except in the case of one of rock's most popular songs, Lynyrd Skynyrd's ''Freebird,'' in which case problems may be transcended for up to half an hour of lofty guitar solos.)

Pop songs are often described using the language of the skies: they are soaring, transcendent, uplifting and buoyant. Perhaps it is for this reason that not only are flying songs common in pop music, but they are predisposed to be hits as well. It is hard to write about flying without accompanying it with a soaring melody.

Unlike songs about romance, sexuality or death, flying songs have more standardized and predictable lyrics. In nearly every one, whether it's a heavy-metal head-banger or a middle-of-the-road ballad, words like ''dream,'' ''love,'' ''free'' and ''time'' can be found, often three or four of them, as in Mister Mister's ''Broken Wings.'' (''You've got to learn to fly/ Learn to live a love so free . . . This time might be the last.'') Perhaps it is the freedom imagery of flight that lends itself to breakup songs like ''Freebird'' and the Beatles's ''Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown).''

A stranger correlation is that pop songwriters gravitate toward the same animals when yearning for flight, each one embodying a different quality. The most common is the eagle as a majestic symbol of freedom. The eagle soars through Abba's ''Eagle,'' the Steve Miller Band's ''Fly Like an Eagle,'' Bette Midler's ''Wind Beneath My Wings,'' Dolly Parton's ''Eagle When She Flies,'' Hanson's ''Thinking of You'' and Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes's ''Love Lift Us Up Where We Belong,'' to name a few. Then there's the dove as a pure, faultless and delicate symbol of peace and divine love, appearing in everything from Ferlin Husky's ''On the Wings of a Dove'' to 10,000 Maniacs's ''Noah's Dove'' (Prince's ''When Doves Cry'' doesn't count because it has nothing to do with flight). And as a delicate symbol of beauty, there's the butterfly, most recently spotted in Mariah Carey's ''Butterfly'' and Bob Carlisle's ''Butterfly Kisses.''

Another thing these two butterfly songs share is the cliched lyric, ''Spread your wings and fly.'' The line or a variation of it has been used also by Queen in ''Spread Your Wings,'' R. Kelly in ''I Believe I Can Fly'' and Bread in ''Fly Away'' and by Rod Stewart as a sexual metaphor in ''Tonight's the Night.'' It should be abolished in all future flying songs. Sugar Ray at least tries to mix two flying song cliches when it sings, ''Spread your love and fly.''

Flying songs didn't always reign over pop music. At the beginning of the century, it had to compete with the train, a potent symbol of strength, speed, solitude and freedom. Since Frank Sinatra began singing standards like ''Come Fly With Me'' and ''Fly Me to the Moon,'' however, flight has almost completely replaced the locomotive, as, of course, it has in real life. Though the themes have generally remained the same, the sound of flying songs has changed along with the technology of flight and instrumentation. Roger McGuinn of the Byrds once tried to explain his music this way: ''The sound of the airplane in the 40's was a rrroooaaahhh sound, and Sinatra and other people sang like that, with those sort of overtones. Now we've got the krrriiiissshhhh jet sound and the kids are singing up in there now. It's the mechanical sounds of the era.''

Rarely a year goes by when a flying song is not among the most popular singles of the year, whether it's a sentimental ballad like Celine Dion's ''Because You Loved Me'' (''You gave me wings and made me fly'') or even an inspiring instrumental like ''Rocky's Theme (Gonna Fly Now).'' ''Because You Loved Me'' fits into a particularly current flying theme because it is written to a lover who is absent, perhaps dead. In this year of pop-star deaths and their exploitation, angels, a yearning to fly to meet a beloved one and the image of a dead friend gazing down from the sky abound. Yet even flying songs about death are upbeat and positive, looking on the bright side of a tragic event as symbolized by gazing skyward. One of the few exceptions to this rule of positive flight imagery is, paradoxically, a John Denver hit, ''Fly Away.'' Mr. Denver, who died in a plane crash last month, uses flying as a metaphor for transcendence, like most other artists, but the type of escape he hints at is a darker kind that some have interpreted as suicide. ''All of her days have gone soft and cloudy,'' the song ends. ''All of her dreams have gone dry/All of her nights have gone sad and shady/ She's getting ready to fly.''