podunklander

Another lyric change from the original, published lyrics is in the 3rd verse: "silver bird" was changed to "silver wing". I don't know who, when and why this (minor and probably insignificant) change occurred.

My guess is that "wing" is more fluent to sing than "bird". And it works well because the "wing" points to a direction, a portion of the plane (or "bird") -a glimpse to be had while it is moving away from sight.

For a vocalist, these hard consonants require more from one's vocal chords and/or an additional breath. Often, any opportunity to change lyrics to make something easier to sing is...well just easier and nicer. Some words just come out awkward when they are sung and especially how they sound in a phrase.

One song I wrote has the word, "shedding"...which I refuse to change for lack of a better word. If someone came up with a better word to sing in my song...it would be most welcome. Every time I sing it, it ends up sounding like "shitting".