If you had to put the following things in order from oldest to most recent date of invention, what would your order be?

• Planes
• Paper
• Paper planes

Your logic probably goes something like mine: Paper is ancient, so that’s obviously first. Then planes came sometime in the early 1900s. Then I guess people noticed that paper could be folded to imitate the shape of a plane.

So – 1. Paper 2. Planes 3. Paper Planes.

Except that’s the wrong order. Most sources I checked say that it is likely that people in China were making paper airplanes and kites out of papyrus a couple of thousand years ago. Later, Da Vinci used parchment to make models of his design for a helicopter almost 350 years before the helicopter became a reality.

It wasn’t until the second World War, when the materials used to make toys were scarce (or, more accurately, being used to make weapons) that paper, a more widely available resource, was used to make the type of paper planes we would recognize today.

Learning that paper planes were a thing long before actual planes made me very happy. Every time I see one now, I will know that rather than being a symbol of imitation, they are a symbol of aspiration.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. The guitars are played as gently as if they’re afraid they might break the strings.

2. The harmonies sound less like harmonies and more like a voice folded over on itself.

3. Like a paper plane, the song’s flight is beautiful and airy, but shorter than you might hope.

Recommended listening activity:

Picking a design and trying it.

Spotify.

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