Topic: Mail it in the air

[Parlor Picker]

Actually Noah sings it not in Viola Lee but in Pretty Mama Blues:

I wrote a letter I mailed it in the air
I mailed it in the air
You may know by that I got a friend somewhere

But it is often sung, as, I believe, by the Kweskin Band, as part of Viola Lee.

All for now.
John C.

That's the one John - many thanks.  Trouble is my computer where I work (when not looking at the Weenie) is up in the attic and my records are two floors down.  Yes, Pretty Mama Blues is a beautiful song.

[By the way, summer migrants all arriving at our local nature reserve now.]

[Gumbo]

Does anyone else get "tell your troubles to the wind' kind of feeling about this phrase? There are wind references in many instances of the lyric and the sense that the recipient is 'somewhere' rather than at a particular address. I think 'mail it in the air' is saying 'trust to luck' or maybe even 'you can try but it's pointless'.

[Rivers]

I'm in the 'airmail craze' camp. Living in the Twenties airmail was just catching hold. I read somewhere that, to the denizens of those times, the concept was akin to flying a rocket ship to the moon.

The government was pushing it, and by 1930 it was fairly well established, with Curtis Jennies flying mail around the 3 zones that had been delineated for the USA. Since the government was backing it I can easily imagine there was some publicity around all this that caught the public imagination, but haven't found much to back this up as yet.

[CF]

It's an attractive image, the idea that your letter or communication is literally flying to get to its addressee, easy to see why a vocalist would like it. 
I agree with Gumbo that there is a sense of almost carelessness about the phrase.

[Prof Scratchy]

Airmail.

[Rivers]

Another one, Georgia White, New Dupree Blues, 1936

Betty wrote a letter and mailed it in the air
'Cause she knew Dupree was in the world somewhere

Very tasty accompaniment from Les Paul on that track.