A Train to the Astral Plain: Songs About Angels

We’re listening to songs about angels today on A Symposium of Popular Songs, and trying to get to the bottom of how they became such sentimentalized beings. Completely accidentally, there are a…

Michial Farmer

February 2, 2026

We’re listening to songs about angels today on A Symposium of Popular Songs, and trying to get to the bottom of how they became such sentimentalized beings. Completely accidentally, there are a lot of songs from 1998 on today’s show. I wonder if the popularity of Touched by an Angel had a lot of people thinking about angels. Send your song suggestions to symposiumofsongs@gmail.com!

0:00
Pep Squad, “Angel” (No Doy!, 1998)
5:51
Alice Coltrane and Carlos Santana, “Angel of Air” (Illuminations, 1974)
10:22
Reading: Genesis 3
11:32
Reading: Ezekiel 10
15:51
Terry Scott Taylor, “Too Many Angels” (John Wayne, 1998)
19:34
Champion Leader, “Angel Wings: Cue the Strings” (4st, 2014)
24:20
Reading: Genesis 19
28:09
Hank Williams, “Angel of Death” (single, 1954)
29:54
Sunny Day Real Estate, “Killed by an Angel” (The Rising Tide, 2000)
35:07
Reading: Luke 1
36:47
Reading: Daniel 9
38:44
Helen Reddy, “Blow, Gabriel, Blow” (Center Stage, 1998)
41:44
Benny Goodman with Martha Tilton, “And the Angels Sing” (single, 1939)
45:07
Reading: Hebrews 13
45:47
Newsboys, “Entertaining Angels” (Step Up to the Microphone, 1998)
49:55
Common Children, “Entertaining Angels” (The In Between Time, 2001)
53:47
Bob Dylan, “Three Angels” (New Morning, 1970)
57:04
Judee Sill, “Crayon Angels” (Judee Sill, 1971)

Michial Farmer

Michial Farmer is a poet, essayist, and history teacher. He is the author of Imagination and Idealism in John Updike’s Fiction (Camden House, 2017) and the translator of Gabriel Marcel’s Thirst (Cluny, 2021). He lives in Atlanta.