Review
Genre and Mood
Jan Blomqvist turns Big Jet Plane into deep house: electronic, melodic and stretched out over almost six minutes. It is a cover in the truest sense, dreamy, longing and melancholic, keeping the soul of the original while placing it somewhere new.
Song Summary
Angus & Julia Stone’s song is a gentle, romantic dream of flying away with someone on a big jet plane, simple and almost childlike in its imagery. Blomqvist slows it down and wraps it in warm, glowing synths, a soft kick and drifting atmospheric layers, then sings it himself in his weary, intimate voice. The result is less a lullaby than a late-night flight, the city lights shrinking below. The memorable detail is the patience: the track takes its time, letting the melody unfold over the beat rather than rushing toward a drop.
Musical Breakdown
The rework follows a long, slow arc typical of melodic house sets.
Intro
Soft pads and a subtle pulse rise out of the silence, setting a calm, nocturnal atmosphere.
Verse 1
Blomqvist’s voice enters close and understated, delivering the familiar lyrics in a hushed, introspective tone.
Build-up
The groove gathers weight, with bass and percussion lifting the track gradually off the ground.
Chorus
The famous hook arrives over the full groove, the image of the plane transformed into a gentle, floating release.
Outro
The layers thin out slowly, leaving the pulse and a few melodic echoes fading into the distance.
Concepts in Focus
This is a textbook cover version: a new recording of someone else’s song that keeps the melody and the words but changes almost everything around them. Angus Stone wrote the song and sang it over guitar; Blomqvist keeps the tune and sings it himself, so the song remains recognisable while its genre, tempo feel and setting are his. Listen to Angus & Julia Stone – Big Jet Plane first and then this, and notice how quickly the ear finds the familiar line.
The engine of the change is four-on-the-floor, a kick on every beat. It gives the body a steady place to land, which is what turns a folk lullaby into something a DJ can play, yet the vocal phrasing stays loose and unhurried above it. The guitar bed of the original is replaced by synthesizer pads and textures, warm sustained sounds that fill the space without competing with the voice.
Artistic Context
The song was written by Angus Stone and first recorded under his alias Lady of the Sunshine on the 2009 album Smoking Gun, before Angus & Julia Stone released it as a single from their 2010 album Down the Way. That version topped the triple j Hottest 100 of 2010. Jan Blomqvist, born Jan Freter in 1982 in Ahnsbeck in Lower Saxony, moved to Berlin at 19, started out on guitar in a teenage punk band and played his first show at the Berlin club Tresor in 2008. He released his electronic version of “Big Jet Plane” in 2011 on the label Dantze, an early step toward the blend of sung songwriting and melodic house he later took on tour with a live drummer and keyboard player, and heard again on records like “Time Again”.
Impact and Reception
Blomqvist’s cover is one of the versions the song’s own history lists among its notable reworkings, and it has itself been remixed, by Animal Trainer among others. It introduced the song to dance floors far from its folk origins and is one of the best examples of how a melody can travel between genres and still feel sincere. Put on headphones, dim the lights and let it lift you off the ground.
