A much PF as I’ve listened to, and I only own “Momentary Lapse of Reason”, I have to say that a lot of their stuff is either uninspiring or massively overplayed. I am SO tired of The Wall I can’t stand it.
My favorite is “Terminal Frost”. It’s an instrumental.
Pink Floyd is depressing?
Speaking to you as a true die-hard Pink Floyd fan I am truly amazed that you see this music as depressing. Darkly satirical, maybe, but not depressing. Have you ever even heard Echoes? Or most of the songs on Meddle for that matter. What about the classic “Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict”? I think I have 20somthing albums altogether, including Floyd and Waters together and since then.
David Gilmour is a great musician, and I love his music too, but he is not even an original member of the band. He was brought in after Floyd was already popular and had cut a few albums. Mainly because Sid Barrett was by then so far into LSD that he couldn’t make the shows. The Wall was in large part about Sid and also about Roger’s father.
Gosh, I could go on for a while, but don’t want to bore you all with Floyd trivia. Look beyond the commercially popular albums if you want to find really great Floyd music.
I was at a Roger Water’s concert in June also. It was one of the best concert experiences I have ever had.
Depressing or not, I think there’s a lot of humor in their work as well. A lot of the images in their songs are so far over the top that I have to conclude that someone was having some fun. Sometimes it’s irony, sometimes it’s satire. But I think they had a lot of fun composing those lyrics.
Just for example, the song “Mother” on “The Wall” is hilarious. It’s mean, but it’s also hilarious. And what about the image of sadistic headmasters going home at night “to be thrashed within inches of their lives” by their “fat and psychopathic wives”? I busted out laughing the first time I heard that. Or of course the famous line, “Oh by the way, which one is ‘Pink’?”
Sometimes rock and roll shouldn’t be taken too seriously.
Gotta agree, San Tropez on Meddle is about as un-PF as you could get.
Of course there is that “One of these days I’m going to cut you into little pieces!” lyric on the One Of These Days track.
I like it all - but only in small doses these days.
I’m a big fan of Pink Floyd, and I don’t really find their music depressing. However, I think at times their lyrics suggest that they take themselves just a bit too seriously. Like John Lennon, I think they sometimes forgot how thin that line is between being abstractly-meaningful and being just plain silly.
Mojo mentioned a few that I was going to recommend. Here’s a few more:
Julia Dream and Point Me at the Sky, from Relics. This one makes me run around the room shouting the song.
Seamus, Meddle. I crack up whenever the hound dog howls.
Have a Cigar probably should be depressing, but the bad-ass bass pumps me up.
Surprised no one mentioned On the Turning Away and Learning to Fly, from A Momentary Lapse of Reason. Possibly because there are a lot of PF snobs who bitch about more recent(pop) work, when they really haven’t listened to it. There is a trend to do this with the Dead as well. People always bitch about Touch of Grey when, in fact, it’s a great song.
As for Roger alone, The Tide is Turning is a very uplifting song and the best off of Radio K.A.O.S.
Ack, Julia Dream certainly does NOT make me run around the room. It just makes me feel kind of dreamy-happy.
Hope you understood that was only for Point Me at the Sky.
Um, that would be Young Lust
I thought The Final Cut was about Roger’s father… Well, it was about someone who died in WWII… I’ll have to consult my Floyd-Master friend the next time I see him.
IIRC, Final Cut was about Roger’s dad, Wish You Were Here was about/dedicated to Syd. At the time that they were recording it, they didn’t realize Syd was in the studio at one point because he looked much different. The Wall is a bit about Syd, but mostly about their experiences as “rock stars”. I read an interview with Roger (possibly at the R& R Hall of Fame?) where he said they were on tour for Dark Side playing to a packed coliseum and some fan started climbing over other people to get closer to the band. As soon as he got close enough to the stage, Roger spit on him. At that point, Waters said that he realized he had lost all perspective and the concept of The Wall was born.
Effervescent Elephant. Thanks! Forgot that song…I had a Syd Barrett phase in high school. Remember Gigolo Aunt? And Words? Thats all it was, ‘words’. Moat, moccasin, rainbow, wall…I had articles about him, a bootlegged tape filled with his most ridiculous stuff…ahhh, those were the days…
Try playing Several Species of Small Furry Animal Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict when you have a dog in the room. Mine always attacks the speakers. It is very uplifting, and downright hilarious.
The Final Cut was also about Roger’s dad. It is a subcurrent of many of his lyrics over several albums. Roger Waters wrote most of the lyrics for most of the albums that Pink Floyd and loves to play the bass as lead instrument. David Gilmour and Nick Mason developed a lot of the music to most of the Floyd you all are familiar with.
In a nutshell, Gilmour wanted to take Floyd into new musical directions after the Final Cut album, and wanted Waters to stop writing about pain, angst, war, and the loss of his father. He thought Floyd had pretty well covered that area of music. He does have a point, but remember, he is not even an original member of the band. So in 1986 I believe Waters sues the rest of the band for the name of Pink Floyd. He lost, but retained the rights to all of the music he wrote. Which is why if you go to a Waters concert you will hear some extremely good old Floyd as well as some of his new stuff.
Demo, I knew you were awsome! Radio Kaos is one of the only CDs that I ever carry in my truck.
How can you have any pudding when you won’t eat your meat?