“All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be.”
-Breathe, Pink Floyd (1973)
Late last year, one of the world’s favourite bands of all time- Pink Floyd, finally (no, really..this is it) called it quits and split up, leaving us a tiny bit heartbroken but reminiscing their glory days..(Wait, we weren’t around in their glory days).. or rather the times we spent basking in the brilliance of their unfathomably insane music.
Cult.
Ethereal.
Trippy.
Sublime.
Insane.
Powerful.
Pink Floyd has inspired myriad musicians and their music persists as a favourite among older and newer generations. It has that epic quality and originality that will persist onward, regardless of time and space.
To personally annotate the few of their works that stood out above the rest, here is a list of our top ten, Pink Floyd songs.
(It’s okay if you don’t agree with the list, we had our disagreements too)
10. Us and Them
Saxophone solos. Two of them. The song fuses jazz with rock and the result is something very sublime.
“Us and Them and after all, we’re only ordinary men.”
The song tells the story of war. How the soldiers aren’t the bad guys, they are all ‘ordinary men.’ No matter who wins, soldiers from both sides lose their lives. The people who really want them to fight are never a part of it.
The song’s lyrics hit hard and hit home. It’s a wonderful song to wake up to.
9. Eclipse
(Random fact: Dark Side of the Moon was almost titled “Eclipse.”)
The final track from the album, this song takes it round in a circle by resonating the first track of the album, “Speak to Me”, through the synchronized heartbeats in both the songs.
“Everything under the sun is in tune, but the sun is eclipsed by the moon.”
The song uses the metaphors of the Sun and the Moon to represent the good and the grim. All the good there is, is up for grabs. But, the dark side tries too hard to seduce us. Whoever has been through the same or feels the same, need not worry. There is no dark side of the moon, really. Everything in the world is dark. Everything around you, everyone around you is filled with it. We’re all insane, it’s just a matter of perspective. You’re not alone.
8. Brain Damage
Would we be wrong in saying that this song can make you question your own sanity? Well for us, it did. Every time, it did. If you look at it objectively, you could argue that the song’s motive is more to depress than uplift spirits. But that’s Floyd, right there… it’s as depressing as it is relieving, as straightforward as it is complicated and insane, through and through (and did we mention, dark? VERY DARK.).
This psychedelic monstrosity is perfect for cracking everything that is mundane.
Clearly, the lunatic is in our heads.
7. Hey You
The human desire to be heard, be felt and touched can often be all consuming. To those who like to distance themselves from reality, coming back is a challenge.‘Hey You’ addresses that cry for help.
“Don’t give up without a fight.”
The song calls to everyone who is struggling to find a way to pick up the pieces and start afresh. But maybe they have isolated themselves too much to come back to reality.
The song reminds you to never lose hope because “together we stand, divided we fall.”
Besides that, David Gilmour takes his turn to play bass rather than Roger Waters. ‘Hey You’ has one of the most celebrated guitar solos in Classic Rock.
6. Echoes
The second longest song by Floyd. Genius.
“Strangers passing in the street, by chance two separate glances meet and I am you and what I see is me.”
The song tells the story of how nothing really goes on the way we expect it to. There’s light within us all, we are not that different. There’s antipathy too and we need someone known to sing us “lullabies.”
The music for ‘Echoes’ is quite unearthly. It is a song that mutates each time you hear it and so, you interpret it differently, every time.
5. Another Brick In The Wall, Part 2
Our very own, highly relatable protest song against the stupid education system. How could we not sympathize?
‘We don’t need no thought control’, is exactly what we have thought over and over throughout school. To every frustrated student, whose potential has never really been given the right outlet and has been suppressed because it just wouldn’t comply with the norm, this song speaks volumes. After years of struggling with school, trying to keep up with the rest and never getting to express your own self, when you are not ready to become just another clone, spurted out into the world, this is what you need to hear and you’ll have all you need to know.
“Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!”
4. Time
“To be here now, this is it. Make the most of it.”
The song starts with the sounds of various clocks and alarms.
Such soulful music with such few words, calls out to us. In between the struggles of growing up and making something of ourselves, we so often neglect the fact that ‘time’ is a limited resource. We never have had all the time in the world and the sad truth is, we never will. It thus, becomes necessary to make the most of all that we get.
‘Time’, reminds us of just that.
3. Shine On You Crazy Diamond
26 minutes of pure awesomeness.
This song was a tribute to a band member who had to leave unceremoniously.
It is a song that works to replenish one’s self-worth and has the ability to motivate. The song lets all the elements of the band’s music have their own spotlight. The bass, the vocals, the drums and the keyboard are all synchronized yet distinct.
2. Wish You Were Here
“We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl… year after year.”
The ethos of this whole song is summed up in this one line.
It is a song that at times, makes you question yourself. Talking about friends who have changed so much over a course of time that they’ve become someone else entirely (or maybe, it’s us who have changed), this song manages to make you picture the good old days when you were with them and everything was right in the world. And how, in essence not a lot is different, yet, it can’t be the same.
1. Comfortably Numb
One of the best guitar solos of all time, the highs and lows of which are satiating as they are titillating.
Haunting, daunting and beautiful.
Comfortably Numb is that one song on everyone’s playlist that you play when you absolutely need to go into a trance (for high and sober fellows, alike). Floyd’s best song according to us, and many, Comfortably Numb is an instant relief to a soul that’s either been craving it or has had it all along, anyway. It’s an escape portal that leaves you feeling light and strangely fulfilled. The vocals work magically to subdue one’s angst, broken heart or just a mind at unrest. When you are looking to zone out everything and everyone around you, let go and just close your eyes, sit back and listen to this epic amalgamation of great instrumentals and haunting vocals.
You will regret nothing.
Do you agree with our list?
Let us know in the comments. 🙂
pristinewits 