Drink Floyd

2006-09-25T00:45:00.000-07:00

The Making Of The Dark Side Of The Moon Part 5

2006-09-25T00:40:00.000-07:00

The Making Of The Dark Side Of The Moon Part 4

2006-09-25T00:38:00.000-07:00

The Making Of the Dark Side Of The Moon Part 3

2006-09-25T00:37:00.000-07:00

The Making Of The Dark Side Of The Moon Part 2

2006-09-25T00:34:00.000-07:00

The Making Of The Dark Side Of The Moon Part 1

God Bless Youtube!

I've been mad for fuckin years,absolutely years

2006-08-21T14:24:00.000-07:00

Finally,the time has come to put hands to keys. I promised(myself? cos I don't know anyone who actually reads this) a songwise analysis of the magnum opus to rule all magnum opii(or is it opuses,or is there a plural at all?).
Interestingly,the opening track of Dark Side of the Moon isn't a track at all. Speak to me is at most a collection of sounds interspersed with random dialogues, and it may appear to a first-timer as utter and absolute cow dung. Well, I don't think too highly of the piece even now for that matter. But as you listen to the album again and again, it becomes a part of the experience. As I mentioned before, DSOTM isn't really an album. It's one long song,and Speak to Me just gels in so well. You can start directly with the next track,which is perhaps the first actual song,but it feels so incomplete and abrupt once you get used to listening the entire album at once,which,in my humble opinion,is the only way. The heartbeat sound at the start of the track is quite obviously the very essence of the album. Pink Floyd's obsession with cyclic compositions also seems to have originated here, cos the heartbeat sound is also heard at the end of Eclipse,the closing track of the album,and if you repeat the album, it segues into Speak to Me again,so that the journey is never really finished. This was perhaps a relatively vague indication towards the much clearer use of cyles in The Wall,where there is a much more explicit and clear purpose and meaning to it. That the end of an era is the beginning of another.

The heartbeat sound gives way,well,actually it keeps running the background,as some other weird sounds, similar to cash register type jingle at the start of Money, take over. The spoken words that follow are amazing in the craziest way. Much of these don't make much sense, but that doesn't do much harm to their amazing quotient. These were answers to Waters' question Are you Mad? Almost all the featured answers were given by the road crew and the Abbey Road studio staff.

Spoken Parts:

I've been mad for fucking years, absolutely years, been over the edge for yonks, been working me buns off for bands....

I've always been mad, I know I've been mad, like the most of us are...very hard to explain why you're mad, even if you're not mad...

Surprisingly, Nick Mason received sole songwriting credit for this one. To me, the song appears totally Watersque. But if Mason did come up with the idea, kudos to him even though it might appear there wasn't really a song to write. The idea was priceless nonetheless,though Waters has later said that the credit was kind of a gift to Mason. That obviously didn't help band relations, but then Waters never did much to that effect anyway.

The song ends with a chilling scream by Clare Torry,who later provides a much better glimpse of her vocal talents on The Great gig in the sky. Again, once you get used to listening to the album, you can't wait to hear Breathe after the scream. And also, you don't want to listen to Breathe without the scream.

I'm in a bad way from trying to kick the addiction!

भारतीय Floydians को समर्पित

2006-07-30T03:55:00.000-07:00

Comfortably Numb

English version in देवनागरी script:
व्हेन आइ वाज़ अ चाइल्ड आइ हैड अ फ़ीवर
माइ हैन्ड्ज़ फ़ेल्ट लाइक टू बैलून्ज़
नाओ आइव गौट दैट फ़ीलिन्ग वन्स अगेन
आइ कान्ट एक्सप्लेन, यूल नौट अन्डरस्टैन्ड
दिस इज़ नौट हाओ आइ ऐम
आआआआइ हैव बिकम कमफ़र्टेबली नम्ब

and now,the literal Hindi(Bhojpuri, to be more exact) translation in English script, thanks to a particularly jobless junior:

jab hum tha ek bachwa, tab humko hua bukhar
humar haath gaye phool, jaise ki do bailoon
ab humko hua e feeling ek baar aur, par karo gaur
hum samjha nahi sakte, aap nahi na samjhiyega
hum waise nahi hain jaise abhi hain
ab ban gaye hain hum, aaramtalbi aur sunn

Eclipse - A piece for assorted lunatics

2006-05-07T09:49:00.000-07:00

That's what it was called in its early avatar. Pink Floyd started playing Dark Side of the Moon in their live shows much before they actually thought of recording it. Thank God they finally did decide to record it. That they made history in terms of sales and number of weeks on the charts are no more than figures to me, and perhaps to most people. More than that, much more than that,

Dark Side of the moon is a statement of political, philosophical, humanitarian empathy that was desperate to get out.

-Roger Waters, Making of Dark side of the Moon DVD

I thought of it in pretty similar terms but watching the making DVD gave words to my feelings. That’s perhaps the magic of the album too. It gives words to the quiet rebellion and emotional apathy faced by the entire generation at the time when the album came out. Actually, it wasn't just that generation. As David Gilmour says,

The ideas that Roger was exploring apply to every new generation.They still very much have the same relevance that they had

Consider the issues in question here: Time (or perhaps the lack of it), Money (or more accurately, greed), Death (that mystifying obsession), War and peace, pressures of traveling (who'd know better than rock bands?) and finally, the combined effect of all these leading a person to Insanity (perhaps considered an issue for the first time).
Waters is a philosopher much more than a musician, there's no doubt about it. Perhaps he can be compared to another contemporary, Pete Townshend of The Who, but his words had much more of the seething anger and political activism, and at the same time humanitarian pathos than even Pete's. This was the first time he wrote the entire lyrics for a Floyd album, and the effect is more than apparent. This one was much more tight in its lyrical content than all its predecessors. It was, in many ways, one of the first concept albums, if you please! Of course, The Who's Tommy preceded it by more than four years, so did S.F.Sorrow by The Pretty things. But the chief difference between DSOTM and the above two, as well as the numerous other concept albums that followed, including Floyd's own The Wall, was that the conscious attempt to knit it around a theme wasn't there. It evolved out of itself, which is perhaps the most breathtaking part. At no point does it appear that an attempt to narrate a story is being made. Yet there is a definitive mood to the album that gradually builds up and reaches a crescendo towards the end. In the words of one of the editors of Rolling Stone magazine,

The concept is there, the songs are there, the spaces in the music are there, but it doesn't take anything away from the imagination.

One of the most popular concept albums at that point was probably Sgt. Pepper's lonely-hearts club band by none other than The Beatles. It still is the greatest album of all time according to numerous surveys and ratings. Well, yea maybe the greatest rock album of all time, but Rolling Stone forgot to specify that. Clearly, I don't agree. No true blue Floydian will ever agree that anybody, absolutely anybody could top Floyd when it came to a concept album.
Yea yea I can see many people shaking their heads in disagreement already. (Assuming of course that many people actually read this blog!).
To each his own, I say!

Anyway, moving on.... consider the content of Floyd's songs before this work. They had started out with Syd Barrett as their leader and chief songwriter. He was a very talented songwriter, there is no doubt.Very imaginative, his influences were varied. But mostly limited to pop fantasies, as is pretty clear in songs like Astronomy Domine and Arnold Layne. The latter was about an actual person who went around English backyards sniffing girls' panties. As I said before, it was his imagination that allowed him to even think about writing a song on such a subject. But what has to be kept in mind is, he wrote pretty shallow stuff. For all his popularity, which followed his disintegration, one must remember that he was an unusually experimental but still not the most talented songwriter and musician. When he was around, what Floyd had was a clear direction, and that was psychedelic music, or as many people put it, Space Rock!
Their sound was otherworldly. People hadn't heard anything like that before, which was probably the reason their debut album, The Piper at the gates of dawn, was a big hit in its own right. I'm not sure what would have been the fate of the band had Syd stuck around, but the fact is he didn't. His schizophrenia combined with the adverse effects of some of the drugs he was experimenting with, led to such a severe dissociation from reality that he's still not completely attached to it after nearly forty years!
His downfall was a tragedy for the other band members in more ways than one. Not only had they lost a good friend, but also a charismatic and talented leader. As Waters himself says, "We were fumbling in the darkness, looking for direction".
They didn't have many ideas to begin with. They continued with the sonic experimentation techniques, now making the pieces longer and more elaborate than ever, thanks to the immensely talented David Gilmour who replaced Syd as the lead guitarist. The content was still pretty much in keeping with their image of a space rock band, what with numbers like Set the controls for the heart of the sun and Let there be more light. Perhaps the very first time Waters' gave vent to his feelings was in Corporal clegg. The song is about a soldier who lost his leg in World War II, and his apparently alcoholic wife. It is the first mention of war in a Floyd song, something that would become a common theme later. All these songs were part of the album A Saucerful of secrets . An instrumental piece of the same name was also included in the album.
All in all, a very spacey album. The next album, Ummagumma, was a combination of experimental sounds and live recordings. The experimentation techniques continued in Atom Heart Mother, and the lyrical content wasn't much richer either. Fat old Sun is a beautiful song from the album, but then, it's about the sun, if not about outer space. The focus was shifting indeed, but the sun is still a long way off, and so were Floyd.
Waters admits to "having no access to the crazed insights of Syd, infact for the first few years having no insights at all" .It was with the next album, Meddle, that Floyd cam into their own for the first time and sort of outlined the path that they were going to tread during most of the next decade.
The first side was "only songs". A pillow of winds is probably the only romantic number Floyd has ever recorded, Seamus was the height of experimentation with an Afghan wolfhound doing the lead vocals! Fearless was nothing to write home about and San Tropez was a very simple waltz. One of these days was probably the pick on this side. Instrumental but extremely catchy, it has just the one line menacing vocal by Nick Mason, "One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces". It still is a concert favourite. But the flip side was truly the beginning of Floyd.
If you want to know my real feelings about Echoes, you should read one of the earlier posts in this blog, http://drinkfloyd.blogspot.com/2005/05/no-one-sings-me-lullabies.html
As of now, all I can do is quote Waters,

"Echoes" was the beginning of writing about "other people", if you please......it was the beginning of empathy.

He obviously knows what he’s saying. It’s his song after all. But what’s more important, I seem to know what he’s saying too. The lyrics convey the same,

Strangers passing in the street, by chance two separate glances meet,

I am you and what I see is me

And do I take you by the hand, and lead you through the land,

And help me understand the best I can

I hope now you also know what he was saying :D

The lyrics, as Waters himself admits, are not very complex. But they touch a chord. Which is probably the hardest thing to do, I mean to accomplish it with simple words.

Musically, too, Echoes was in many ways an indication of the shape of the things to follow. Experimental, yet basically melodious, it was probably one of the first times all the band members had written a song together, and the result was there for all to see.

Back to the Dark Side. Hmmm…just realized how appropriate the name is. When compared to other stuff at that point of time. David Bowie’s The rise and fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, another concept album, and one of the greatest of all time at that! Musically very catchy and innovative at the same time. It is probably one of the most influential albums in rock history. But, as someone has very wisely written on Wikipedia, The album is considered archetypal glam rock, full of hard rock guitar riffs, catchy choruses and confusing, opiate lyrics. The depth in lyrics simply wasn’t there. In that sense, Dark Side really did bring forward the dark side.

Anyway, enough about the lyrics. I’m making it sound as if it was poetry sung below par!

Far from that, mate! I do seriously believe, and so do millions of others, I’m sure, that it is the most optimum combination of words and music that Floyd ever achieved. It was probably again the result of all of them working together. Gilmour and Waters wrote most of the music, but Richard Wright too contributed with two amazing songs, The Great gig in the sky and Us and Them. Whether it’s Time’s soaring guitar solo, or Money’s unusual time signature, or the brooding rhythm of Brain Damage, this album had it all to ensure that nobody, but nobody would be able to match it ever. It does not belong to any genre, probably which is why people cutting across all genres love it equally. Critically speaking, the music was sort of a bridge between the then immensely popular blues-rock and the then relatively new electronic music. That bridge is probably exemplified by Gilmour's guitaring, which was bluesy, but at the same time retained that spacey, ethereal feel from the previous Floyd sound. Call it progressive rock, underground music, whatever, but the fact is that avant-garde music had never been so popular, and probably would never be again.Wright has very accurately said,

There are a lot of things in the album, which are kind of magical…and it just happened.

Another magical touch was provided by the voices of various people, mostly the studio and road crew, which were inserted in the spaces between the songs. Magical is indeed the most appropriate word for the way it turned out eventually. When you listen to the songs more than a couple of times, you start expecting the dialogues, as if they were part of the music. Many of the words have become legendary themselves, and the Irish doorman of Abbey road studio has earned more fame than he ever would have imagined with his now memorable line,

There is no dark side of the moon really, matter of fact it's all dark

But my personal favourites are from Speak to me,

I’ve been mad for fucking years, absolutely years, been over the edge for yonks, been working me buns off for bands.

I’ve always been mad, I know I’ve been mad. Very hard to say why you’re mad, even when you’re not mad

Who came up with the idea is not completely known, but it was Waters in all probability. Such crazy ideas were usually his forte. What he did was, he wrote different questions on placards like, “When was the last time you thumped someone?”, “Why are you afraid of dying?”, “What do you think of madness?”. He then flashed these placards randomly before different people and included the most spontaneous answers in the songs. Paul McCartney was interviewed too, but expectedly, his answers were considered too made up and hence were not included.

A song wise analysis (read tribute) seems too enticing to avoid at this point. But this post is getting rather long, and I’m getting rather tired of typing. So that’ll have to wait till the next post. Till then, maybe you should listen to the album, if you already haven’t. And yea, the entire album should be preferably listened to at a go, uninterrupted. The songs segue into each other, which means it is basically one long song. The effort is conscious but never forced. Happy listening!

Riding the gravy train

2006-05-02T15:05:00.000-07:00

Fresh from watching the documentary Making of Dark Side of the Moon, I'm in love all over again.People around me have by now taken my obsession as a given.
Something without reason.Many of them are ardent Floyd fans themselves,some of them actually baptised into the religion by yours truly.But they do have an other musical life.Some are inclined towards modern hindi numbers,others have a taste in contemporary Paki bands.still others have explored much farther and are now into jazz and hardcore blues,the very influences of most rock bands including Floyd.All of them are conventional non-Floyd rock lovers too obviously.Led Zep,The Beatles,The Rolling Stones,Jimi Hendrix,all find following among them.I love most of the aforementioned genres myself,especially the blues.and all the other other rock bands too.But my Floyd addiction threatens to grow to dangerous proportions.I listen to other music on and off but always,always end up listening to one Floyd album or the other in its entirety at the end of it all.others have moved on and retained their love of Floyd at the same time.I don't even attempt it,for the fear of succeeding.
Evangelist,eh? yea that's probably how they see me,very very politely put.But there's no doubt my obsession,though not understood, is still respected.

Which is why when I suggested to Mandu that I'm planning to buy the original Making of DSotM DVD ,during my summer internship in Korea,if available i.e.,he understood my desperation and actually downloaded it from the net almost immediately.God bless him!
I've already watched it three times since yesterday,and will now write it on a DVD and take it to Home.home again.....

I'm in love,again.

p.s.More on my affair in the next post,which will attempt to (shudder),actually review the piece for assorted lunatics called Dark Side of the Moon.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!

2006-03-20T21:30:00.000-08:00

Why isn't the fuckin image upload working??I've been waiting to post for an entire week!
Fuck!

Now I've got that feeling once again

2005-12-30T03:18:00.000-08:00

.....I can't explain, you'll definitely not understand.why have I become Comfortably Numb? According to most Floyd followers,this shoulda been the first one to discuss in this blog.But its such an overwhelming experience for me,I could never bring myself to describe it,cos I really can't.
But anyway,I've done it enough injustice now.It is,quite simply,the greatest song I've heard in my entire fuckin life,its an experience that transports me to alternate levels. I enjoy it soo fuckin much that I'm afraid anyday they're gonna declare it illegal. I'm quite in the state that Pink is in during this song(in the movie).
So what is so great about this one?Hmmm.....everything I guess. Waters wrote the lyrics,and Gilmour wrote most of the music,and their collective effort,a rare thing at the time when the album was recorded,does show up as something exceptional in comparision to the rest of the album. Gilmour himself has said about the recording sessions,"We [Gilmour and Waters] argued over Comfortably Numb like mad. Really had a big fight, went on for ages".They were absolutely at loggerheads during the entire recording.Waters had written the lyrics in continuity with the entire album.At this stage in the album,the protagonist Pink is in a state of delirium,nearly comatose.The show is about to start and his manager desperately tries to bring back his consciousness,even as the doctor protests pleading that his condition is too bad.
The lyrics are basically a conversation between the Doc and Pink.The parts that Waters sings (starying with the haunting "Hello,hello....") are the doc's words,as he enquires Pink about his condition.Gilmour's part("there is no pain....") is Pink's reply.Gilmour being basically a musician,prefers to divide the song into 2 parts musically.Dark(the doctor's part) and Light (pink's reply).If u don't know what that means and haven't heard the song,listen to it and you'll understand it perfectly.Needless to say,the words are BEAUtiful.Waters is a magician,theres no two ways about it.
But the reason the song has gone on to become both Floyd and Classic rock's flagship number is definitely Gilmour's magic with his Fender strat.When you listen to the song for the first time,the music does invade your senses much faster than the lyrics and its only after a period that you start to pay attention to the lyrics.Gilmour's overall musical arrangement for the song and his two soarin-like-an-eagle-and-haunting-like-a-haunted-house guitar solos hits you so hard you get addicted instantaneously.He had written the music for it seperately for his solo album and brought it to the recording sessions. The two legends argued over the opening part and in the end Waters won.As it appears to me the conversation apparently ended in a "Ok-you-sing-your-part-I-sing-mine" kind of a truce,cos that is what they did.
The song starts of with Waters dark and haunting voice calling out "Hello,hello,hello....." and later gives way to the Light part sung by Gilmour.The first solo follows which immediately catches hold of me and takes me as high as the first note.Then its a crashing fall as the Dark Knight Returns(whoopsiedaisies!).The second verse is followed by one of the most famous solos in the history of rock n roll.I love the original version(The Wall) but I'm simply addicted to the one Gilmour played in Pulse.Its a couple of minutes longer and many levels higher than the album version.People try to convince me all the time that I'd enjoy it much,much more if I were stoned,but I try to make them realise that if I enjoyed it any more it would be positively illegal.
Man,why have modern day musicians given up on the guitar???Some psycho serial killer please eliminate all the rappers and hip-hoppers and pop stars and boy bands and shakiras and remix artists and punjabi musicians so that its the rule of rock-n-roll all over again.Why wasnt I alive in the 70's?Why,why,why???

Time to kill today

2005-08-07T06:16:00.000-07:00

I felt amazed when listening to "Time" for the 1247th time,when I realised I hadn't yet covered it in my blog.Big deal,actually,considering it has been my most-loved-Floyd-no. for a long time now."Comfortably Numb", "Us and Them", "Wish you were here", "Shine on you crazy diamond","Echoes","Dogs" and all others please don't mind.I love y'all more than most things.But there's something about the guitar solo in this one that takes me on another level altogether.Agreed,the solo in "Comfortably numb" is longer,perhaps technically superior and actually even better than the one in "Time".But,well....I dunno,therez no explanation.
The track itself is much more than the guitar solo.Reportedly,Waters wrote it at a stage in his life-he was 28 then-when he realised that he was no longer preparing for anything in life,but was right in the middle of it.It's a feeling most ordinary people have felt at some point or the other in their lives.Maybe the reason I connect so well with this song is that I've already started getting that sort of feeling,which is also a bit disturbing,since I'm only 21 and have hardly done anything that people have defined as worthwhile.My absolute favorite lyrics from this song,which also happen to be all time fave lines are especially moving:
So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older,
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.
Every year is getting shorter,never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Apart from the mesmerising lyrics and soaring guitar solo,the sound engineering techniques employed in this number are awesome,to say the least.The song starts with layers of clock noises that were put together by their engineer, Alan Parsons. Each clock was recorded separately at an antiques store, and the band blended them together.It served as an advertisement for the then new quadrophonic sound system.These are the reasons why I consider most bands out of their league.These people weren't just great musicians and lyricists.They were sound magicians.I feel one of their earlier names,"The Pink Floyd sound" suited them much better.It doesn't belong to progressive ,alternative,space or any other genre of Rock music that they are frequently identified with.Its just The Pink Floyd sound....

You gotta be crazy!

2005-06-21T04:38:00.000-07:00

Now that opening line means a lot of things.For starters, this is what my Dad said to me when he glanced at the playlist.The song playing was 'Dogs' fro the album 'Animals'."A 17-minute song", he said,"you've got to be crazy!Is it even legal to make songs that long?".Wise guy,my Dad!Usually it's me who comes up with such wisecracks,but I'm hardly in a jocular mood when listening to Floyd.Anyway,call it serendipity or whatever,the song too starts with the same line,"You gotta be crazy,you gotta have a real need..." ,so for a second I wondered, did Dad intend it to be that witty?naah...he never heard of Floyd, so he was indeed astonished.
I,for one, had listened to Meddle before Animals, so I had the experience of a 23-minute number with me and the length of the song was certainly not what I had in mind when venturing out to listen to this one. However,I did find the title interesting.What could a song named Dogs be about? The song starts off with a catchy,fast paced acoustic guitar rhythm before the vocals start.Gilmour's mark is all over the song as it relies heavil on the guitar and contains many beautiful solos.In that sense, I think it's one of Floyd's underrated songs.The entire album in fact,focuses much more on music than perhaps any other Floyd album,and if it wasn't for Waters' amazing play of words, one could've missed the lyrics entirely.But not here.As a matter of fact,this happens to be my favourite Floyd song lyricswise.As is pretty well known,the album is inspired from George Orwells' classic Animal Farm.Like the book,in the album too,animals represent different sections of the society.Dogs are supposed to represent the ruthless businessmen who'll stop at nothing to make themselves rich and more powerful at the expense of others.The lyrics convey this beautifully.Sample this,for instance
"You gotta be crazy, you gotta have a real need
You gotta sleep on your toes, and when you're on the street
You gotta be able to pick out the easy meat with your eyes closed
And then moving in silently, down wind and out of sight
You gotta strike when the moment is right without thinking
And after a while, you can work on points for style
Like the club tie, and the firm handshake
A certain look in the eye, and an easy smile
You have to be trusted by the people that you lie to
So that when they turn their backs on you
You'll get the chance to put the knife in."
Waters' words always seem to me to have a subtle anger or at times a helplessness hidden,which at times makes for a highly effective satire,as in this particular song.I find thos element badly missing in the post-Waters Floyd albums.True,they are less cynical and more cheerful in content,but somehow,I miss the madness badly.

No one sings me lullabies

2005-05-29T02:04:00.000-07:00

But I don't need that.As long as "Echoes" is around,I never want to sleep.Yea well,me back after a long hiatus,kinda self imposed cos whenever i sat down to choose between analysing a Floyd number and listening to it,I invariably and quite predictably end up choosing the latter.no wonder,really,cos the latter's the reason I would ever choose to do the former anyway.So I think i've made it pretty clear now that i've just had my Floyd dose and this time the number that rocked me off my rockers was "Echoes" from the album "Meddle".
It never ceases to amaze me how anyone could ever write a 23 minute number.I mean,did they plan it,or did they simply get carried away by their own music,cos that does happen to me very often(i mean with their music).perhaps that may be the reason why despite this one being one of their most critically acclaimed masterpieces,is nowhere in the league of the three mega albums,"DSOTM","WYWH" and "The Wall",as far as the ratings go.well,fuck the ratings!fuck critics too!just play the song.Now i've no friggin idea how it feels to be 'on a high'.Call me a sissy,a no adventure guy,or just plain uninitiated,but i don't think i'll ever venture far enough to try out dope,or even alcohol for that matter.but i've seen people who do that,and i don't think they're any higher than me-just-after-echoes.
Ok,Now about the song itself:According to wikipedia,"The song has a marine theme and starts with a sonar-like sound created by Wright, who sent his grand piano through a Leslie rotating speaker (this sound was created by Wright accidentally, and started the whole Meddle project)."Shiver me timbers and hang me from the yardarm!!!!Who starts an entire epic project along the lines of a freak accidental sound!well,Pink Floyd did that,and what a result!the song almost immediately places you on a beach where the sea is "green and submarine",and the effect is accentuated by the poetry(i hate to refer to such beautiful wordplay as lyrics,it places them in the league of lesser mortals).And while you're still not through enjoying it completely,the slow,marine rhythm is replaced by a fast-paced,disco type beat.you begin to curse them for breaking the rhythm and then Gilmour jumps in with his guitar.Now,what would you need to produce a slide guitar type sound?well,a slide guitar obviously.not Dave!he somehow manages it with his ol'Fender.anyway,the next thing you know,the song proceeds to windy sounds and shrill screams.what is it,you wonder?a group of whales,'course!and what does Dave need to produce the sound?well,again the ol'Fender,but this time accompanied by a custom effect pedal,of which only four exist,and three are owned by him.It's things like these which a prevent any neighbourhood run-of-the-mill rock band from trying to play Floyd.It's a fact i enjoy as much as i rue.
What next,there is the sea,so there must be Gulls,and this time it is another interesting play of the guitar to achieve this sound.now i'm not exactly sure what reversing the cables to a Wah-pedal means,but it sounds one helluva creative thing to do.Anyway,now you're in the middle of the song,and as the echo dies down,Wright's keyboard solo begins,which is pretty ordinary to me,but it is followed by a multiple guitar solo,which kinda wakes you up from the slumber induced by the intoxicating rhythm.It is the only part where the song sounds anywhere close to a traditional rock number,but it again jumps into the marine beat which started the song,and so you end at the same note as you started, very intoxicated,very "high".
Well,what can i say,
no one makes me close my eyes
And so I throw the windows wide
And call to you across the sky

Just another brick...

2005-05-02T07:51:00.000-07:00

It's uncanny,really!my tendency to listen to this legendary Floyd number seems to synchronize well with mid sems and end sems.At times,I'm inclined to believe that probably I seek Floydian relief in every ominous situation,perhaps I've become too much of a Pink Floyd maniac.But then,this one is hardly my fave Floyd number.Far from it,in fact!I hardly ever listen to it otherwise,the band has produced much better music,and Waters has written far more mesmerising lyrics....
Perhaps it is the lyrics after all.No,its not at all the way it seems.I'm not in the least reminded of teachers " who hurt the children in any way they could".I'm long past that stage now.Profs hardly bother me any more,and they certainly don't "pour their derision on everthing we do".It's the later part of the chorus,"All in all,its just another brick in the wall".Every time I listen to it,I become more and more a passionate fan of Waters' sheer genius.The concept that he conceived,the mini-opera of an album that he created!Maybe not their best music,but definitely their most relevant concept album.This is exactly how it feels,another brick in the wall,yet another brick in the wall......