Pink Floyd

I took a mental health day yesterday, which basically means I ditched work and drove around San Diego for an hour, then I parked at my school and slept for an hour and a half in my car. Exciting stuff.

Anyway, I ended up at Mission Trails Park, which I'd never been to before. It was a gorgeous day yesterday, and the route looked a lot like this:

Pretty relaxing to drive with big hills on either side and nothing but blue sky in front of you.

Which brings me to Pink Floyd.

Pink Floyd is my "every-mood music." I listen to them when I'm happy, sad, contemplative, sleepy, angry, whatever. I think you can find something to support any mental or emotional state in any one of their albums, and their music is absolutely beautiful and unusual, and their lyrics are haunting and meaningful.

Recently, my album of choice is their magnum opus: The Wall, a double album that was made into a rock opera film of the same name. Like most of their albums, The Wall  is a concept album, meaning that it follows a central theme or story. In this case, it follows the tale of Pink (full name Floyd Pinkerton - hilarious, eh?), a fictional rock star modeled after Roger Waters, the lead singer of the band, but also containing aspects, as many of their albums and songs do, of Syd Barrett, the band's original lead singer who, in essence, went insane. Pink had a rough childhood - after losing his father in World War II, he had to deal with abusive school teachers and an overprotective mother. After he grows up and becomes famous, he has to deal with the dissolution of his marriage, the pressures of fame, and an increasingly worsening mental illness (likely schizophrenia, which is one of the diseases Syd Barrett was rumoured to have); all of these problems cause Pink to withdraw from society, symbolized by the titular, metaphorical Wall. Each new conflict that Pink faces becomes yet another brick building the wall of isolation.

Happy happy, joy joy, right? It's not a cheerful album, that's for sure. But it is absolutely gorgeous.

Seeing as it's a story, it's kind of difficult for me to pick apart the album into individual songs, although my musical ADD often makes me skip around to my favorites, some of which are as follows:

(Oh, first, the album is divided into two parts, typically, both containing 13 songs and both about 40 minutes long (fun fact: Every Pink Floyd album (that I know of at least) is around 40 minutes long.) The second album is where it really goes to shit.)

Disc 1:

The first part contains probably the most widely-recognized song from the album, "Another Brick in the Wall Pt. II" Yes, there are Parts I and III which are nowhere near as popular but are incredibly vital to the story. Anyway, this song deals with the abusive teacher part of his life. Most everyone who's ever been near a classic rock radio station at some point in their life will recognize the lines "We don't need no education/We don't need no thought control." Pretty popular song, awesome guitar solo, creepy kids' choir. 

This song leads into "Mother," a very pretty and sad song. It is essentially a conversation in which Pink (sung by Waters) is asking his mother (sung by David Gilmour, the guitarist) if he should do all sorts of things like trust the government or date some chick. It really illustrates Mama's overprotectiveness, especially with the climax of the song coming right after Mama sings "Of course Mama's going to help build the wall." It's pretty sick shit if you think about it. His mother is SO overprotective that she agrees to help her child isolate himself from society instead of encouraging him to be a normal, healthy person.

After that, we come to "Goodbye Blue Sky" which has slightly irritated me since I discovered the true lyrics a few months ago. I thought the little kid at the beginning said "Look, mummy, there's no cloud up in the sky!" but the little brat says that there's an AIRPLANE in the sky. Stupid British accents. I like my version better. Anyway, this song is also composed of beautiful music and especially pretty vocals. And like most Pink Floyd songs with pretty music and pretty vocals, it's about some fucked up shit. This song chronicles memories of The Blitz, which was the period of sustained heavy bombing (76 fucking days) of Britain by Nazi Germany. Something like 45,000 people died. Pretty messed up.

Disc one ends with "Goodbye Cruel World," another pretty and fucked up song. The metaphorical wall has been completed, and Pink has finally isolated himself entirely from society. It is the shortest song on this disc, lasting slightly over a minute, and ending with the final line "Goodbye" that gets half cut-off by the music and sounds almost like a sob. YAY HAPPY.

Disc 2:

Disc two contains ALL THE BEST SONGS EVAR, starting with "Hey You," which is so so pretty (it was also sung by Jesse Eisenberg in the movie The Squid and the Whale, which is an excellent movie, by the way) and, naturally, pretty sad. Pink is regretting cutting off contact with the outside world, and tries to get someone, anyone, to notice him and talk to him, but with no avail. His mental illness also is highlighted here, with the creepy line, "And the worms ate into his brain," followed by a sick sound that kind of sounds like a dentist's drill but muted, which I guess is to symbolize the worms boring into his head. Fun stuff.

The next song probably contains one of the most beautiful and heart-wrenching instrumentals I have ever heard in my life, "Is There Anybody Out There." It starts, again, with Pink asking if there's anybody out there (outside the wall), but proceeds into the gorgeous instrumental containing a classical guitar solo which is later overlayed with violin, which, if I were to pick the most emotional instrument, the violin would be it. You can convey so much through the sounds of a violin. The instrumental part starts at 1:25.

It's so hard for me to cut out "Nobody Home" because it is so beautiful and sad, and also deals a lot with Syd Barrett, but what I really want to get to is considered one of the greatest rock songs of all time, and contains a guitar solo that is widely recognized as one of the top five, if not THE ALL-TIME BEST guitar solo EVER. Taking a moment to think about all the great guitar solos, such as those in "All Along the Watchtower" (Hendrix), "Stairway to Heaven" (Led Zeppelin), "Eruption" (Van Halen), "Sweet Child O' Mine" (Guns N Roses), etc, that's a pretty fucking big distinction to have, but I do believe it deserves it. It is fucking powerful and so emotional. I have heard plenty of renditions of the solo but I've only heard one that truly captures the emotion there. It's very difficult to play. The song is "Comfortably Numb," and the solo starts at 4:30. There is another part of the solo, which starts at 2:05, but the longer, more emotional one is the second. Seriously, any "best guitar solos" list that does not include this in at least the top ten is absolute rubbish.

I'm going to skip a couple goodies here to come to the climax of the album, "The Trial." This song is basically one big mental breakdown. In it, Pink is on trial for "showing feelings of an almost human nature." It contains testimonies from a prosecutor, his schoolteacher, his wife, and his mother, and then a judge who sentences him to have the wall torn down, interspersed with Pink singing in a manic voice about how he is crazy. Remember, all this is going on INSIDE HIS HEAD. It is a trip and a half. Don't listen to it when you are sleeping/falling asleep. I made that mistake once and it freaked me the fuck out. It is effing nuts and totally worth a listen. 

The album ends (or does it begin? The beautiful thing about Pink Floyd albums is that they end where they begin. The whole album is one big circle. The song ends with the words "Isn't this where-" and the first song of the album starts with "-we came in?" Personally I think that is the coolest thing ever.) with the final song, "Outside the Wall," which is very pretty but also creepy because he sounds really happy, and it's mostly spoken word, and it doesn't even resolve the story. No, really, there's no resolution. We don't find out what happens after the wall is torn down. "Outside the Wall" is more about what happens outside the wall while it is still built, rather than how Pink reacts once he is outside the wall. I like it better this way, though. Maybe Pink died. Maybe he went completely insane and got institutionalized (I lean towards the latter, especially given the cheerful tone of this song and the fact that it leads into the first song of the album, illustrating that there is no end to the story of Pink). We will never know, especially since Roger Waters refuses to give any explanation to the meaning of the song. 

I could write books about Pink Floyd. I think what I love so much about them is that I take a lot of their albums like literature and really enjoy analyzing them. I could discuss Pink Floyd songs/albums all day, same as I could discuss literature all day. I am a dork, for real.