The first time I became aware of Pink Floyd was in high school - 1979, with the release of The Wall. I wasn't familiar with Pink Floyd at all and I recall being irritated that so many of my friends and classmates were rushing out to buy the new album (vinyl back then, or maybe casette) without even having heard it. And of course I remember thinking the whole "We Don't Need No Education" as an anthem for high school students was ridiculous - it wasn't until a few years later that I understood the context of the song and the album as a whole.
Actually, that's not completely true - I remember seeing a video somewhere before then that I later realized was for "Time" from Dark Side of the Moon. Suffice to say that even though I didn't know what it was it left enough of an impression that when I listened to the album for the first time I recognized it immediately and recalled the video right away.
It wasn't until my first year in college, when I heard "Run Like Hell" on a local college radio station that I decided to look into the band. I borrowed a copy of The Wall and listened to it several times (noting with amusement the cyclical format: the album begins with the words "we came in" and concludes with "this is where"). I caught a midnight showing of the movie, which went a long way towards illuminating the overall storyline, and I quickly realized that the album was in fact a contemporary masterpiece, a cohesive storyline concept album.
Of course I delved deeper at that point. Dark Side of the Moon was a staple background music for many allnighters in college. Animals was a fave for some of our extraterrestrial adventures. I bought a copy of Wish You Were Here somewhere in Kansas on my drive from Virginia to Oregon and it was one of the three albums I listened to over and over on that trip. I discovered Meddle after hearing Seamus in the film "Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern are Dead".
But I always came back to The Wall - I think because I was fascinated by the story of this wrecked and unlikable character. I've noted before that it is a huge challenge for a storyteller to create an unsympathetic character and still have the audience hope for redemption for the character (a recent example I can think of is Sideways). I was confused and fascinated by how someone could be so wretched, as Pink was, and yet you hoped that he'd turn out okay. When I learned that Roger Waters had based much of the character of Pink on Syd Barrett, I became even more intrigued - Pink wasn't just a fictional character but a real live complex person.
Some people think The Wall was a depressing story. Many don't see what I think is a happy ending, but I think the fact that the Wall is torn down is ultimately a hopeful sign, especially given the lyrics that "the ones who really love you" are waiting outside the wall. I don't know if Syd was able to tear down his wall or not; I can only hope that the ones who really loved him really were waiting there outside the wall.
1 comment:
Ah, Pink Floyd. You have to appreciate where they took music. There were certainly some other concept albums, but it was rare that a story and recognizable theme were also part of the concept. It was a little hard for me to equate that happy guy in the black and white picture with the sad person in some of the more recent photos.
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