Pink Floyd Deep Diving #3: Becoming God Sized

Please note: This deep dive is now moving past the following albums: More, Ummagumma, Atom Heart Mother, Meddle, and Obscured by Clouds.

Let's be honest...that's a pretty significant chunk of music to be moving past, but there were bits and bobs of it in the Relics portion of #2.

So, I hope you Nick Mason fans really enjoyed that. As for me, my spending money hasn't gone to acquire my least favorite era of Pink Floyd on vinyl all that much.

Today, I begin the run of albums that the conscious rock hive mind thinks of when we hear the words Pink Floyd.

It all started with an album, a departure project that caused a schism in the world. Something so powerful, the world could never eject it from its collective psyche.

Today...we revisit....

The Dark Side of the Moon.

Before the needle hits the record. Let's call a thing what it is. This is probably the most important LP in this history of the world.

There is nothing that has achieved what it has achieved. Nothing that has scarred the populace in an orgy of masochism like this album did.

It's also, fittingly, the first Pink Floyd record I acquired on vinyl. Real talk... I'm not 100% certain which pressing I have.

Would the real Roger Waters please stand up?

Speak To Me... there's a bit of delicious irony that an instrumental has this title. It's opening is ominous, features several different sound effects, and... laughter?

Breathe... There's no other way to put this. If the beginning of this song...the steel guitar, the bass, the drums... if this doesn't give you chills the moment you hear it...

Not only are you dead inside, but you're likely a nazi.

This song, like the preceding, portends something. This is different from Meddle. And has naught to do with Piper At The Gates of Dawn.

There's a reason this is one of the songs played the one time reunited Pink Floyd when they only had 25 minutes.

On The Run... it's directly segued into. Breathe is the outward sensation of living in an era when rampant consumerism is beginning to kill us all, but this one...

This is the internal struggle.

Time..(Breathe [reprise])... When I first heard this album, there was nothing singular about this album. As the rings inside of my torso have grown in number, it's come to mean so much more.

How did a man aged 28 understand the implications of mortality, adulthood, and middle class life in such a way that's resonated for the following five decades?

Both Gilmour and Wright turn in vocal performances greater than that of the gods themselves.

We're seeing what becomes the Pink Floyd Motif...the reprise.

The Great Gig In The Sky... I've always felt this song was the weakest link on the album....yet it continues to be performed live by both Dave and Roger.

So, they're hearing something I'm not.

Whilst this track is spinning along...I'm going to tell the story of how I acquired this record. A local St. Louis Bar, The Tick Tock Tavern, has vinyl sales and I got this disc for the low low price of $7. I also came home with The Black Diamond Heavies and Dio Fronted Black Sabbath that day.

It was a good day now let's do some side two.

Money... Listen to that bass riff. How many tracks can you name that have a dominating bass riff, but don't feel like a bass song?

How this is even possible, I'm not certain.

There are few punctures to liberal hypocrisy than this song. It's powerful and painful to me personally.

Us and Them... It stars off with that saxophone right? Well, perhaps not starting off, but you know what I mean. I cannot separate that sound from this song. It also became a toy that Waters has been playing with for the next several decades.

Wright's piano setting the tone, Gilmour's voice sounding the alarm. It's a perfectly calm song about the divide between us all.

Like most of the songs on this record...the message is absolutely timeless. It feels even more contemporary in the age of Trump and his politics of division.

Any Colour You Like... there's nothing in this world like those superfluous U's. The Floyd's usage of instrumental passages is past the level of genius.

Brain Damage... Delicious. How did Waters see into the future and craft these songs? The Folded Faces, the paperman...

This track, if not one of a thousand others shows that Roger Waters is indeed a timelord. His capture of the boomers' insecurity and insanity that's happening in 2020 is uncanny.

Eclipse...The perfect ending. It's nearly inconceivable how they were able to flow a song into another.  Perhaps they never really wrote any songs.

Sum Up:

In the span of six years Pink Floyd went from a psyechedlic hippy band fronted by a madman into a band that had something to say.

Waters found his voice with this record. No matter how much the others may dislike him, his voice. His words, and his determination is what made them what they are today.

Is it possible to keep it going like this?

Wish You Were Here. 

Should you be the curious sort... THIS is my pressing. Pretty sure.

Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I-V).. Waters pens a song about their departed friend, Syd, who comes to visit them in the studio.

OK.... After an album featuring precisely zero obnoxiously long tunes. Waters comes back with a 25 minute epic split over the course of nine parts and two tracks.

Empty space, dissonant 'arpeggios' and looking back at Syd. It's interesting to me that this particular song meant more to Dave than it did to Roger. You'll see as we move on.

Welcome To The Machine... From the cover the songs. The disillusionment with the industry, the system, and the world is apparent.

This is a song that's stuck with Roger for years and years. Gilmour perfectly encapsulates Waters's anger and dysfunction.

Have A Cigar... If you can say you don't love this song, I really question your soul. In a moment in time when the Floyd nearly broke up, the Floyd hated the recording industry, and 3/4's of the band was sitting around awaiting direction...

This is what they spat out. A record about the evils of the industry and a look back to their simpler days.

And Roger, no matter what you say, Roy's version was better. Accept it and move on.

Wish You Were Here... Seek you beauty or truth? In this rare happening, you're able to enjoy them simultaneously.

Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts VI-IX)  Really, what more needs to be said rather than what's up above?

When standing at a crossroads, the band could've returned home to create self indulgent solo records for the rest of time, but instead they returned with a banger of an album that's also stood the test of time.

No matter what industry one is in, the themes are the same. We're working hard. I respect you. Who are you?

Let's make money together, but if we don't, that's fine. We'll spit you out and find someone new.

We're eternal and you're disposable.

In my mind, we have entered the Roger Waters era of Pink Floyd. From this moment on, he's in total control.

Animals

This copy is the 180 Gram repress.

Well then. It would appear that the Pink Floyd mindset is being downgraded a bit. In the early days, they were a jangly, noisy, pop band.

Then they moved into adulthood with Dark Side...then disillusionment with Wish, and now, we're in full on Dystopia.

What I didn't know about this album...it's based off of one of the greatest books of all time, Animal Farm. I learned that upon going back through the albums about 2 years ago. It certainly helped with my appreciation of the record.

Waters has seized control. He sings all of the songs, has written all of the songs, and determined it all. Dave gets a co-write and a co-lead vocal on Dogs.

This album is amazing because it will always sound timeless. Roger Waters is the political satirist we all have needed all of our lives.

Though this album was released in early 1977. It sounds like something that was written about today.

There's not a single unkind word that can be uttered regarding this masterpiece of an album. Waters puts himself head and shoulders above all of his peers as a lyricist and a leader of a movement.

It's smart. It's biting. It's brilliant.

(You probably noticed the format for this one was different. The songs are getting too long, or in a future case, too numerous, to go track by track.)

Dark Side shows a band firing on all cylinders, but by all accounts, they were mostly sputtering when it came time to do the follow up.

Waters then walks in as the saviour he envisions himself to be.

And then we get Wish and Animals.

It's only just beginning though.