RIP Syd Barrett

"Time" ... this one's for Syd:

Ticking away the moments that make up the dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an off hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find that ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

And you run and run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
And 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 a half page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in a quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone the song is over, thought i'd something more to say

 

That's why I hate it, why I think it's the most overrated "major" album ever made, and why it's likely the worst album in my collection (bought it when I was like 19, have never been able to unload it).

It's like a Roger Waters therapy session put to middling Floyd music, only its the most pretentious, annoying, self-pitying therapy session this side of Tony Soprano. And some of its passable songs -- Run Like Hell, Young Lust -- are so overplayed on classic rock radio, I never want to hear them again. That goes double for Another Brick In The Wall, the song that inspired me to get the album, but a song that really isn't very good, despite its anthemic status.

Only saving grace? Comfortably Numb. Also overplayed, but its greatness overcomes even that.

 

Agreed on The Wall. It's like the people who think Supertramp is great based on Breakfast in America, or think Give a Little Bit was a Sheryl Crow song.

 

On a message board where sports are discussed often, in depth and at length, I shouldn't be surprised when someone allows their own passionate fandom to cloud their logic and truthful understanding of something they love and enjoy.

So I'm not.

- Anyway, it's kind of cute how Junkie acts like we just insulted his mother (or called him a "dirty terrorist") when someone points out how amusing it is that the Wall is all about how much it sucks to be a rich and famous rock star.

It's a great album. With a plotline and lyrics that are nothing more than a guy who has carved out quite a nice life pissing and moaning about how unhappy he is and how much it sucks to be him. Try not to let your reading of a dozen Floyd biographies cloud an honest reading of what the message in those lyrics is.

besides of course the message of most Floyd stuff. Which is "let's get really wasted and mellow out while listeing to these tunes."

 

Wait...it's not?

 

If you really want to get his goat, call him a dirty closer.

 

Nah, sorry. And would you roll over to the nightstand and get Junkie a Valium.

 

Of course not. It's by the Goo Goo Dolls.

What does Abba have do with this?

In the Eastern time zone, it's already the day after Syd's death was announced, so the band is fair game now. ;D

 

Neither commercial success nor popularity are indicators of aesthetic value.
On the other hand, just because something has mass appeal doesn't mean it lacks aesthetic value.
That being said, 'The Wall' is still a great album, although it's far from Pink Floyd's best.

 

Animals. Animals. Animals.

 

We mock what we don't understand? Bad choice of words, Junkie.

Dude, it's a rock opera about the travails of being a rock star. FUCKING Roger Waters has admitted as much. This is from Wikipedia, but I've seen this in many other sources.

"Roger Waters was inspired to create the album during a concert on 6 July, 1977 on the final night of the tour to promote Animals, dubbed Pink Floyd — In the Flesh. In Montreal, a fan's disruptive behaviour resulted in Waters spitting in the fan's face. Waters was immediately disgusted with himself, and his alienation from his fans urged him to build a wall between himself and the audience, an idea which later evolved into the album."

It may not mention rock implicitly, but there's this thing called metaphor and poetic license. You know, The Day The Earth Stood Still or Superman never mention Jesus. Dawn Of The Dead never mentions the evils of consumerism. But at the very least, those movies were inspired by those topics or were outright re-interpretations of them. Same goes for The Wall, it was an avenue for Waters' self-pity.

And besides that, how many songs on that album are truly on the same plain as anything from Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, or even Animals or Meddle? In The Flesh?, The Thin Ice, The Happiest Days of Our Lives, Empty Spaces, One Of My Turns, Don't Leave Me Know, Goodbye Cruel World, Nobody Home, and particularly the last four songs, culminating with the unlistenable The Trial, those are all below par, and worse, pretentious as hell in the bargain. Shit, the song titles are whiny enough. Then you factor in Waters' primal screaming on half of those tracks, and they're damn near insufferable.

Dredging this up today? Guilty as charged. I love Pink Floyd, I really enjoy Dark Side, and especially, Wish You Were Here. But The Wall is still the most overrated "great" album ever made. And if you want to tie this to Syd Barrett, the subject matter of the The Wall is especially self-pitying considering that Barrett went through far more self-inflicted problems than Waters ever did.

I'll leave you with this Roger Waters quote from 1987 and a David Gilmour quote from 1993.

Waters:
"In 1980 when we finished in New York, Larry Maggid, a Philadelphia promoter, offered us a guaranteed million dollars a show plus expenses to go and do two dates at the JFK Stadium with The Wall and I wouldn't do it. I had to go through the whole story with the other members. I said, 'You've all read my explanations of what The Wall is about. It’s three years since we did that last stadium and I swore then that I would never do one again. And The Wall is entirely sparked off by how awful that was and how I didn't feel that the public or the band or anyone got anything out of it that was worthwhile. And that's why we've produced this show strictly for arenas where everyone does get something out of it that is worthwhile. Blah-blah-blah. And, I ain't fuckin' going!'"

Gilmour:
"And my view of what The Wall itself is about is more jaundiced today than it was then. It appears now to be a catalogue of people Roger blames for his own failings in life, a list of 'you fucked me up this way, you fucked me up that way'."

 

Maybe this is the kind of shit that drove SB insane.