mother, do you think they'll like this post?
I once had this friend who really liked Pink Floyd, which is cool. He admired how they used layered, but very simple riffs to create moody affecting songs with potent emotional imagery.
But, he had kind of a blind spot.
"Pink Floyd's music isn't depressing," he'd say, "I don't get why people say that."
Well... hmmm... you know, they wrote an album called The Dark Side of the Moon, a concept album about things in life that suck, that's still one of the best selling albums of all times. They wrote an album called The Wall that is about a rock singer's repression by his mother, British society, and the warring world, resulting in his complete and utter madness. Oh yes, they wrote an album called Wish You Were Here about how LSD, madness and the music business destroyed a fellow band mate and bummed the rest of them out. The early albums are perhaps a bit cheerier, but they're not as famous either.
Okay, I'm oversimplifying the themes to all these albums but I, to this day, wonder what he thought Pink Floyd's music was about.
The kicker, though, was when he told me that a friend of his gave his mom a recording of the Pink Floyd song, Mother, for mother's day, and thought it was a really sweet thing to do. I mean, if you barely listen to the song I guess it could sound like a lonely person merely asking his mother for shelter and answers from the world. But to look at the lyrics as a whole it makes it clear that the song is not about a healthy reliance on one's mother:
Momma's gonna make all of your nightmares come true Momma's gonna put all of her fears into you Momma's gonna keep you right here under her wing She won't let you fly, but she might let you sing Momma's gonna keep baby cozy and warm
Weird. He was a weird kid, and he never washed his feet.
Whatever... I was just thinking about it because my mom is coming to town tonight and because I went to go see The Wall laser show a couple of weeks ago. It's a really slow album and I like it a lot better with the movie.