Soundtrack of My Life Feedback

Binary Thesis: Purple Haze & Comfortably Numb

In the song "Purple Haze" by Jimi Hendrix, Jimi uses the short allegory "excuse me while I kiss the sky" to describe the feeling of getting high, whereas in the song "Comfortably Numb" by Pink Floyd, Roger Waters uses narrative to describe a past experience of heroin and tranquilizer abuse by saying that using the drugs caused him to be "comfortably numb".

Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" Album Review

The album "Wish You Were Here" by Pink Floyd was made to depict the coldness of the music industry and how it eats new and old musicians. The album cover is an image of a man on fire shaking another man's hand; this was done to show how the music industry has a tendency to burn artists. Five songs make up this album, but technically four because one in split into two parts; "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", "Welcome to the Machine", "Have a Cigar", and "Wish You Were Here". The songs "Welcome to the Machine" and "Have a Cigar" are both songs about the music industry, describing how they pull you in for a cigar, then throws you into the machine to be eaten alive. The other songs, "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" and "Wish You Were Here", are about Syd Barrett and his sudden departure from the band after having a mental breakdown. Roger Waters, singer for Pink Floyd, says the song "Wish You Were Here" is not about Syd, but the rest of the band claims otherwise and that the songs about Syd were put in the album to show how the stress from being a musician pushed him closer to his mental breakdown. The album doesn't have much songs, but the five that it features are pretty good in length and add up to about forty-five minutes of music. After listening to the album, I was prompted to give it an eight out of ten rating. The album is definitely one of the band's best, but after listening to it for a while, it starts to drone on and become a little boring to listen to.

Shine On You Crazy Diamond Thesis

In the song Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Pink Floyd describes the strange story of their former frontman Syd Barrett through the use of a first person point of view that represents the members of the band, a somber tone used throughout the song to show the feeling of Syd’s departure from the group, and complex allusions of Syd to describe how his use of LSD has made him a “target for faraway laughter” and inevitably, a “crazy diamond.”

The song was made by the band in tribute to Syd after he had a mental breakdown caused by the excessive use of drugs, mainly LSD. The point of view isn’t a single person, but however the thoughts and feelings of the whole band put together into a first person narrative. The band says that they “remember when [he] was young” and how he “shone like the sun” through this point of view. Typically Pink Floyd’s lyrics were written by Roger Waters (lyricist and guitarist for the band), however this song was written by the remaining three members, Roger Waters, David Gilmour, and Richard Wright based on their memories with Syd. This first person point of view which represented the band itself is very powerful in conveying the story and is key to the understanding of the emotions the band members had towards Syd.

The song was made as a tribute to the former front man of the band, Syd, and to represent how the band felt towards their former member, they used a somber tone to set an emotional scene. The song is meant to have both upbeat and downbeat moments to represent the good and bad parts of Syd’s life, but a clear and dominant somber tone can be identified multiple times throughout the entire song. This is a great tone to use because the first few lyrical parts of the song are the band reminiscing about “When [Syd] [was] young”. The power of this tone gave the song the emotional feel that it does and really helps portray the feelings of the band members.

The use of allusions in this song tell the listener how the band saw Syd as well as who he really was. Almost every line in the song is a different way to allude to the “crazy diamond” the band saw him as, even the title. The last two lines of the song have the most allusion and the most important allusions in the song because it lets the listener know that Syd really was “crazy”. The band says to Syd in the song, “Come on you raver, you seer of visions,/come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine!” These two lines allude to Syd and his struggles with multiple things, such as schizophrenia, drugs, and a mental breakdown. Each allusion is important in its own because each one tells a different story. Such as when the band found Syd when he was missing and how he has “a look in [his] eyes, like black holes in the sky” due to excessive LSD use. Allusion is abundant in this song and is extremely important in telling the story that the band is trying to tell.

In conclusion, Pink Floyd, through their use of a first person point of view to represent the entire band, a somber tone to set an emotional scene, and an abundant amount of complex allusions, tell a story of their former frontman, Syd Barrett in the song “Shine on You Crazy Diamond”. To the band, Syd was a “crazy diamond” and the unfortunate “target of faraway laughter” and they represent this throughout the song with the story of Syd’s life.