“So have a good drown, as you go down, all alone,
Dragged down by the stone.”
This may well be my favorite lyric in all of music.
Dogs is a magnificent song. Gilmour’s vocals and rifs in that song are magic.
Pigs is my second favorite, being a perfect vehicle for Water’s sort of sarcastic biting voice.
“Ha ha, charade you are.”
I just love that, and the talk box rif in the middle with the picked bass notes is legendary.
Sheep is my third favorite of the album. I love Wright’s notes in the intro on top of what seems like One of These Days’ bass notes. I guess there are some reoccurring themes in some of their songs. This is a fitting cap of the previous two, and plays out the album with sufficient fanfare at its end.
As far as who is better, Waters or Gilmour? Neither. They are both the best musicians I’ve ever heard. Each one has their own strength and weaknesses, and they compliment each other to absolute perfection.
Rogers is a creative genius, and Gilmours voice and guitar style are so perfect for Pink Floyd that it boggles the mind.
It’s too bad that in the end these men could not see eye to eye. But while they were Pink Floyd, they gave the world some of its most unique music that will not be imitated or replaced or forgotten.
Nothing else from even then or now comes even remotely close to what they did.
For lyrics, I have found this verse to hold up rather well:
How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl,
Year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found?
The same old fears.
Wish you were here.
While the words may have been literally about their lost bandmate, Syd Barrett, for me it has a deeper, darker meaning.
Of course, my life hasn't been as gloomy as that, but these days, I often wonder what has happened to our world, as the idealism of my youth has long since faded away.
And I wonder, do the young people of today even have anywhere near the same type of idealism that we once had; of economic freedom, of personal independence, of the dream that we can control our own destiny.
Lucky enough that my teen girls, especially my 19yo discovered and love the band. We went to see “Wish You Were Here” and “Several Species” tribute bands together. “Wish” did Animals cover to cover. “Several” had the full laser show and props. Great experience to share with my daughter.
That album is where my political and religious separation are just too much. The blasphemous take on The Lord’s Prayer and calling out a conservative woman by name are just too much. A friend of mine loves the album, though. I listen to any Floyd except Animals and The Final Cut.