Pink Floyd Shall Put You To Sleep?
Technorati Tag(s): Music, Opinion
This girl I know, she says she listens to Pink Floyd as bed time music. Like a lullaby.
When I ask her why, she says, "Oh, it's soft and not like metal."
Now I don't have a right to tell people what they should do or shouldn't, but categorizing Pink Floyd as bed time music (or New Age/Ambient, in other words) just doesn't sound right.
I wonder if she even hears the words. How, pray, can you go to sleep hearing words like "The lunatic is in my hall"? Words like "Mother do you think they'll try to break my balls"?
Words like "I need you, babe, to beat to a pulp on a Saturday night"?
Granted, perhaps I'm not the right guy to talk about Pink Floyd's lyrics. I've never really experienced the so called Teenage-Angst or depression. I do not relate to a lot of Floyd's lines.
I understand them, though. No, strike that, you can't really understand someone else's words. I can interpret their meanings, filtered through my own perceptions and prejudices. Where I'm from, you don't need to walk more than five minutes to find depression, dirt, filth, decay, excess, longing, seperation, shock, fatigue, helplessness, insanity, sadness, loss and loss of will.
I see parental abuse everyday.
My neighbor calls her son a madarchod haramzada1 everyday.
All of which comes down to this: what I know of my world tells me that Pink Floyd is not music for celebration. Or sleeping.
Am I going to tell that girl all this?
No.
If she hasn't figured it out by now, I don't think anyone can make her.
__________________
1Motherfucking bastard/fucktard/sonofabitch.
posted by sutrix @ 6:08 PM
3 Comments:
To paraphrase:
She, oh she, has become
Comfortably numb.
Like you, I don't really get those people who see music with lyrics as something more like ambient noise than something that demands deployment of your thinking cap, if only to sort out the worldview implicit in the lyrics. Perhaps music has become, for some, something to be consumed like clothing, chosen for the label and/or its outer appearance and not for the labor that went into making it.
I always look to see where my clothes were made, just in case you're wondering. And I always read the liner notes on the music I buy.
Yes, "ambient noise" is exactly right.
Music seems to have become an accessory.
Much of it has to do with the slushpile mainstream pop/hip-hop coming out these days, I think. Inane lyrics, simplistic themes (get rich, find "love") overpower the radio stations and songs written by artists who are poets a heart have been pushed deeper into the bin.
I will admit to being someone who finds myself getting calm and relaxed after listening to Pink Floyd. Yes i agree that it is wierd that that happens when words like that are being sung but i think it's the whole rythym and beat of Pink Floyd...it's not all fast like most hateful music...it's slow and moody
I if i wanted to could easily use Pink Floyd to get to sleep...but i do not listen to it often because even though i may not SUBCONSIOUSLY listen to the words they do make me feel petty lousy mood-wise after a few listening sessions...so once a month is my limit.
In the end...i get what the girl is doing.
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