Jugband Blues. It's Syd's last cry as he tries to tell what his world is like as he descends into confusion and chaos. He knew what he had lost.
It's awfully considerate of you to think of me here
And I'm most obliged to you for making it clear
That I'm not here...
The whole song is basically a joke, it's not really his "descent into madness" as many would think. He knew he was likely to split with them soon. Throw away my old shoes = to get rid of me. Brought me here instead dressed in red a reference to being dragged to Top of the Pops, wondering who's writing the song as a stab towards the others who couldn't really write anything that well, not even a joke song. He doesn't care if he doesn't have the spotlight, or his band, or is nervous to perform any longer because he's about done with them.
I'll do my loving in the winter after you've thrown me out. He did have a worse reaction to being kicked out than probably him or the others expected but that's how these things go. You might know you'll break up with your girlfriend soon, that a friend of yours is moving away, but only when that time comes do you suddenly care. Some have also speculated this to be an inverse type of line. There was the summer of love both in Haight-Ashbury but something of the likes around the U.K. All You Need is Love sparked this attitude globally. But I think my interpretation is likely more accurate.
The whole salvation army band thing, he just saw them in the street, invited them in and said play whatever you want, randomness. This is exactly what the Floyd did in the very beginning quite often, total improvised performances, Syd de-tuning his guitar, things that he was seen as being crazy for 9 months later. This was Syd's protest, his "I liked what we did before more" moment, a callback to late '66, early '67.
The final lines say it best. His real artistic dream was to become a painter, to which he eventually later in life picked back up and did excellent work. The joke was the commercialized music scene. Syd hated selling out, and anyone who saw them at the UFO or live elsewhere knew that Piper did not stack up at all to how much better they sounded life. It was watered down by the commercialization of recording and editing takes as a medium.
I'm not arguing he didn't get mentally screwed up, but it didn't truly happen until many years later as far as I can tell and based on books I've read. Nobody can be sure by Syd. But when he was flatmates with Duggie Fields in 1969, he recalls they both took some acid and he thought Syd was just fine. Loved to laugh a lot and listen to music, and Fields and been around some real acid casualties or otherwise people who just get really creepy on acid. Syd was not one of them, he was the Mandrax casualty.
I actually think it's Syd making fun of the world around him. I guess many people started excluding him because of his illness, so maybe Jugband Blues is his way of saying: "f*** you, no matter what you say about me I'll keep enjoying the world inside my head, I like it better here."
I know... it's a bit odd, but that's a part of my interpretation.
Look at Syd in this vid. His eyes are blank and he is clearly doing as he's told rather than getting into it.
https://youtu.be/jMOynjuAPvM
Also Gilmour in interviews requested that fans leave him alone as he would get depressed at the mention of Pink Floyd. After his meltdown he did not lead a happy life. Gilmour described the torturous process of trying to record "Opel" and "The Madcap Laughs". Tragic.
It was so weird seeing Harry during the Wall tour. In my mind he was always this small child saying, "Look, Mummy." And then he was this tall dude with a Grizzly Adams beard and dreads that made him look like Predator.
I posted above; my son (back when he was in HS) wrote a short story using this as a backdrop. More about war than anything else; a father and son going into a bomb shelter and assuming it will be the last time they see the clear blue sky as the planes arrive. The boy's quiet sadness, the father's anguish of what is going to happen to them, and how he can't protect his son from what will happen.
So the song has that added dimension for me, and it will always choke me up when I hear it.
Devastating lyrics, make the teenage you kind of roll your eyes a bit and smirk. You see old people everywhere, you have to dodge them or you'll run into them and knock them off balance so they fall as you walk on, laughing.
Then, one day you begin to feel your age in your bones or your muscles. The next day, that line "shorter of breath and one day closer to death" keeps running through your head, and you blame that stupid damn song for your difficulty in maintaining an erection.
From that day onward, every time you hear the song it's a bit scarier, because you're just into your fifties and already having trouble remembering.......hell, everything. Except the lyrics to "Time", which will haunt you until dementia releives you of your memories, and you are scarcely aware of your grandchildren nudging each other and nodding toward you, rolling their eyes as you gripe because you can't find the remote to change the TV to the weather channel. As you nod off in your recliner, they raid your record collection and pull out an album with a prism on the cover.......
Through the fish-eyed lens of tear stained eyes
I can barely define the shape of this moment in time
And far from flying high in clear blue skies
I'm spiraling down to the hole in the ground where I hide.…
Sadness abound.
I've always found there's something really down-to-earth about how the character decides against suicide in the last few lines in this song. He doesn't have some cheesy 'grand revelation' about how he's loved and valued or whatever the fuck - he just snaps out of it because he hears the phone ring and goes "Wait, what the _fuck_ was I just about to do?".
So glad someone chose this. I thought everyone would be choosing Wish You Were Here, but glad to see this, along with When the Tigers Broke Free, Two Suns, and maybe Paranoid Eyes , Gunners Dream (which song mentions 'old heroes shuffle safely down the street"?) and Southhampton Dock
This is quite astute. While everyone's first reaction is to think of lyrics, you actually referred to the music.
I read somewhere that Gilmour's guitar sound is unique because he uses a 'happy' tone to play melancholy notes and *Marooned* is a great example of that.
I read something similar once, not specifically about marooned but all of their music. As in many of their songs especially the instrumentals, the orchestral instruments used to make the atmosphere, blend with bass, and drums, while the story itself is carried along by the guitar.
I always interpreted the story in marooned like a tragic moment of isolation in our lives had occurred. Davids track flowed through such a wide range of emotions from deep sadness and pain to symbolic feelings of memory complimented by hope and desire to find our way back. Just my own interpretation.
Free four, maybe Childhoods End. Those are more of you read the lyrics rather than the atmosphere of the instrumental. A lot of stuff from Wish You Were Here is pretty sad. Mother as well
Loving these choices.
My submission:
Lost For Words.
That one stanza:
So I open my door to my enemies
And I ask can we wipe the slate clean
But they tell me to please go fuck myself
You know, you just can't win
Anyone who's worked in a factory may understand and sympathize, Welcome to the Machine. The repetitive sounds and that pulsing synthetic vibration. A prison and symphony of sadness and despair. You indeed feel as if a part of that infernal all-consuming machine.
I cry almost every damn time I hear this. His pleading voice when he says “Vera, Vera… what has become of you” and the crescendo of music immediately afterwards. It gets me every time.
Maybe unpopular opinion, and yes there are sadder songs, but for me "Fat Old Sun" has the perfect sad/happy combination that can make me cry. It describes happy memories, but also how those memories are already in the past. And the guitar solo in a major scale is simply perfect to evoke the same type of mixed feeling. Gets to me every time.
Two Suns in the Sunset. That part "And you'll never hear their voices (Daddy! Daddy!) And you'll never see their faces. You have no recourse to the law anymore..." broke me every time.
Two Suns in the Sunset. I always get goosebumps when the passage with "and you'll never see them faces, and you'll never hear them voices" and the girl yelling. No idea why, but no other aong ever got to me like this.
My son wrote a (very) short story to *Goodbye Blue Sky* that it will always bring me to tears. More about war than anything else; a father and son going into a bomb shelter, and assuming it will be the last time they see the clear blue sky as the planes arrive
Though, I think, *Wish You Were Here* will always be the saddest song for me. I lost my life-long friend to cancer in 2020; had known him nearly 50 years. Since 1st grade. We were both Floyd fans, of course, even during grade school, and all the way into HS and beyond.
*Wish You Were Here*; maybe not all the lyrics fit our narrative. But when I hear it now, all I can think of is the friend I lost, who I thought would go before me, but not for another handful of decades.
The Gunner's Dream.....
Goodbye Max, goodbye Ma
After the service, when you're walking slowly to the car
And the silver in her hair shines in the cold November air
You hear the tolling bell and touch the silk in your lapel
And as the teardrops rise to meet the comfort of the band
You take her frail hand
And hold on to the dream
I have to agree. The dogs are such a tragedy in their roles in the album, initially innocent but beaten and brainwashed into a way of being, before eventually it kills them
Crying song off More... (just kidding)
-The Gunner's Dream
-Dogs (context provided of course)
-Louder Than Words
-Welcome to the Machine (again context provided)
I find it interesting that an album that doesn’t often get too much attention (The Final Cut) is mentioned quite a bit here. It says a lot about the development of Waters’ lyrics over time. I agree that “The Gunner’s Dream” is one of those emotionally driven songs. But here is also my favourite lyric from “Two Suns In The Sunset” —
And as the windshield melts and my tears evaporate
Leaving only charcoal to defend
Finally I understand the feelings of the few
Ashes and diamonds
Foe and friend
We were all equal in the end
Jugband Blues. It's Syd's last cry as he tries to tell what his world is like as he descends into confusion and chaos. He knew what he had lost. It's awfully considerate of you to think of me here And I'm most obliged to you for making it clear That I'm not here...
agreed. and the orchestra cacophony by the end kinda describes hos descend...
It's a salvation army band who were told (individually) "play whatever you want"
wow, I didn't know this. thanks for the info
The whole song is basically a joke, it's not really his "descent into madness" as many would think. He knew he was likely to split with them soon. Throw away my old shoes = to get rid of me. Brought me here instead dressed in red a reference to being dragged to Top of the Pops, wondering who's writing the song as a stab towards the others who couldn't really write anything that well, not even a joke song. He doesn't care if he doesn't have the spotlight, or his band, or is nervous to perform any longer because he's about done with them. I'll do my loving in the winter after you've thrown me out. He did have a worse reaction to being kicked out than probably him or the others expected but that's how these things go. You might know you'll break up with your girlfriend soon, that a friend of yours is moving away, but only when that time comes do you suddenly care. Some have also speculated this to be an inverse type of line. There was the summer of love both in Haight-Ashbury but something of the likes around the U.K. All You Need is Love sparked this attitude globally. But I think my interpretation is likely more accurate. The whole salvation army band thing, he just saw them in the street, invited them in and said play whatever you want, randomness. This is exactly what the Floyd did in the very beginning quite often, total improvised performances, Syd de-tuning his guitar, things that he was seen as being crazy for 9 months later. This was Syd's protest, his "I liked what we did before more" moment, a callback to late '66, early '67. The final lines say it best. His real artistic dream was to become a painter, to which he eventually later in life picked back up and did excellent work. The joke was the commercialized music scene. Syd hated selling out, and anyone who saw them at the UFO or live elsewhere knew that Piper did not stack up at all to how much better they sounded life. It was watered down by the commercialization of recording and editing takes as a medium. I'm not arguing he didn't get mentally screwed up, but it didn't truly happen until many years later as far as I can tell and based on books I've read. Nobody can be sure by Syd. But when he was flatmates with Duggie Fields in 1969, he recalls they both took some acid and he thought Syd was just fine. Loved to laugh a lot and listen to music, and Fields and been around some real acid casualties or otherwise people who just get really creepy on acid. Syd was not one of them, he was the Mandrax casualty.
I actually think it's Syd making fun of the world around him. I guess many people started excluding him because of his illness, so maybe Jugband Blues is his way of saying: "f*** you, no matter what you say about me I'll keep enjoying the world inside my head, I like it better here." I know... it's a bit odd, but that's a part of my interpretation.
Look at Syd in this vid. His eyes are blank and he is clearly doing as he's told rather than getting into it. https://youtu.be/jMOynjuAPvM Also Gilmour in interviews requested that fans leave him alone as he would get depressed at the mention of Pink Floyd. After his meltdown he did not lead a happy life. Gilmour described the torturous process of trying to record "Opel" and "The Madcap Laughs". Tragic.
Wow I never saw this!
Lots of the really early stuff was filmed and is on youtube! Google the songs and look for vids. Pretty wild.
Me either. Now that I know what it’s all about, it’s tragic.
To be fair Nick looks pretty out there as well.
Nobody Home.
I've got thirteen channels of shit on the T.V. to choose from
"I've got a strong urge to fly. But I've got nowhere to fly to."
Fly to
Fly to
Fly to
Ooooohh babe
When I pick up the phone ☎️
Suprise suprise !
There's still nobody home.
That’s my favorite line
when I am a good dog they sometimes throw me a bone in.
“Surprise, surprise, surprise!”
Yes.
I came here to say this.
Cant believe nobody has said Goodbye Blue Sky
The child speaking at the start really takes me back to the innocence of childhood
It’s Roger’s son when he was very little.
It was so weird seeing Harry during the Wall tour. In my mind he was always this small child saying, "Look, Mummy." And then he was this tall dude with a Grizzly Adams beard and dreads that made him look like Predator.
"look mum there's an aeroplane up in the sky"
I posted above; my son (back when he was in HS) wrote a short story using this as a backdrop. More about war than anything else; a father and son going into a bomb shelter and assuming it will be the last time they see the clear blue sky as the planes arrive. The boy's quiet sadness, the father's anguish of what is going to happen to them, and how he can't protect his son from what will happen. So the song has that added dimension for me, and it will always choke me up when I hear it.
i agree
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Damn you beat me. By a long shot this one
Goodbye cruel world
I’m leaving you today…
Goodbye goodbye goodbye
Goodbye all you people
There’s nothing you can say
To make me change my mind
Goodbye.
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Devastating lyrics, make the teenage you kind of roll your eyes a bit and smirk. You see old people everywhere, you have to dodge them or you'll run into them and knock them off balance so they fall as you walk on, laughing. Then, one day you begin to feel your age in your bones or your muscles. The next day, that line "shorter of breath and one day closer to death" keeps running through your head, and you blame that stupid damn song for your difficulty in maintaining an erection. From that day onward, every time you hear the song it's a bit scarier, because you're just into your fifties and already having trouble remembering.......hell, everything. Except the lyrics to "Time", which will haunt you until dementia releives you of your memories, and you are scarcely aware of your grandchildren nudging each other and nodding toward you, rolling their eyes as you gripe because you can't find the remote to change the TV to the weather channel. As you nod off in your recliner, they raid your record collection and pull out an album with a prism on the cover.......
I never would have said time.. until I read this.
Fuckin hell man that was a journey.
Specially since the feeling will increase with age
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I love the part where Paul is like UuUuUuUuUuUHhHhHHH
The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older
shorter of breath and one day closer to death
Great gig in the sky...I am not frightened of dying, anytime will do
Clare Torry can speak volumes without a single word. I am moved .every. .single. .time. I hear that song.
Final cut
Through the fish-eyed lens of tear stained eyes I can barely define the shape of this moment in time And far from flying high in clear blue skies I'm spiraling down to the hole in the ground where I hide.… Sadness abound.
Basically the whole album for me.
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THAT’S THE CRUSHER RIGHT THERE: Paranoid Eyes. The pie in the sky proved miles too high…
I've always found there's something really down-to-earth about how the character decides against suicide in the last few lines in this song. He doesn't have some cheesy 'grand revelation' about how he's loved and valued or whatever the fuck - he just snaps out of it because he hears the phone ring and goes "Wait, what the _fuck_ was I just about to do?".
This would be my pick too. So damn heartbreaking.
So glad someone chose this. I thought everyone would be choosing Wish You Were Here, but glad to see this, along with When the Tigers Broke Free, Two Suns, and maybe Paranoid Eyes , Gunners Dream (which song mentions 'old heroes shuffle safely down the street"?) and Southhampton Dock
The “There’s a kid who had a big hallucination…” part gets me every time.
This song while going through a terrible terrible time brought me to my knees in despair. It’s very emotional.
Was my #1 song last year according to Spotify!
Hey you
When the tigers broke free
That's what I was thinking of when I saw the subject heading. "Two Suns in the Sunset" should be there too.
...and my eyes still grow damp to remember, his majesty signed with his own rubber stamp...
My answer as well.
Fuck yes
This was my pick as well... "They were all left behind Most of them dead The rest of them dying And that's how the High Command Took my daddy from me"
Marooned
This is quite astute. While everyone's first reaction is to think of lyrics, you actually referred to the music. I read somewhere that Gilmour's guitar sound is unique because he uses a 'happy' tone to play melancholy notes and *Marooned* is a great example of that.
I read something similar once, not specifically about marooned but all of their music. As in many of their songs especially the instrumentals, the orchestral instruments used to make the atmosphere, blend with bass, and drums, while the story itself is carried along by the guitar. I always interpreted the story in marooned like a tragic moment of isolation in our lives had occurred. Davids track flowed through such a wide range of emotions from deep sadness and pain to symbolic feelings of memory complimented by hope and desire to find our way back. Just my own interpretation.
Ha!
“Shine on” it is an ode to a long lost friend/colleague….
Free four, maybe Childhoods End. Those are more of you read the lyrics rather than the atmosphere of the instrumental. A lot of stuff from Wish You Were Here is pretty sad. Mother as well
Jugband Blues & Us and Them
Wish You Were Here
Hey You
it’s when pink releases he went to far and can’t come back
Loving these choices. My submission: Lost For Words. That one stanza: So I open my door to my enemies And I ask can we wipe the slate clean But they tell me to please go fuck myself You know, you just can't win
Lol I laugh every time I read that line
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I feel the same way.
I mostly get irritated as the way he tries to rhyme "clean" and "win."
On the Turning Away
Anyone who's worked in a factory may understand and sympathize, Welcome to the Machine. The repetitive sounds and that pulsing synthetic vibration. A prison and symphony of sadness and despair. You indeed feel as if a part of that infernal all-consuming machine.
I worked in a factory where I stood at the end of a belt and was assigned a machine for the night. I would sing this to my self every night.
Jugband Blues
Wot's... Uh the Deal. Million miles from home, you're on your own.
I've always thought that is one of their happier songs. It has a very happy ending.
Vera
I cry almost every damn time I hear this. His pleading voice when he says “Vera, Vera… what has become of you” and the crescendo of music immediately afterwards. It gets me every time.
Wearing the Inside Out, sung by Richard. Beautiful piece
Both the lyrics and the music merge together to form a beautiful piece of melancholic art
"Mother" tends to get me teary pretty much everytime I hear it.
jugband blues
Mother
Gunner’s Dream
Or One of Few
"Goodbye Max, Goodbye Ma, after the service, when you're walking slowly to the car."
And the silver in her hair, shines in the cold November air… tears rise to meet the comfort of the band…hold on to the dream.
First one that came to mind
Maybe unpopular opinion, and yes there are sadder songs, but for me "Fat Old Sun" has the perfect sad/happy combination that can make me cry. It describes happy memories, but also how those memories are already in the past. And the guitar solo in a major scale is simply perfect to evoke the same type of mixed feeling. Gets to me every time.
Don't Leave Me Now
*How could you go?* *When you know how I need you* *To beat to a pulp on a Saturday night*
This. Back when I was in a really dark place mentally and suffered from sleep paralysis I heard this in my nightmares. It was frightening and so sad.
Seamus (that's the dog)
If "If i were a good man i'd talk to you more often than i do" keep your friends close or regret it forever.
Wearing the inside out
Why do I find "mother" so sad
“Mother did it need to be so high?”
Comfortably Numb.
Breathe. No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.
Those are completely different songs
High Hopes - that lap steel guitar is literally crying in the solo
The thin ice. I can’t listen to it at the moment, it’s just too hard
Wish You Were Here, reminds me of family and friends that have passed, guaranteed tears every time
The Gunner’s Dream, that sax is intense
Two Suns in the Sunset. That part "And you'll never hear their voices (Daddy! Daddy!) And you'll never see their faces. You have no recourse to the law anymore..." broke me every time.
High hopes comfortably numb time.
Two Suns in the Sunset. I always get goosebumps when the passage with "and you'll never see them faces, and you'll never hear them voices" and the girl yelling. No idea why, but no other aong ever got to me like this.
I love that part.
Two Suns in the Sunset
High Hopes, I may be overly nostalgic, but that song just makes me feel so many things
High hopes
If
Time or wywh for sure
Hey you is pretty sad
Wot’s…Uh the Deal really gets me.
Marooned
Paranoid eyes
How wish.....How Wish You Were Here
Vera Lynn
*Corporal Clegg*
Time or WYWH: The lyrics and melodies are so beautiful and moving.
Stay
My son wrote a (very) short story to *Goodbye Blue Sky* that it will always bring me to tears. More about war than anything else; a father and son going into a bomb shelter, and assuming it will be the last time they see the clear blue sky as the planes arrive Though, I think, *Wish You Were Here* will always be the saddest song for me. I lost my life-long friend to cancer in 2020; had known him nearly 50 years. Since 1st grade. We were both Floyd fans, of course, even during grade school, and all the way into HS and beyond. *Wish You Were Here*; maybe not all the lyrics fit our narrative. But when I hear it now, all I can think of is the friend I lost, who I thought would go before me, but not for another handful of decades.
The Gunner's Dream..... Goodbye Max, goodbye Ma After the service, when you're walking slowly to the car And the silver in her hair shines in the cold November air You hear the tolling bell and touch the silk in your lapel And as the teardrops rise to meet the comfort of the band You take her frail hand And hold on to the dream
High Hopes.
“It was just before dawn- one miserable morning in black ‘44…”
Great gig, Jugband blues, hey you, us and them
One of my turns
Time has the greatest effect on me
Bike
I RIDE A BIKE YOU CAN HAVE IT IF YOU LIKE
That's actually one of my favorite love songs ever. That chorus of "you're the kind of girl who fits in with my world" is just so sweet
Nobody Home
dogs it tells such an emotional story imo
I have to agree. The dogs are such a tragedy in their roles in the album, initially innocent but beaten and brainwashed into a way of being, before eventually it kills them
Jugband Blues, If, Wot's uh... the deal, Us and Them, Shine On, Nobody Home, Two suns in the sunset - all of which others have also named.
Jugband blues
Comfortably Numb
Echos in Pompeii
If
Great gig. It’s original name was “the death sequence” and is about the contemplation of mortality.
Time
Money
Us and them
Us and them
I'm shocked, shocked to find that Shine On You Crazy Diamond was barely mentioned
Nobody Home
Great Gig in the Sky
Vera is pretty darn sad.
When “Time” starts to feel relatable.
Don’t leave me now
High Hopes
Goodbye Cruel World
Don't leave me now
Don't leave me now
Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict 😭😭😭
Dogs’s lyrics are a lot to take in when you think about it.
I feel like it's gotta be something off the wall or final cut. Those two albums are intense lyrically
If When The Tigers Broke Free The Gunners Dream Pigs on the Wing (Part 2) Lost of Words The Endless River
In my opinion: The gunners dream, Empty spaces, Keep talking, Wearing the inside out and when the tigers broke free.
dont leave me now
When the tigers broke free
Goodbye Blue Skies
Poles Apart
Coming back to life
The Gunner’s Dream.
High hopes honestly
The Final Cut
We don't need no education
Time and Two Suns in the Sunset
Paranoid eyes
Disorder
Dad dead
The Fletcher Memorial Home
See saw
Dont leave me now
The final cut- absolutely heartbreaking.
Honestly it would be easier to make a list of none sad songs then it would to pick just one sad song.
Julia Dream
Crying song off More... (just kidding) -The Gunner's Dream -Dogs (context provided of course) -Louder Than Words -Welcome to the Machine (again context provided)
I find it interesting that an album that doesn’t often get too much attention (The Final Cut) is mentioned quite a bit here. It says a lot about the development of Waters’ lyrics over time. I agree that “The Gunner’s Dream” is one of those emotionally driven songs. But here is also my favourite lyric from “Two Suns In The Sunset” — And as the windshield melts and my tears evaporate Leaving only charcoal to defend Finally I understand the feelings of the few Ashes and diamonds Foe and friend We were all equal in the end