July 16, 2004

My Most Favorite Pink Floyd Song Ever

"So.
So you think you can tell
Heaven from hell?
Blue skies from pain?
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?

Did they get you trade
Your heros for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for the cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
Did you exchange
A walk-on part in the war
for a lead role in a cage?

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
And have we found
The same old fears?
Wish you were here."


It's a missingness song, yes? An "I miss you and hope life is treating you gently and hope you are not having to compromise your soul to continue living it" song.  At least that's my interpretation of it.
 
The first time I remember really hearing this song was quite a few years ago.  Back before I was even 20 years old.  Years before The Boy came along.  I was hanging out with friends in our living room.  Dean was there.  Who's Dean, you may wonder.  Dean was to BG's family as James would later be to ours.  That clears it up, doesn't it?  He was also the best man at my wedding, oh so way back when life was oh so different and we were oh so different and oh so young yet thinking we were oh so grown up when we now know we really were so so far from grown up.  When you are not yet 20, life seems so simple.  At least it did to me.

So Dean put the Pink Floyd album on the record player (yes.. record player... as this was before cassette tapes were prevalent and way before CDs).  He  was laying back on the floor on that summer afternoon singing along.  I was lazily stretched out on the couch just listening.
 
I wasn't consciously missing anyone or anything back then.  I either hadn't been around long enough or was just not aware enough of things to really know what missingness was about. 

And now as I sit here more than 20 years later and more than twice as old as I was back then on that day, I can't help but wonder since I have changed this much in the past 20 years what the heck will I be like in another 20 years?  And while I didn't recognize anything missing back then, I certainly do now. 
 
I wonder what's going to be on my missingness list when I'm 60?

1 comment:

Pisces75 said...

It is a great song! I have good memories of that song too...back in college. It is interesting how music can touch people. How one song can provide so many different memories...depending on how it touched a certain person. One of the reasons I love music so much.