"Wish You Were Here"

[sun_set_bravely]

While we were home, CL introduced me to Pink Floyd's song "Wish You Were Here." Yes, I know, I'm incredibly late in discovering this song, indeed, this entire band. But hey, it happens.

I can't stop listening to this song today. It gives me chills. I'm listening to the live recording from "Delicate Sound of Thunder," and it just sends chills up and down my arms. It's the rhymes, it's the dangerous question marks, it's the open sound of the live recording. It's the incisive sentiment that rings true still today. Hot damn.

I wish I'd heard this song years ago. I'm glad to hear it now.


Lyrics:

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?

And did they get you to trade
Your heros for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And 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.
What have we found?
The same old fears.
Wish you were here.

Comments

[echoboom.livejournal.com]

whats even worse is that it took limpbizkit to get me to hear that song for the first time..

good stuff.

[sun-set-bravely.livejournal.com]

Do they do a cover of it? Crazy!

[echoboom.livejournal.com]

they did an acoustic version with the guy from googoodolls on the 9/11 tribute disc.
its good, i like it.

i can email a version.

[sun-set-bravely.livejournal.com]

ooh yes, please. To my Gmail account, which I will e-mail you from right now!

[freak1c.livejournal.com]

Crazy - I always thought the lyric was

"A walk on part in the wall..."

referring, of course to the album of that name. But it does seem that it's war. weird.

Also: Green Onions! I guess my Floyd fact are all just off.

[sun-set-bravely.livejournal.com]

I thought that was the lyric, too. It still sounds like it. Maybe I'm getting my lyrics from a false source.

And it's so not Green Onions! I have, like, ten webpages to prove it!!

[nickelchief.livejournal.com]

Definitely "War."

(and The Wall wasn't around until about four years later)

[prosicated.livejournal.com]

That song is fully capable of making me cry every time I hear it. I love it, and yes, very chilling sometimes.

[oceanic.livejournal.com]

"dangerous question marks" is the best way ever to describe Pink Floyd's music. At least I think so.

[coyotegoth.livejournal.com]

It's odd; I don't usually think of Floyd as a heartstring-tugging type of band, but that song hits me as do few others.

[robertainnc.livejournal.com]

that song has deep and powerful connotations for me, and always brings to mind my dearest high school friend...better late than never with pink floyd (time and shine on you crazy diamond also get to me, as does fearless from 'meddle')...delicate sound of thunder in fact was the first pink floyd i ever owned...welcome to the club. (-;

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

It's such a lovely song, and the vocals are so haunting, and so real.