Musicians & Music Lovers: What Makes This Song Great? Pink Floyd, Comfortably Numb

listening to the chorus into the guitar solo still gives me chills. pure perfection.

floyd bump

three stars? no comment? really?

oh, i see, juan visted after a 5 star. ceers juan!

i guess you listen to britney spears.

Last Edited by Jay3 on 01/18/2023 05:04 AM

It's utterly unique

No song like it before

No song like it since

It will never be done again

It was a one off masterpiece of the true benefits of good acid

Its about heroin.
Its not a great song to me.
And when it comes on during the day at work,
It brings the whole place down, like Turn The Page.
I won't glorify heroin.

It's truly one of the best songs ever.

Roger Waters wrote the lyrics. While many people thought the song was about drugs, Waters claims it is not. The lyrics are about what he felt like as a child when he was sick with a fever. As an adult, he got that feeling again sometimes, entering a state of delirium, where he felt detached from reality. He told Mojo magazine (December 2009) that the lines, "When I was a child I had a fever/My hands felt just like two balloons" were autobiographical. He explained: "I remember having the flu or something, an infection with a temperature of 105 and being delirious. It wasn't like the hands looked like balloons, but they looked way too big, frightening. A lot of people think those lines are about masturbation. God knows why."

[link to www.songfacts.com (secure)]

nope, not at all correct. waters discussed this in length.

I like Pink Floyd for the most part. I don't like that song hardly at all, I don't understand why it's a "hit", it's in the Pink Floyd rotation on the local Big Rock station. Someone said it goes with The Wall movie and it helps to know the context, which I don't.

Sincerity

Duke Elliington said something like
‘There is good music and bad music, difference is sincerity’

i get this, but musically, it's more than that.
there was just some amazing musical chemistry going on with the juxtaposition of the chords and notes, and chemistry how it all fits together with water's "minor" verse lyrics mixed with gilmour's major chorus melodies and the harmonies on top of it. pure musical genious.

If you look at technically, yes its brilliant
I feel this song belongs in the
First comes the music, then comes the analysis.

If you write your own songs the you know that these moments come
not often but they do come and you are just a translator in a sense.

Also, the way that its captured/recorded / produced
If this was recorded in this timeframe it would be of course sonically
different and probably ruined.

It's one of the best examples of a song that
fits within the concept of the album that it
was released on AND can stand alone for those
who have never heard the entire album beginning
to end.

The production time on this album was insane
but everyone involved never lost sight of the
original vision. Very rare indeed.

The verses build tension that only gets resolved at the chorus' end. It's fatiguing to me, not my favorite PF tune.

Not mine either but it is a great song.

The solo work is a tone dripping masterpiece.

It’s sparse. Listen to the bass. It does very little, completely perfectly.

It’s got dry Brit humour and melancholy.

The vocal performance is understated making it relatable and approachable.

Solo is the god of tone and fits the feel perfectly.