The Pink Floyd song Jerry Cantrell can listen to “anytime”
There are no boundaries when it comes to a Pink Floyd song. Constantly exploring different themes, the band leaves no stone unturned, exposing and critiquing every corner of the human psyche. Their music and lyrics merge seamlessly to create some of the most emotive and moving pieces ever to grace the airwaves.
Some people are obsessed with labelling bands, and if you had to label Pink Floyd, they would sit somewhere in the realm of psychedelic rock; however, there is so much more to their sound than that. Tracks vary in speed, length, structure and tone, to the point that when you listen to some of their acclaimed concept albums, such as The Wall and Dark Side Of The Moon, you experience a range of different styles of music.
One of Pink Floyd’s main intentions when writing music is to allow the listener to feel something. When Syd Barrett left the band, Roger Waters and David Gilmour realised that they would never be able to write radio-friendly hits like he did, so they stopped trying. Instead, they used different guitar tones, structures, and effects to bring a specific feeling to life in a way that no other band had done.
One of their shining examples of this kind of songwriting was ‘Comfortably Numb’. It’s a track that highlights a feeling of delirium better than any other song before, as Roger Waters took something that others would call indescribable and almost made it tangible. It transcended the psychedelic rock community and appealed to musicians from every genre.
One of these musicians was Jerry Cantrell of Alice In Chains, who said that ‘Comfortably Numb’ was one of his favourite songs of all time. When elaborating on the track, he said, “It’s so emotional. Just the fucking agony in that song, man,” he continued, “I could listen to ‘Comfortably Numb’ anytime.”
The song is often confused for being about drugs, but Roger Waters has come forward previously and confirmed the song is actually about general feelings of disassociation, which can be the result of multiple causes. Of course, drugs can undoubtedly be one of the root causes of these feelings of disassociation; however, one moment he was thinking about was when he was a child and had a fever.
“I remember having the flu or something, an infection with a temperature of 105 and being delirious,” he said, “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”.
‘Comfortably Numb’ was one of the songs that led to the creation of the album The Wall, as the story behind the album came to fruition once the band had finished the track. The Wall is often cited as one of Pink Floyd’s greatest albums and frequently referred to as one of the greatest concept albums ever. Given that this track formed the whole record’s foundation, it’s hardly a surprise that musicians like Jerry Cantrell look upon it with such an unwavering admiration.
