The Pink Floyd song that the world needs to hear
The whole reason why we’re even still talking about Pink Floyd today is the power of empathy.
Their work in the 1960s and early 1970s as a space-rock act may have worked fine for its time, but as soon as ‘Echoes’ came out, Roger Waters knew that there was no point in them trying to make music if they didn’t have any heart behind it. But while all great music comes from the heart, the best songs that they ever wrote were tunes that not only served as outlets for them. It was the ones that helped everyone deal with their own problems.
Then again, Waters didn’t sign up to tell people how to live their lives. A lot of what he talked about on his records were topics that he needed to get off his chest, and while it could get downright uncomfortable during the sessions for The Wall, Dark Side of the Moon is still one of the most human albums to come out of the 1970s. It was almost sterile in how clean the record sounded, but anyone who has ever breathed air is going to go through the issues Waters talks about on ‘Time’ or ‘Money’.
Any song from that record could be mandatory listening for any rock fan, but you really don’t need me to tell you about the importance of Dark Side of the Moon, do you? It’s the kind of record that everyone owns at least one copy of as a rock and roll fan, and while it kicked off their insane run of albums in the 1970s, their empathetic reaction to everything was always going to be a lot more interesting.
They knew that their success was great from a financial standpoint, but it was also a tragedy in disguise. Syd Barrett had become the casualty of the group, and the fact that he wasn’t there was the whole reason behind making Wish You Were Here. Even if the band members were pissed at each other, they could put their differences aside to honour their friend, and while the title track is fantastic, anyone who’s lost touch with a friend owes it to themselves to hear ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’.
While the scant lyrics are eerily specific to Barrett’s situation, the music itself captures all the grief, sadness, and nostalgia that comes with watching him walk out of their lives. Anyone could have written a tune about how they could have helped one of their best mates if they had the chance, but the music takes a bit of a different approach here.
Across both parts of the tune, Floyd are going through the stages of grief with every single note. Everyone might like to pay attention to that one moment where those four magical notes come in to evoke Barrett’s spirit, but it wouldn’t have worked nearly as well without having those intense keyboard pads from Richard Wright or David Gilmour’s clean guitar solos to kick everything off.
In many ways, the music is almost like a musical conversation the band never got to have with their friend. It starts off almost stand-offish and a little bit melancholy, but over the rest of the piece, the band seem to process everything that made their relationship special, from the frustrating moments watching Barrett slip away to having the time of their lives playing their first gigs with him.
But what ‘Shine On’ did isn’t solely a Floyd-specific story. Not everyone has had a friend that has gone insane by any stretch, but it’s only natural that friends end up growing distant or veer off in different directions. There might not be anything wrong with that, but whereas most people grin and bear it when talking about their old friends, Floyd dared to write a song that dealt with those emotions.
Because no matter how many times people try to mask their pain, emotions demand to be felt, and even if you can’t express them in the proper way with that specific person, it’s better to show them the shape of your heart rather than cutting them off completely. Whether or not that person is willing to accept it is anyone’s guess, but in the same way that Wright evokes the melody to their first hit ‘See Emily Play’ at the very end of the tune, it’s better to remember the good times than to dwell on the bad.
Other Floyd songs might have a lot more going for them from a technical standpoint, but what ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’ accomplishes almost dwarfs everything else in their discography. They have more cerebral works that took listeners on a musical journey, but if there’s one thing any artist can hope to do, it’s be undeniably human, and Floyd managed to capture that sentiment without even saying that much.
