Song Meanings for Rogers Floyd (1968-1985)
Corporal Clegg- This was pink floyds first of many, anti-millitary songs. A great song if it didnt have those kazoo instrumentals, which makes it extremely weird.
The Atom Heart Mother Suite- The 23 minute instrumental which takes up the first side of Pink Floyd's 1970 album, Atom Heart Mother. The instrumental is based on a pregnant woman who tried to get a heart that was made out of a nuclear device.
One of These Days- The best song on 1971's Meddle, it is from the point of a man who is dying and wish he lived his life more and has many regrets.
Breath/Speak to Me- The opening track from Dark Side of the Moon, it is about corporate opression and how people are becoming more and more controlled, its loosely based on the theme of Dark Side of the Moon.
Time/Breath Reprise- My second favorite song on Dark Side of the Moon (the first being US and THEM). The point of time is that people are young, then they enter the middle portion, where they spend most of that time running from the closing part of your life. Eventually once youve reached the closing part of your life, your too senile to fight aging and death.
Money- A great opener with the cash registers, especially for 1973. The whole point of the song is that most people spend their whole lives trying to get rich, but once they get rich, they become horribly corrupt and they are worse off rich, than they were as poor people.
US and THEM- An anti-war song, my favorite song on Dark Side of the Moon, it is very drawn out and jazzy at some points. It depicts war as pointless and futile because, only the generals who have no idea what is really going on are the ones who make the big decisions.
Brain Damage/Eclipse- It is a song loosely based on Syd's relapse to madness, it is about all the mental illness and so much to life is unreal, fake, controlled and manufactured.
Shine On You Crazy Diamond- The focal point of the follow-up to Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here. It is 9 parts long, and those parts are seperated into 2 songs, which open and close Wish You Were Here, it is also a greeting to Syd.
Have A Cigar- One of the few Pink Floyd songs with David Gilmour doing lead vocals, it is the greeting of a greedy manager to the unlucky group he is managing.
Welcome to the Machine- A greeting, mental or physical is like an introduction to the machine that will make you and then slowly break you, that machine is rock stardom.
Wish You Were Here- The most powerful song ever by Pink Floyd, and my personal favorite, it is a song about how Roger Waters hated being a rock star, and how he couldnt change all the war and violence and wishing his long-gone friend Syd Barret, was there to experience it with him.
The Animals Trilogy (Pigs, Sheep, Dogs)- These 3 songs from 1977's Animals, depict the human race as either Pigs (the greedy leaders), Dogs (Their followers), and Sheep (the common people who haplessly follow the Pigs and Dogs). Even to the point where Roger Waters called the Brittish Moral Majority, "The true Pigs of our hell", he was later arrested, but released. Margaret Thatcher, who at the time was part of the Brittish Moral Majority, called Pink Floyd, a threat to Moral society.
In the Flesh- In this song, the disturbed rock star, seals the wall around himself and his true personality as a Facist leader is revealed. The rock star goes as far as ordering anyone at his concert who was not white to leave. This song was to show how people in power, like Hitler, use it for horrible purposes.
Hey You- Hey you, is a cry from the character in the Wall, to anyone who could hear him outside of his emotional wall, that he had slowly built around himself.
Comfortably Numb- After the character in the wall goes catatonic before a show, his crew members shoot him with adrenaline to wake him, after many shots of adrenaline, Pink (the name of the character) does the show, but is still being "eaten" by the worms of his anxieties.
Another Brick in the Wall (part 1-3)- A song about Pink's childhood school, where he was beaten cruelly by schoolmasters and learn to overcome his fear of the schoolmasters by slowly building an emotional wall around himself.
Not Now John- The only good song from Pink Floyd's 1983 album, The Final Cut, and the only one to be successful on the charts. It is about 2 sides of people in the world, those who mistakenly believe their opinion is right no matter what and the other people are those who just ignore politics and pretend like everything is alright.
