3 of the Most Heartbreaking Songs by Pink Floyd

Pink Floyd’s music is often defined by big concepts. The band’s masterpieces, The Dark Side Of The Moon and The Wall, set the benchmark for rock concept albums. But something more innate lies beneath Pink Floyd’s groundbreaking musical experiments: human connection.

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“Wish You Were Here” begins with someone changing the radio station. Moving the dial away from one station following the completion of “Have A Cigar”. But rather than tuning something out, maybe the change is a search for something or someone. Either a new connection or reconnecting with an old friend. This is where we’ll begin as we look at three of the most heartbreaking Pink Floyd songs.

“Wish You Were Here”

Much of With You Were Here revolves around feelings of absence. The band’s co-founder and former leader, Syd Barrett, suffered from mental illness, and though his body remained, Waters explained how his old friend no longer existed behind the eyes. He hadn’t been the same since 1968, and it felt like mourning the death of someone even as their physical form endured. Barrett’s demise led to the iconic collaboration between David Gilmour and Roger Waters. Though after they’d completed multiple masterpieces, this partnership would eventually collapse, too.

How I wish, how I wish you were here,
We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl, year after year.
Running over the same old ground, what have we found?
The same old fears, wish you were here.

“Comfortably Numb”

If you prompted AI to create the world’s greatest rock guitar solo and the results didn’t sound anything like “Comfortably Numb”, it would be more proof that the technology still has a long way to go. The genius of David Gilmour’s weeping blues is how it distills the song’s profound sadness. It may have begun with Roger Waters having been shot up with tranquilizers, but you don’t need to have stomach cramps to sympathize with this kind of timeless anguish. Waters’s opening line says it all:

Hello,
Is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me
Is there anyone home?

“Time”

“Time” begins with the heartbeat rhythm of ticking clocks, followed by the jarring ringing of alarm bells. The intrusion of an alarm happens whether you like it or not. And the evolution of our circadian rhythm didn’t anticipate the idea of alarms meddling with our sleep. A similar disruption happens with mortality. Gilmour sings about passing years, boredom, and the anxiety of running out of the precious time you’ve wasted. The unwritten book, song, or draft of a plan goes unfinished. All put off for another day until there aren’t enough days left to finish.

Far away across the field,
The tolling of the iron bell,
Calls the faithful to their knees,
To hear the softly-spoken magic spells.

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