Pink Floyd is one of the most popular bands in the world. Still. Today. While the majority of their music came out about 40 years ago, their songs can still be heard on classic rock stations, in dorm rooms, and elsewhere all over the globe. Sometimes, it’s even paired with movies like The Wizard of Oz in wondrous ways.
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Here below, we wanted to examine five songs from the band. Specifically, the five songs from Pink Floyd that hit the Billboard Hot 100 charts. Indeed, this is our ranking of the only five Pink Floyd songs that ever charted on Billboard.
[RELATED: The Incidental Beauty of Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side of The Moon’ and ‘The Wizard of Oz’]
5. “Take It Back” from The Division Bell (1994)
This song, which hit No. 73 on the Billboard Hot 100, is a bit more easy-listening than most Pink Floyd fans may be used to. For a band that started to release tracks in the 1960s, this one comes well into their career. It features distinct electric guitars and many of the elements the band helped make mainstream. But the track itself doesn’t quite hit like so many others Pink Floyd has produced. On the love song, David Gilmour sings,
Her love rains down on me as easy as the breeze
I listen to her breathing it sounds like the waves on the sea
I was thinking all about her, burning with rage and desire
We were spinning into darkness the earth was on fire
She could take it back, she might take it back some day
4. “Run Like Hell” from The Wall (1979)
This song, which peaked at No. 53 on the Billboard Hot 100, opens with a big, stadium-friendly drum beat. Then the neon electric guitars kick in. The song is about escaping. The band’s album, The Wall, is all about counterculture and rejecting social norms. And sometimes when you do that you have to escape—you have to run! That’s what this track depicts. And on it, Roger Waters sings,
You better make your face up with your favourite disguise
With your button down lips and your roller blind eyes
With your empty smile and your hungry heart
Feel the bile rising from your guilty past
With your nerves in tatters as the cockleshell shatters
And the hammers batter down your door
You better run!
3. “Learning to Fly” from A Momentary Lapse of Reason (1987)
This song, which hit No. 70 on the Billboard Hot 100, opens with a great electric guitar. It sounds almost robotic, mechanical, and futuristic. It gives the song a sticky, memorable sound that clings to your eardrums. The song uses flight metaphors to highlight the difficult journey of being alive. And on it, lead vocalist David Gilmour sings,
Into the distance, a ribbon of black
Stretched to the point of no turning back
A flight of fancy on a windswept field
Standing alone my senses reeled
A fatal attraction is holding me fast
How can I escape this irresistible grasp?
Can’t keep my eyes from the circling sky
Tongue-tied and twisted
Just an earth-bound misfit
2. “Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)” from The Wall (1979)
This song, which hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed there for four weeks, might be the band’s most famous. It’s a track that decries social control. School? Perhaps it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Maybe it’s just social construction or social control and not exactly the enlightening and educational thing that we’ve made it out to be. Do you want to be unique? Or just another brick in the wall. Indeed, lead vocalist Roger Waters sings,
We don’t need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teacher, leave them kids alone
Hey, teacher, leave them kids alone
1. “Money” from The Dark Side of the Moon (1973)
This song, which hit No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100, is social commentary at its finest. Opening with one of the most famous bass lines in classic rock music history, the band highlights the overreliance on modern capitalism. Grabbing cash and having that be your ultimate end will lead to a grotesque life. It’s not the way people are meant to live. So, the band drubs that into the heads of its listeners on this incredible song. On it, lead vocalist David Gilmour sings,
Money, get away
Get a good job with more pay and you’re okay
Money, it’s a gas
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash
New car, caviar, four star daydream
Think I’ll buy me a football team
Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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