"Comfortably Numb" is a song by the English rock band Pink Floyd, which first appears on the 1979 double album, The Wall. It was also released as a single in the same year with "Hey You" as the B-side. It is one of only three songs on the album for which writing credits are shared between Roger Waters and David Gilmour. The melody and most of the music was written by Gilmour while Waters contributed the lyrics and some additional notes. The song had the working title of "The Doctor".[1]
The song is one of the most famous Pink Floyd songs and renowned especially for its guitar solos.[2] In 2004, the song was ranked number 314 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.[3] In 2005, it was the last song ever to be performed by Waters, Gilmour, Wright, and Mason together. In 2011, the song was ranked 5th in the BBC Radio 4's listeners' Desert Island Discs[4] choices.
While most songs on The Wall were written by Waters alone, most of the music for "Comfortably Numb" was written by David Gilmour, who originally recorded the instrumental demo during the latter stages of recording his first solo album, hoping to find some later use for it. Gilmour later brought his demo of it to The Wall sessions.
continued: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfortably_numb
Comfortably Numb
Hello?
Is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me.
Is there anyone at home?
Come on, now,
I hear you're feeling down.
Well I can ease your pain
And get you on your feet again.
Relax.
I need some information first.
Just the basic facts
Can you show me where it hurts?
There is no pain you are receding
A distant ship, smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying.
When I was a child I had a fever
My hands felt just like two balloons.
Now I've got that feeling once again
I can't explain you would not understand
This is not how I am.
I have become comfortably numb.
(solo)
I have become comfortably numb.
O. K.
Just a little pin prick.
There'll be no more AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
But you may feel a little sick.
Can you stand up?
I do believe its working. Good.
That'll keep you going through the show
Come on it's time to go.
There is no pain you are receding
A distant ship, smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying.
When I was a child
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown,
The dream is gone.
I have become comfortably numb.
###
There are allusive references to the following work of literature:
Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood (also known as Ode, Immortality Ode or Great Ode) is a poem by William Wordsworth, completed in 1804 and published in Poems, in Two Volumes (1807). The poem was completed in two parts, with the first four stanzas written among a series of poems composed in 1802 about childhood. The first part of the poem was completed on 27 March 1802 and a copy was provided to Wordsworth's friend and fellow poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who responded with his own poem, Dejection: An Ode, in April. The fourth stanza of the ode ends with a question, and Wordsworth was finally able to answer it with 7 additional stanzas completed in early 1804. It was first printed as Ode in 1807, and it was not until 1815 that it was edited and reworked to the version that is currently known, Ode: Intimations of Immortality.
The poem is an irregular Pindaric ode in 11 stanzas that combines aspects of Coleridge's Conversation poems, the religious sentiments of the Bible and the works of Saint Augustine, and aspects of the elegiac and apocalyptic traditions. It is split into three movements: the first of 4 stanzas discusses concerns about lost vision, the second of 4 stanzas describes how age causes man to lose sight of the divine, and the third of 3 stanzas is hopeful in that the memory of the divine allows us to sympathise with our fellow man. The poem relies on the concept of pre-existence, the idea that the soul existed before the body, to connect children with the ability to witness the divine within nature. As children mature, they become more worldly and lose this divine vision, and the ode reveals Wordsworth's understanding of psychological development that is also found in his poems The Prelude and Tintern Abbey. Wordsworth's praise of children as the "best philosopher" was criticised by Coleridge and became the source of later critical discussion.
Modern critics sometimes referred to Wordsworth's poem as the "Great Ode"[1][2] and ranked it among his best poems,[3] but this wasn't always the case. Contemporary reviews of the poem were mixed, with many reviewers attacking the work or, like Lord Byron, dismissing the work without analysis. The critics felt that Wordsworth's subject matter was too "low" and some felt that the emphasis on childhood was misplaced. Among the Romantic poets, most praised various aspects of the poem however. By the Victorian period, most reviews of the ode were positive with only John Ruskin taking a strong negative stance against the poem. The poem continued to be well received into the 20th-century, with few exceptions. The majority ranked it as one of Wordsworth's greatest poems.
continued: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immortality_Ode
These lines in particular denote a marked similarity:
- There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
- The earth, and every common sight,
- To me did seem
- Apparelled in celestial light,
- The glory and the freshness of a dream.
- It is not now as it hath been of yore;—
- Turn wheresoe'er I may,
- By night or day,
- The things which I have seen I now can see no more. (lines 1–9)
The child is closer to the infinite than the adult who has been damaged by civilization & its discontents & follies. Therefore, recognize the absurd & go from there. Make art & be consoled by it. [Prof. Jack Gillis] Or go out & try to conquer the world if you can; or be a Super Don Juan, if you dare.
