Numb

I've always had mixed feeling about Pink Floyd.  On the negative side of the ledger, I've found much of their catalogue to be boring and pretentious while also detesting their primary songwriter, Roger Waters.  On the positive side we have the spectacular 1973 record, The Dark Side Of The Moon, David Gilmour's guitar playing, and Comfortably Numb from Floyd's 1979 album, The Wall.  My distaste for The Wall caused me to resist the appeal of Numb for many years until hearing the 1994 live version (below) for the first time, perhaps a decade ago, a version far superior to the album take.  

The 1994 version is awe inspiring, truly a peak musical experience.  Gilmour's singing brings out the beauty of the lyric:

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 

His guitar playing matches the emotional feel of the song and the closing 4+ minute solo is simply overwhelming.  Lots of guitarists play faster and with more notes, but the careful design and tonal quality of Gilmour's solos, here and elsewhere, make him a master of evoking emotions of regret, loss, and yearning in his listeners.  We've had many great rock guitarists, but the only ones I think of as comparable with Gilmour's emotive ability are Mark Knopfler and, at his best, Neil Young (listen to the two solos on Powderfinger).

Other than Gilmour's guitar, the music is simple, yet well thought out, creating a firm bed upon which the vocal and guitar float.  The ambiance that results is striking, complementing the lyric, and anchoring the guitar solos.  Even the little deviations from that soothing flow are well done - listen to the backup singers at the 3 minute mark.

I don't usually pay attention to light show, but even that is superb at the Pulse concert.

I'm sure everyone who attended that show remembers it.

A final thought on Floyd.  I placed the song Another Brick in the Wall in the pretentious and highly overrated category when it was released, but must admit that in the 2020s it seems prescient, though probably not in the way Waters intended when he wrote it.   We've entered a world in which the educational establishment is determined to impose a mind-numbing conformity on its young inmates, from the time they enter school until the day they graduate. It's a new religious orthodoxy in which purging heretics(1) is more important than teaching children the reading, writing, math, and thinking skills they will need in the future.  Instead they are intent on making them just another brick in the wall, inert and hammered into place.

Teacher, leave them kids alone!

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(1)  In fact, our institutions of higher learning appear to be reverting to their origins in medieval Europe, requiring professions of adherence to the one true faith.