Pink Floyd

When I was 12 or 13, I would spend time pouring over the racks in little suburban CD shops or reading all the music reviews I could find in magazines and newspapers. I didn't like the pop music my peers listened to, so I did all that in hopes of finding some other type of music I would enjoy. I might have come across the name Pink Floyd this way, I don't remember. But it stuck with me because it sounded so odd, the words Pink and Floyd usually don't go together.

At my previous job, my boss was really shocked by my music taste. He would make guests or older new colleagues go through the CDs on my desk for kicks.

"Pink Floyd! ...Iggy Pop! The Clash! ...The Shadows. Oh my god."

"Are you in reality 45 years old?!" he would ask me. Fun times. When there were no visitors we'd sometimes put on some David Bowie, or Wish You Were Here and turn up the volume really loud.

Meddle

Pink Floyd

A lot of people love Wish You Were Here or The Wall. Not that I don't like those, but my favourite song has always been Echoes, and album, Meddle. Every time I listen to the opening strains of the song, I can almost see the albatross soaring across a bottomless ocean... Meddle isn't as polished as their later work, but it has a certain rawness about it that I love.

Echoes
Overhead the albatross hangs motionless upon the air
And deep beneath the rolling waves
In labyrinths of coral caves
The echo of a distant time
Comes willowing across the sand
And everything is green and submarine.

And no-one called us to the land
And no-one knows the wheres or whys
But something stirs and something tries
And starts to climb towards the light

Strangers passing in the street
By chance two separate glances meet
And I am you and what I see is me
And do I take you by the hand
And lead you through the land
And help me understand the best I can

And no-one calls us to move on
And no-one forces down our eyes
And no-one speaks and no-one tries
And no-one flies around the sun

Cloudless everyday you fall upon my waking eyes
inviting and inciting me to rise
And through the window in the wall
Come streaming in on sunlight wings
A million bright ambassadors of morning

And no-one sings me lullabies
And no-one makes me close my eyes
And so I throw the windows wide
And call to you across the sky