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Rating: Friends of Debaser. It is with pleasure that I join your pleasant "club," and to do so, I present you with an initial review, which is not really a review... take it as a way of introducing myself to you and... have mercy!
Summer 1990.
Perhaps to help him digest the disappointment of losing the World Cup on penalties, a couple of postal workers decided to "send" their thirteen-year-old son, who had grown up on bread and Deejay Television (the Eighties!!!), to a summer camp offered by the aforementioned organization.
These two good people thought, kindly enough, they would make him happy. However, the thirteen-year-old had no desire to go to camp, being endemically averse to communal life because he was already irredeemably anarchic, but he was still forced to go.
In general, when someone doesn't want to go somewhere, it's really difficult for them to end up liking it. If the said summer camp turned out to be exclusively male, devoid of any interest for the boy's hormonally revolutionary state, the result was bound to be disastrous.
The only interesting thing about those days was the bus rides where a (fairly) enlightened driver continuously played a tape (yes, a TAPE) of music completely unknown to all the young passengers, who continued to complain loudly, making it extremely difficult to listen to the music with attention.
Our hero, perhaps to avoid thinking about the useless ordeal of the forced vacation, tried to understand something about that band, which sounded so different from Spagna and Nick Kamen and seemed obsessed with luxury and money (his level of English only allowed him to grasp "Money" and "Shine... Diamond"!!!).
Years later, the boy realized that the tape was nothing more than an excerpt from "Delicate Sound of Thunder" and that, although that wonderful music was not intended by its creators to reflect an obsession with money, the band playing it at the time was really only driven by filthy lucre, so paradoxically the first intuition was correct... but that's another story.
Back home, the young man, who had learned from someone more informed that on the bus he had listened to a band called Pink Floyd, decided to further explore this band, also to have an alternative to the tapes (yes, TAPES!) of the last three Festivalbars.
Walking with his poor mother, he saw in the window of a small record store a cassette with two bound dancers... There it was, a Pink Floyd tape, moreover a compilation, so as to have a comprehensive overview (!!!?) of this new group's work.
He convinced the lady to spend 8000 lire on the tape, went home, turned on the stereo... and his life was never the same again!
Why give this album 4 stars? It's an average of the emotions it gave me (5), its importance in my musical education (5), the quality of the music contained in it (5, of course), and the squalor of a commercial operation strongly opposed by Waters and wanted by Gilmour only to cash in (1)... In any case, I believe Floyd's tracks don't adapt well to compilations that break the original concepts, and thinking of the blonde millionaire guitarist entering the studio alone to re-record a track written years earlier by his (already) enemy Waters and well-known worldwide ("Money," the only non-original version track on the compilation) is truly sad.
For a detailed musical analysis, I refer you to the many excellent reviews of Pink Floyd already present on this site.
Tracklist and Lyrics
01 One of These Days (05:51)
One of these days, I'm going to cut you into little pieces.
02 Money (06:49)
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.
Money, get back.
I'm all right Jack keep your hands off of my stack.
Money, it's a hit.
But Don't give me that do goody good bullshit.
I'm in the high-fidelity first class traveling set
And I think I need a Lear jet.
Money, it's a crime.
Share it fairly but don't take a slice of my pie.
Money, so they say
Is the root of all evil today.
But if you ask for a raise it's no surprise that they're giving none away.
''{spoken} HuHuh! I was in the right!
Yes, absolutely in the right!
I certainly was in the right!
You was definitely in the right. That geezer was cruising for a bruising!
Yeah!
Why does anyone do anything?
I don't know, I was really drunk at the time!
I was just telling him, he couldn't get into number 2. He was asking why he wasn't coming up on freely, after I was yelling and screaming and telling him why he wasn't coming up on freely.
It came as a heavy blow, but we sorted the matter out.''
03 Sheep (10:19)
Harmlessly passing your time in the grassland away
Only dimly aware of a certain unease in the air
You better watch out
There may be dogs about
I've looked over Jordan and I have seen
Things are not what they seem
What do you get for pretending the danger's not real
Meek and obedient you follow the leader
Down well-trodden corridors into the valley of steel
What a surprise!
A look of terminal shock in your eyes
Now things are really what they seem
No, this is not a bad dream
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want
He makes me down to lie
Through pastures green he leadeth me the silent waters by
With bright knives he releaseth my soul
He maketh me to hang on hooks in high places
He converteth me to lamb cutlets
For lo, he hath great power, and great hunger
When cometh the day we lowly ones
Through quiet reflection and great dedication
Master the art of karate
Lo, we shall rise up
And then we'll make the bugger's eyes water
Bleating and babbling we fell on his neck with a scream
Wave upon wave of demented avengers
March cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream
Have you heard the news?
The dogs are dead!
You better stay home
And do as you're told
Get out of the road if you want to grow old
05 Wish You Were Here (05:10)
So, so you think you can tell heaven from hell?
Blue skies from pain?
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
Did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
Did you exchange a walk-on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year
Running over the same old ground
What have we found?
The same old fears
Wish you were here
06 Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2 (03:51)
The opening quote is from the 1933 light heavyweight boxing match between Max Baer and Max Schmeling
We don't need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave the kids alone
Hey! Teacher! Leave us kids alone!
All in all it's just another brick in the wall.
All in all you're just another brick in the wall.
We don't need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave the kids alone
Hey! Teacher! Leave us kids alone!
All in all it's just another brick in the wall.
All in all you're just another brick in the wall.
Spoken:
'Wrong, Do it again!
Wrong, Do it again!
If you don't eat yer meat, you can't have any pudding.
How can you have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat?
You! Yes, you behind the bikesheds, stand still laddie!'
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By madcat
"‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’ was the brightest dark night I had ever listened to... mysterious, imaginative, dark, bright, spacious, space-like."
"The music it contained was something that struck my mind and imagination from the very first notes... adult, because the feeling I experienced as a child was also that of listening to something ‘for grown-ups.’"
