Why Comfortably Numb is my favorite song
Prelude
If you look at all the stories I’ve written so far in Medium, they have all been rigid tech articles. Which I write mainly as a way to remember those concepts well. This is an article that I’ve written like couple of years ago while I was going through some mental changes. However, as I read through the article, I noticed that, not a lot has changed in my identity, which is always a good thing (however, I found a lot of language errors xD). I had always wanted to get into creative writing (mind the creative part), so I thought of starting with the topic comfortably numb because it’s familiar to me and I’ve always had extensive conversations about it in my head (a heavy introvert here). So, without further ado, here goes…
To understand comfortably numb, First we need to understand the period that it was written, and the album The wall, which the song can be found in. The Wall is the eleventh album by English rock band Pink Floyd which was released on 1979.
Within the 60’s and 70’s, Rock and Roll became the mainstream music for the European and American audience. And its influence even spread to the other parts of the world as well. Mainly after the second world war, themes such as war, peace, oppression , capitalism began to take the central stage in music while themes like love was used a light pastime. Rock music was considered to be something that was used to stand up against the system. However, by the time 80’s came, rock started to lose it touch and its roots. Teenage bands who started out as radicals in 60’s were becoming millionaire businessmen. The wall was written as a depiction of this stardom and fame that affected the main themes underlying rock music. ( History is important people :-P)
So let’s talk about the wall. It is a rock opera.Yeah I actually used the word opera ;-) . That explores abandonment and isolation, symbolized by a metaphorical wall. The songs create a story-line of events in the life of the protagonist, Pink (There’s no one called pink in the band by the way), a character based on a band member, whose father was killed during the Second World War.
In the album, Pink had also lost his father in the war and he’s constantly oppressed by his overprotective mother while being tormented at school by tyrannical, abusive teachers. The protagonist eventually becomes a rock star and his relationships are marred by infidelity, drug use, and outbursts of violence. He had an unsuccessful marriage and as his marriage crumbles, he dismisses everyone that he know and finish building his metaphorical wall completing his isolation from human contact.
The idea of concept albums is sadly not heard nowadays to us, but the wall is a beautiful example of a concept album. Each song is tied together and the listener need to understand the context behind each song to understand its lyrics. Comfortably numb is in the middle of the album, and it provides the first spark for the now rock-star pink to get the idea of building a wall. The song can essentially be broken down into 4 parts.
- 2 Verses
- 2 Choruses
- First solo
- Second solo
Here goes the lyrics,
Analysis
Please take a note here that I’m not at all a musician or a song reviewer. Just a humble fan passing through.:)
So, let’s talk about the verse. The song starts with some hazy noises, presumably coming from a distance. We are seeing things in the eyes of the protagonist pink and just for the sake of clear reasoning imagine that he’s drugged. The music kick starts and we hear a dream like sequence whose vocals are coming from a doctor. (Although it’s not mentioned here). The doctor inquires about his health and offers his help to get him back to his feet for a show. Thing to note here is that every first word of each line repeats multiple times, which creates an effect of dissonance, which gives the listener a taste of the physical and mental state pink is in. And also the line “Is there anybody in there?” is a common theme that recurs throughout the entire album.
Then we get to the chorus. Which is clearly the internal struggle inside pink’s head and therefore the music and vocals become clearer than the verse. Pink answers the doctor’s question by saying that he doesn’t have any pain for him to recede.Or maybe he’s too damaged to be recovered. Next few lines does a great job of showing the drug like state that pink is in and how he sees the doctor(or the outside world) only as abstract wave forms. Next few lines shows the fragile state that he’s in. He has an idea of who he was or who he was meant to be and it is a balloon like state where one small force can put you through hell or life. To quote from the joker in dark knight, “madness is like gravity. You only need a little push”.
Then starts the first solo. Which can also be stated as the light solo because of the use of a major key. It’s short in length and has a definitive beginning and end. Which provides closure to the listener and now we are prepared for the second half of the song.
The second verse sounds exactly the same as before and the doctor sounds hazy now and pink sounds like he’s more in pain than before.
Then the chorus comes in with same imagery lines as before. And for the next lines, he talks about a fleeting glimpse that he saw as a child. And that child has now grown and the dream has gone. As I’ve mentioned in the beginning, the song try to address the underlying problems of music at that time. How humble, pure and radical beginnings ends up with money ,fame and glory. To quote from the movie Almost Famous.
the war is over they won, and they will ruin rock and roll and strangle everything we love about it…
the main punchline, “I have become comfortably numb”, it is an ambiguous phrase which suggests physical isolation by drugs and the mental and social isolation that pink was going through at that moment.
Then we open up to the second solo. It’s lasts for more than 3 minutes and considered as one of the best guitar solos of all time. The guitar work is wonderfully expressive and has a really emotional sound that brings just enough dissonance in all the right places.The solo as a whole take advantage of the song’s incredibly slow tempo, and can be broken up into 3 sections. At the beginning he’s playing slow and low which is full of long held notes with expressive guitar bends for emphasis. The empty space held by those long held notes helps play into the sedated, almost anesthetic theme of the song. Then he starts to play busier licks and more notes per bar which builds the energy but he keeps the range fairly low and giving him room to build further into the third section where he finally starts adding high notes and there are multiple climaxes within the solo to show pink’s internal struggle. Finally without ever really finishing, the solo just fades away, leaving the listeners to have multiple interpretations about the ending. However, on live shows the solo is usually nearly 5 minutes long and has multiple climaxes throughout while ending with a bang. I highly suggest, listening to the Gdnask version of the song.
Comfortably numb is a spacey progressive timeless song that sounds better at every listen. It opened myself to a vast population of great music. With the right mood, it can pumps up your adrenaline and make you feel lost in a bitter sweet existential place. I think there might have been more for me to say about this at the point I was writing this, I was in a hurry since I had wanted to finish this within a day as I went to Indonesia for a month in the next day xD.
When someone ask about my favorite song, I always say without a haste that comfortably numb is my favorite. However, I never encourage anyone to listen to it because it requires patience and sort of practice in listening songs with heavy guitar sound, even though pink floyd is a very mellow rock compared to their contemporaries like Led Zeppelin. The song sounds so different from what we here every day, but give it a listen if you can :). To finish this I’ll quote from the Floyd song Echo.
Strangers passing in the street , by chance to separate glances meet and I’m you and what I see is me..
