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Careful with that axe, Eugene

By pharyngula on August 5, 2006.

I think this is my favorite Pink Floyd song of them all:

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"Live at Pompei", if I mistake not?

one thing that stunned me about 'live at pompeii' was how dominating the drummer was... PF then was a drummer with 3 guys playing along.

my favorite PF song? hard to say: what's my favorite fruit? top 5

money (of course)
time
see emily play
echoes
pigs (three different ones)

honorable mention: bike; one of these days and (just for the title: several species of small furry animals gathered together in a cave and grooving with a pict.

Careful with that axe, PZ.

Like djlactin, it's hard for me to say what my favorite Floyd song is. Here are a few of them:

- Time
- Echoes
- Wish You Were Here
- Dogs
- Us And Them

And just for you, Mr. Teacher,:

- Another Brick In The Wall, Pt. II

Leave them creationists alone!

I completely echo the comments on how dominant Mason was on "live in pompei"

Pink Floyd is so album oriented its difficult to pick out songs, but if I had to

Echoes
Comfortably Numb
Careful with that axe, Eugene
Pigs (three different ones)
Welcome to the machine
Shine on you Crazy Diamond
Time
If

and many many more

There are so many great PF songs, but for me, the best is "Comfortably Numb," hands down. Musically speaking, it's just so well constructed, especially the second guitar solo. It's not flashy or virtuosic, but it has the most amazing pace and shape. I always want it to keep going for ten or twelve more minutes.

Thanks for the video, Millimeter Wave. I hadn't seen that one before.

odd recollection, perhaps pertinent to this blog:

when i listen to 'one of these days', i always 'see' the history of life on earth. every thump of the bass synchs with an image of a different life form (progressing from simple to complex), with a mass extinction at the synthesizer(?) break, humans arising at the vocal bit and a big mushroom cloud at the end. then a cinder earth during the winds at the end.

sad maybe?

Meddle

By wildlifer (not verified) on 06 Aug 2006 #permalink

When I was an art student, toiling away in my dark corner of an unheated barn on abnormally large canvasses with surreal scenes, my copy of Ummagumma was indespensable.

October 1978,the desert between the Iranian/afghani border, twilight, sunset, moonrise, rushing to make Herat, safe from the chaos in Iran. "Meddle" and "Dark Side of the Moon" playng through my buses speakers. I make no apologies for ethonocentricity, triteness or excessive "hippieness" it was a musical, visual and emotional experience that sustains me with its beauty even today.
Fuck the Russians, the taliban and the "coalition of the willing". I will always sorrow for afghanistan and its proud and tragic people.
Thank you pink floyd.

Ugh. I'd scream and dream of lava, too, if I were as awful as Pink Floyd. I know that's probably not a popular opinion, given the other comments, but I felt someone had to say something about their general terribleness. :)

I actually prefer the studio version of Eugene (on Relics).

1. Echoes
2. Eugene
3. Quicksilver [More]
4. Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun
5. Shine On [that counts as one, right?]

Top Five, eh?

1. Atom Heart Mother Suite
2. One Of These Days
3. Shine On You Crazy Diamond
4. Free Four
5. Southampton Dock

Bonus - the bastardized Psalm 23 in Sheep

I recall David Gilmour once said in an interview that "Eugene" was one of their worst songs. "We played quietly in G for a while. Then there's a scream. And we play real loud in G. And we called it a song." Those were his words, if I recall correctly.

I guess, compared to all that came after, "Eugene" is kind of simple. But I do like it better than that.

Current faves:

Echoes
Cymbeline
Sheep
Summer of 69
Great Gig in the Sky (makes you wonder what they could
have done with a full-time female vocalist)

Ha! I say that (Careful with that axe, Eugene), if not all the time, at least more often than I should, and I usually just elicit blank stares.

Call me a philistine if you like, but I dont' care for their earlier stuff. I'll take, in hard-to-choose order,

Dark Side of the Moon
Animals
Wish You Were Here
The Wall

Post-split Roger Waters is better than Watersless Pink Floyd, but they both lost something.