12 Pink Floyd songs that capture the band perfectly

Just how many Pink Floyds have there been? You can argue this point for a while because at various stages in the band’s five decades of putting out music, they were controlled by three distinct artists. And that doesn’t account for some of the middle years when two or more of the band members were sharing in the creative process in a somewhat equal manner.

The original incarnation – under the guidance of founding guitarist/vocalist Syd Barrett – yielded one finished album and part of another, along with a number of early songs that were not initially released in album form. It was a trippy, experimental period that revolved around Barrett’s unique combination of psychedelia and pop.

But Barrett struggled with mental health and substance abuse issues which led to his early departure, and a new guitar player, David Gilmour, was brought in to take his place. I don’t think Barrett’s influence ever completely left the band, even as they experimented with longer and longer song lengths, non-traditional structures, and odd instrumentation.

12 definitive songs that perfectly capture Pink Floyd

For a time, all four of the band members seemed involved in charting the new course, but gradually, bassist Roger Waters became the dominant voice. The songs became a bit tighter, though no less experimental in nature. And the lyrics grew more pointed and political. By the end of Waters’ involvement in the early 1980s, Pink Floyd was largely Roger Waters’ backup band.

Waters left and Gilmour took over, at first with what amounted to a solo album of his own, but eventually with a reunification of sorts. Gilmour was not the songwriter that Waters was but aided in no small measure by his wife, Polly Samson, he managed to crank out at least one fitting finale in 1994, thirty years after the band emerged.

There would be one final album 20 years later, after the death of keyboardist Richard Wright which used old recordings to highlight the crucial role he had played in the band. That album, The Endless River, is a legitimate Pink Floyd album, but I wouldn’t exactly recommend it as a starting point for new listeners. It is almost entirely instrumental and atmospheric, and somewhat of an acquired taste.

They also released a plethora of live albums and compilations along the way, some of which are excellent. Pink Floyd was a theatrical band, and though no live album can really capture that live experience, something like Pulse, or the kinda-sorta concert film Live at Pompeii gives you a sense of what it was like.

So maybe there were three Floyds – as their fans like to refer to them – Syd Floyd, Roger Floyd, and David Floyd. Or maybe there were four or five or seven, which gets at some of the nuances in a very nuanced collection of musicians. Maybe there are an infinite number of Floyds.

If there are, then they are all spiritually linked – a link that goes back to the original vision of Syd Barrett to try different things. To use a soaring guitar and hypnotic keyboard to experiment. Folk, jazz, blues, and psychedelia – it didn’t really matter. In whatever incarnation you listen to, they made it sound like Pink Floyd.

Of course, sometimes they did it very well, and other times, not so much. So we’re going to highlight twelve of their best, from all the eras. This list will lean a little bit toward the early stuff because I happen to prefer that, but I will not ignore some excellent music that came later.

And I am going to – for the most part – confine myself to one song per album because to be totally honest I would be OK with simply putting all five tracks from Wish You Were Here (or four tracks, or 13 tracks, depending on how you choose to count them) on the list and calling it a day.

But I’m not going to do that, though I caution you, I will be violating this rule at least once during the following discussion. And with that out of the way, here are twelve of Pink Floyd’s greatest songs, in chronological order.