“Shine on You Crazy Diamond” from Wish You Were Here (1975)
Pink Floyd never really shook the ghost of Syd Barrett. In 1975, they met the ghost head-on. Wish You Were Here dealt with the band’s early years. A couple of the songs comment directly – and acerbically – on the music business itself. The opening track, which would be reprised at the end of the album, commented on the band’s founder.
Waters wrote the lyrics and sang lead. Lyrically, the song is brilliant. From the opening lines – “Remember when you were young – You shone like the sun – Shine on you crazy diamond” Waters is paying homage to a tragic genius. Later, “You reached for the secret too soon – You cried for the moon – Shine on you crazy diamond – You wore out your welcome with random precision – rode on the steel wheel – Come on you raver, you seer of visions – Come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine.”
And as evocative as the lyrics are, the music goes even farther, especially when the song returns to close out the album in a 12-minute explosion of sound.
“Dogs” from Animals (1977)
In the middle of a groundbreaking run of comic films that included The Gold Rush, City Lights, and Modern Times, Charlie Chaplin made a movie called The Circus. It had a tortured production, and it was largely dismissed by critics in the late ‘20s. In hindsight, it is considered the equal of those gems that surrounded it.
Animals is the Circus of Pink Floyd’s glory years. The songs were too long. The metaphors are too obvious. There wasn’t a single, even though the gentle acoustic “Pigs on the Wing” was as beautiful a song as you would hear in 1977. In addition to the two-part “Pigs on the Wing.” Animals is comprised of three very long songs. “Dogs” is the longest and the best.
It travels from hard rock to acoustic folk. It has some of Gilmour’s bluesiest guitar work. It has Water’s sharp lyrics. For 17 minutes, it rocks and never loses steam. You can find detailed breakdowns of the song’s construction, with chord progressions, and rhythm shifts all mapped out. This certainly wasn’t the first rock song to receive such treatment, but it does make something clear.
Pink Floyd’s music was essential in making rock and roll composition worthy of analysis that had previously been reserved for classical and jazz music. “Dogs’ is among the best examples of this. And, if you must, ignore the scholarly dissection. It’s simply a great rock song.