P is for Pink Floyd

When I was at university I befriended a girl called C. She was a big fan of The Wall by Pink Floyd. She'd invite me to her room and cook for me at times. She may have had designs but she wasn't very happy.

In the end she dated my best friend, although I always find the American term "dated" a curious term for relationship. She still wasn't particularly happy. When he broke off the relationship she was even less happy. She'd dart out suddenly in front of cars, although it was unclear if it was a play for attention or a genuine suicide bid.

By the second year C. became less relevant. She lived in a house on another street with some almost equally unhappy people. It was like visiting the House of Usher. Just grimmer.

Sometimes she'd come to our place and watch The Wall. We'd all watch it and by the end even the most upbeat soul would feel at one with C. All those scenes of flying coffins that became crosses, people with jellied faces and Bob Geldof lying on a filthy floor with his hand down the toilet, tended to negate against spontaneous happiness. There was a wall between us and the undergraduate world which is supposed to be jovial and hedonistic.

Jeff was certainly hedonistic. He'd come up to me in the law faculty common room and tell me about the exploits of Jeff and his girlfriend Vikki, which was the last thing I wanted to hear about given that I'd spent the previous night alone nursing a tin of baked beans.

"Man. I got wasted with a capital W," he'd tell me. "Smoked some stuff, Shoved on Dark Side of the Moon and woke up two hours later thinking I was on the moon."

Ah. Floyd again.

I'm not sure that I can even attempt to sum up Floyd in their progressive and psychedelic awesomeness.

The band was formed in 1965 by  university students Roger Waters, Nick Mason, Richard Wright, and Syd Barrett, the latter who took too many drugs and went loopy.

As a kid the massive hit Another Brick in the Wall affected me. I thought it subversive with its anti schooling message and depiction of Gradgrindesque Scottish school masters, while the part with the kids being fed into meat grinders appalled me. Kids of a certain age tend to be conservative and I was no exception.

The film The Wall was based on the central character of Pink, drawn from Waters' childhood experiences, the most notable of which was the death of his father in World War II.

This first 'brick in the wall' led to more problems; Pink became drug-addled and worn down by the music industry becoming a fascist megalomaniac, a development inspired partly by the decline of Barrett. At the end of the album the increasingly fascist audience would watch as Pink 'tore down the wall', once again becoming a normal caring person.

Comfortably Numb is very powerful in The Wall and is perhaps one of the best Floyd songs.

The album The Dark Side of the Moon was apparently an allusion to lunacy rather than the moon. Floyd were those kind of guys; probably safer to listen to than to hang out with.

Curious fact about Pink Floyd: Shooting for the cover of the album Animals featured The a 30 feet pig-shaped balloon that was floated over Battersea Power Station in London. Bad weather delayed filming and the balloon broke free in strong winds, and landed in Kent where it was recovered by a local farmer, reportedly furious that it had apparently scared his cows.