Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb (under construction 1978) | Текст песни

• Тексты песен
• Pink Floyd
• Comfortably Numb (under construction 1978)

Hello...
Is there anybody in there?
Is anybody bleeding?
Is there anyone at home?
Come on...
I know you're hiding
I could hear you screaming when your neighbors
Called me on the phone

Listen...
I am a physician
And I can handle your condition
Like a magician
If you show me where it hurts

(spoken, sounds like Roger in the studio: "Leave it alone.")

There is no pain
You are receding
A distant ship
Smoke on the horizon
You are only coming through in waves
Your lips move but I can't hear you're saying
When I was a child I had a fever
My hands felt just like two balloons
Now I've got that feeling once again
I can't explain, you would not understand
This is not how I am
I have become comfortably numb

(guitar solo)

I have become comfortably numb

Wake up (light up)...
Pull yourself together
Get out and meet new people
I'm sure they'll understand
Come on...
Put away the shotgun
Yeah, have another blue one
Have your fingertips gone numb?
Goodbye, goodbye
Try and see the bright side
Listen to some punk groups
Rock and roll
Go out and see some shows

(guitar solo)

Go out and see some shows
Goodbye! Goodbye! Goodbye!
Bye! (Put up?) Bye!

I must confess that when I first heard this version of "Comfortably Numb" I was convinced it was a hoax. Not because of the instrumentation, which at this point is well developed and taking shape, but because of the low quality of the lyrics. Admittedly, the lyrics are not bad per se but when held up to Roger Waters' high standards, they simply don't cut it (Sap like "Get out an meet new people" or "Try and see the bright side" might sound good on a Hallmark greeting card but this is Pink Floyd for fuck's sake!)

The unused lyrics from the verses run the gamut from unintentionally funny to utterly perplexing. It doesn't help that Roger delivers some of the lines in an oddball singsong style that underscores this fact ("I am a physician... and I can handle your condition... like a magician....") The lyrics for the chorus are present and are mostly in the form we hear in the final version, but sandwiched rudely between the less-inspired verses, they lose much of their potency.

Getting around the sore thumb of the lyrics, we witness a song that has flowered beautifully. Whereas Gilmour sounds largely absent or mired in the rest of this section of the album, here he is set free and plays. The middle guitar solo is largely what we hear on The Wall. The layered guitars, including the dreamy slide effects, of the verses and chorus are present. On top of that, Gilmour already has his teeth firmly sunk into the outro solo and many of the licks we hear on this version foreshadow the stunning work to come.

Except for the absence of the second chorus and the orchestra, the song is basically finished. Despite that, I think this recording is a different one from the final version. Nothing here sounds quite the same so I suspect what we hear on The Wall is another take.

A few interesting studio artifacts can be heard on this take. Listen carefully after the line "show me where it hurts" and you'll hear what sounds like Roger speaking to someone in the studio. It sounds like he's saying "Leave it alone" although I'm not sure exactly. Also, the line "wake up" that starts the verses after the first guitar solo echoes, but the echoes sound like "light up." This is perhaps another instance of dueling Rogers, where two alternate vocal takes are left in the mix. Who knows? (This is curious to me for personal reasons. I once spent an evening with some old friends repeatedly listening to the "okay" line in "Comfortably Numb" trying to determine if the echoes morphed into the word "cocaine." It's strange that the early recordings have the echo in that place morphing into an apparent drug reference.)
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