Roger Waters vs Syd Barrett

[Kensterberg]

Hey Rit, man, that was beautiful. Nearly brought a tear to these old eyes. I mean that. Makes me want to go burn a bunch of copies of The Wall, or at the least create a handmade "I Hate Pink Floyd" T-shirt. You just don't read critiques like that often. Damn fine job.

[Rit]

thanks brother.

kMc, thanks for the vote of confidence in my penis

[Rit]

Thorn, i have but one last question to ask. I know that this is a Pink Floyd board, but the following is relevant, i think, to what i'm trying to say.

Has anything Roger Waters ever written (hell, has ANYTHING on earth) ever found you with the force of the following lyric by Robert Johnson?

Robert Johnson - If I Had Possession Over Judgment Day

If I had possession
over judgment day
if I had possession
over judgment day
Lord, the little woman I'm lovin' wouldn't
have no right to pray

And I went to the mountain
lookin' far as my eyes could see
And I went to the mountain
lookin' far as my eye could see
Some other man got my woman and the -'a
lonesome blues got me

And I rolled and I tumbled and I
cried the whole night long
And I rolled and I tumbled and I
cried the whole night long
Boy, I woke up this mornin'
my biscuit roller gone
Had to fold my arms and I
slowly walked away
spoken: I didn't like the way she done
Had to fold my arms and I
slowly walked away
I said in my mind, "Yo,"
trouble gon' come some day

Now run here, baby
set down on my knee
I wanna tell you all about the
way they treated me

[wayved]

Rit-yeah--you hit it big time.I was about to go off on the usefulness of this whole barrett vs. waters thing. You did it with a passion that I have not. By the same token if you compare everything you hear to Robert Johnson and Bob Dylan then there isnt much to listen to. The words to "A Hard Rains Gonna Fall" is enough to make you swear off conventional living and dig yourself a hole......and laugh off silly shit like Pink Floyd. Instead of throwing it all into sharp relief you have confused it even further....

I prefer the Piper-Dark Side phase of Pink Floyd. No disrespect to Waters (he is the one who singelhandedly made em all millionaires) but I love the experimental stuff (though people dismiss it as bullshit--UMMAGUMMAs second album, to me, was awesome! The Narrow Way part II? I dig that crazy ass late 60s -early 70s pretension-as-art bullshit. Meddle was my first Pink Floyd album. A friend of mine's mom had it on vinyl--I bought a cassette tape and threw ECHOES on as side one--that would force me to listen on to side two. It worked! (ive always had a short attention span)

By the same token, The Wall is a sonically fantastic record. I ACTUALLY TRADED my Metallica And Justice For All VINYL for this on cassette in my youth. I dont regret it. I have also been to a few Pink Floyd laser light shows (stone cold sober)--had a good laugh at the shapes they threw up there! Scary stoned people (I mean-totally whacked out) abound.

How bout the third phase--without waters? That was worse! Momentary Lapse of Reason ("Learning to Fly is a good song, however)? Pulse? That live album with the guy with lighbulbs on his suit--Delicate Sound of Thunder? The Division Bell? They sound absolutely dead--and the live footage is boring as f*&k. Fuck that. By then it was just a name.

[wayved]

That wasent a very linear post....sorry!

[Rit]

Waywed, "The Narrow Way part 3" is one of the best songs Floyd ever did. No kidding either.

yeah, i know that keeping Robert Johnson or Bob Dylan as the marker for the rest of what i listen to is kinda shitty, actually.. but i can't seem to help it. it's the way i'm built.

i have the old world's footprint on my eardrums, and my heart is scarred.

[skvorisdeadsorta]

Rit just pretty much hit the nail right on the head for why I think Radiohead sucks. It's like the dude had a firewire cable stuck in the back of my head.

[Rit]

thanks for the compliments, but looking over that post, i'm inclined to think that (a.) i rambled on longer than i should have, and that (b.) the heart of what i was trying to get at was obscured by my rambling.

but glimmers of what i was trying to get at, i hope, show through.

[maarts]

Heard the news that P.U,.L.S.E. was finally gonna be released on DVD- perhaps as quick as next month?

Think of the Floyd in that aera what you will, those shows, the sound and the lights were fanTAStic!

[maarts]

Honestly, who would pick WYWH over something like A Saucerful of Secrets or Meddle or More? Answer: Someone who's mind has been so warped by a taste for blandness that weak stabs at the viciously beautiful of life sounds like comforting cathedrals to the sheltered mind, that's who ...

Rick Wright called it 'our best album' (source: Mojo Classic- Pink Floyd & The Story Of Prog Rock)
In the same issue, Waters named The Wall as the best of the Floyd-albums....

[Rit]

Rick Wright is a shade of a man. i've read enough evidence over the years.

R. Waters would call The Wall his best because there's a lot of hubris, pride, and defensiveness tied into that album, for him.

D. Gilmour certainly doesn't think that The Wall is one of the Floyd's best.

[maarts]

So Rick and Roger have got an opinion about which album they liked best...I do prefer Wish You Were Here and The Wall over Dark Side too....

What makes you say that Wright's a shade of a man?

[Rit]

he had no backbone, nor did he stand up for anything in the band, he let larger egos than his totally push him all over the place, until he finally had a nervous breakdown in the late 1970s, his inner integrity shot to heck. Roger Waters, being a man with a possessed self-reliance, rode roughshod all over him, and finally just kicked him out of the band out of disgust.

Rick Wright is a terrible case. He admitted recently that when Syd was turfed out in 1968, he would have gone with Syd to form a new band, but didn't because he could see that Syd was in no shape to do anything of the sort. At the time, everyone thought that Syd would amount to something whereas the rest of the Floyd would fall apart into ignominy. Wright only stayed because he had no conviction of his own, and had already latched his wagon onto Roger Water's star. In fact, he admitted at the time that he did not get along with Waters whatsoever at any point.

Wright is the archetypal weak soul, who hangs onto some kind of bland, faceless view of life because he totally lacks any fire inside. Quick to feel wounded at the slightest provocation, ultra sensitive, prone to carry prickly feelings for long periods of time, whose saving grace in society often comes from being able to be really good at a specific function, these people often live ther lives out in quiet desperation, unless they strike lucky and find a vehicle that does the work for them.

He even totally exasperated Dave Gilmour in the 80s, and Gilmour is as genial a man as you are likely to find. Wright is one of those who's horizons are so small, and who's vision amounts to severe myopia, that you can only feel that he was one lucky son of a gun to have rode the Floyd to millions of dollars.

[JACkory]

Damn, you'd think you held a personal grudge against the man...

Conflicting stories abound. I'd always heard that Wright left the band of his own accord, disgusted at the totalinarian aspects of Waters' creative process.

Such tinkering is common with legends, I suppose.

[wayved]

rit: I gotta say this. What would you do if you were Rick Wright? I would ride that fucking wave too. No one asks the keyboardist to write a song! Or the drummer! (wait-Ummagumma took care of all that!--and didnt Wright have a song or two on More and Obscured?) Regarding the books you may have read regarding Pink Floyd its all speculation....According to the books, they are all stupid fuckers in my opinion! Lord knows Roger Waters didn't say "ahh, c'mon, rick--give us some tunes! we're out!" while writing THE WALL. What you are telling me that every sideman in rock and roll is a simp--some kind of desparate lameass that doesnt contribute lives a life of desparation and all that other flowery literary bullshit! You can reflect what you said to everyday life too. I think, In any band, the drummer has the hardest part to play. I know this for a fact. Just because they are the very backbone of the music being played does that mean they are living in some immoral shitbox of their own doubt? What about the person that stocks the food you buy at the store? Are they living in desperation too just because they cannot do anything else? Wheres your album? Im no weak soul but I champion the underdog to the hilt. Elitist bullshit pisses me off to no end.