I'd Buy Anything By...Pink Floyd

I've already talked enough about Pink Floyd in this blog, and you already know enough about them.

Let's just say that I've been immersed in their music since I was (literally) an infant.

"Dark Side of the Moon" was on regular rotation in our house.

I spent countless hours listening to "Wish You Were Here" and staring at the red blowing scarf on the back cover. When I saw that Arabic numbers were used to designate each part of the title song, I was so in awe that I filled an entire three-ring notebook with all the Arabic numbers up to two thousand.

"Animals" scared me and I brought it to my grade three class so the other kids could listen. I trained myself to make my letters "g" and "a" exactly the way they were on the lyric sheet, a habit that persists to this day.

"The Wall" was the first album I consciously bought for myself. I remember the joy of discovering and deciphering the secret message.

Instead of having separate copies of "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" and "A Saucer Full of Secrets," we owned the double-album combination called "A Nice Pair," complete with Doctor Fang's name and the censored breasts. I loved watching the psychedelic Harvest Records label spin around.

David Gilmour's feedback squeaks during "Echoes" used to give me nightmares, and when I asked my dad how the noises were made, he said "Probably by ghosts."

The cover of "Ummagumma" was more magical than "Alice Through the Looking Glass," partly because of the woodsy hippie tinge. I discovered if you slowed "Several Species of Small Furry Animals" down that most of the noises were coughs. I assumed that the wooden gnomes behind David Gilmour's head were the creatures that made those squeaky sounds during "Echoes." I marveled at the amount of time it must have taken to set all their equipment out for that photograph. I still marvel.

"The Final Cut" confused me and it took many years before I learned to love it. I had no idea who that "Maggie" person was. When I asked my dad what "nips" were, he said "Probably nipples."

I saw the "Delicate Sound of Thunder" tour twice when I was sixteen. The first time I went with my aunt Julie, a hard-rocking super-fox who -- when the joint was passed our way -- said "We don't need drugs to have fun!" Two enormous rednecks stole our seats, and they heckled Julie when she asked them to leave, so she said she'd throw them right the f*ck off the f*cking balcony if they didn't move their f*cking *sses, and if she couldn't do it herself she could easily find ten guys who'd be willing to, and they said "Okay, okay, lady, jeez!"

By the time of "The Division Bell" I'd already spent twenty-two years listening to Pink Floyd. It wasn't too bad an album, but nothing more. Pink Floyd will always be "Wish You Were Here" and "Animals" to me.