Nominating a single song for anything is hard. To select one song, you are selecting one genre too. You have to eliminate songs that have a special meaning (Belly, Feed the Tree, My first alternative song), have a special gravel (John Lee Hooker, Boom Boom, My first blues song), have a special pulse (Pixies, Where is my mind, My first goth song), have a special darkness (The Stones, Painted Black, My first war song), have a special extended mix (Sisters of Mercy, Temple of love, My first bouncing around a rock club song).
I could write a list of songs that would go on my sound track to life, so to select one makes it even more incredible by the songs that aren’t that one. The few above shows the esteemed company that it keeps.
The song I have selected is my song of all time. It takes me to that place that exists at the end of a really really good book when you have finished the last page and just stare at the blank space under the last word, in a stunned shocked silence. That bit before you want to go and force everyone to read the book, with force if necessary.
Pink Floyd – Wish you were here
July 11, 2004
Blue skies from pain
Nice choice.
A sentiment that I have felt very often too, Adrian. Thanks for your submission.
Pixies? Goth? 🙂
In my day they were goth.
Ah! A classic choice. The best song from one of the best groups in the world.
There may be better songs out there but I suspect this would have been my choice, too, if I were a contributor.
To echo Vaughan – Pixies? Goth? More to the point, Sisters of Mercy? Rock? Perhaps it’s a South African thing! 😉
Incidentally, not to be a total pedant, but it’s “Paint It Black” which is a cracking song in it’s own right.
When I was 18 that’s how I classified those songs.
Call the music police if you must.
🙂
I rather liked Painted Black. In my head, it was the same song, but all in the past tense.
I saw a red door and then it was painted black/
No colours anymore they all have been turned black.
hmm, I never thought of Paint it Black as a war song. Always thought it was about a dead girlfriend.
Wish You Were Here is a song that never gets old, no matter many times I hear it.
Wish You Were Here was always my favourite Floyd album. It was also the only one I never shunned during my revisionist punk/new wave fundamentalism period. Great song.