Shit! Shit shit shit shit shit!

Sir Roger on his way home tonight happened to catch a little Pink Floyd on his mobile-wireless-machine-that-plugs-directly-into-the-ears, what used to be called a “tranny” before that term, too, was hijacked by some people.

And although it is no secret that Sir Roger is the world’s biggest fan of Pink Floyd (who – in the form at least of Roger Waters – are touring America and Europe over the next year or so) he had never really heard the words of the song he was listening to. He was, frankly, shaken because of the final verse and how closely he identified with it. So shit shit shit! Sir Roger was (and somewhat remains) in existential/ontological crisis.

But there’s more. Are we all comfortably numb? Are we all saying, “Julia, Tony … whatever, as long as you don’t rock my boat and disturb my comfortable numbness. I know there are big and great challenges for the world but I can’t bear to think about them. Give me the simple ones with simple slogans. Clunkers. Immigration. Laura Norda. And I know there were dreams and visions of great and exciting possible futures once, but now just let me rest in my comfortable numbness”? Aren’t we?

As George Steiner wrote,

“The immense majority of human biographies are a gray transit between domestic spasm and oblivion.”

So up there is the song for you to listen to and watch and here are the lyrics of the final verse that put Sir Roger in a spin:

 

When I was a child
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye

I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown
The dream is gone
I… Have become comfortably numb

 

 

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