how i love scream thy last scream bc we don't get a lot of syd-nick interactions but they both are so silly in a way

the thing is ms swift could release a song w the lyrics "i love kissing my straight boyfriend as a straight woman and having straight sex to make straight babies" and you'd have essays about how she's a dyke. sir paul mccartney, meanwhile, could write a song w the lyrics "I'm in love with my dead best friend who's a man who died and I loved to kiss him and jerk him off I wish I could be out in public with him but he's dead" and you'd have reviewers going "another beautiful song that shows mccartneys deep platonic love for lennon." in this essay I will-

Paul visited John about 3 weeks before his murder, according to Carl Perkins!!🤯

Source: https://brunchradio.com/carl-perkins-songs-get-paul-george-emotional/

we all know that syd was incorporating concepts from abstract art into his music, yet so many people don't seem willing to actually internalize that and try to see his lyrics from a different angle. in so many of his songs that are quote "incomprehensible", it seems obvious to me that what syd is doing is painting with syllables. the words he's using are more like patterns sounds, and their actual meanings are meant to evoke visual imagery without necessarily stringing together a particular narrative. I really do think more people would be able to appreciate his later work if they were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt rather than assume that everything is some sort of ~sign~ about his mental state

how come the doors never appear as side characters. I haven't read one anecdote about any band where jim morrison shows up. that seems wrong. where is he

Paul: sings a soft cover of Strawberry Fields directly towards John who's not paying attention while news clippings of John saying "i love Yoko Ono" appear

Me:

finally figured out how to play both of the comfortably numb guitar solos on my keyboard and I’ve concluded that if I had actual musical talent I would for sure go mad with power

yah, I keep going back and forth on it. I definitely agree that linda wasn’t lying. my instinct is just that “patted him on the shoulder in the hallway” is such a -specific- detail for either linda or carl to misremember. it’s definitely possible though, stories grow as they get older. Now…if you are right and she was just talking about the last time they saw each other in person (in 1976 allegedly), then that means there’s also a chance that john wrote “now and then” after that, based on what he said to paul that day, not the other way around. food for thought.

alright so wait a minute. according to the official record the last time paul saw john in person was in 1976, and the last time they talked over the phone was a few weeks before his death (about bread). we also know, of course, that the last words john said to paul was "think about me every now and then, old friend." now.... given the presented timeline, that must have been over the phone, BUT, carl perkins said in his interview about...that whole situation, that linda told him "the last words that John Lennon said to Paul in the hallway of the Dakota building were… he patted him on the shoulder, and said, [quote]." do you see the problem with these two narratives? do you see it? now you could say that john said that in 1976, but then why would paul have such a strong emotional reaction to it? clearly those were john's last words to paul ever. so they must have been meeting in person much later than he's admitted. WHATS THE TRUTH PAUL

you’ve heard of

now get ready for

who else is being captivated by the timeless beauty and divinity of music

HEY. um. on that note. have you also ever thought about how john had apparently already demo'd "now and then" all the way back in 1977, which means that when john said that line to paul, he was almost definitely secretly quoting a song he'd written about paul that he had not even shared with paul and never would. have you ever thought about that

alright so wait a minute. according to the official record the last time paul saw john in person was in 1976, and the last time they talked over the phone was a few weeks before his death (about bread). we also know, of course, that the last words john said to paul was "think about me every now and then, old friend." now.... given the presented timeline, that must have been over the phone, BUT, carl perkins said in his interview about...that whole situation, that linda told him "the last words that John Lennon said to Paul in the hallway of the Dakota building were… he patted him on the shoulder, and said, [quote]." do you see the problem with these two narratives? do you see it? now you could say that john said that in 1976, but then why would paul have such a strong emotional reaction to it? clearly those were john's last words to paul ever. so they must have been meeting in person much later than he's admitted. WHATS THE TRUTH PAUL

alright so wait a minute. according to the official record the last time paul saw john in person was in 1976, and the last time they talked over the phone was a few weeks before his death (about bread). we also know, of course, that the last words john said to paul was "think about me every now and then, old friend." now.... given the presented timeline, that must have been over the phone, BUT, carl perkins said in his interview about...that whole situation, that linda told him "the last words that John Lennon said to Paul in the hallway of the Dakota building were… he patted him on the shoulder, and said, [quote]." do you see the problem with these two narratives? do you see it? now you could say that john said that in 1976, but then why would paul have such a strong emotional reaction to carl when he said it? clearly those were john's last words to paul ever. so they must have been meeting in person much later than he's admitted. WHATS THE TRUTH PAUL

Now wait a fucking minute

This is only a few seconds longer than the edited clip most of us are used to seeing, but watching the raw film does make quite a difference.

pedal steel guitar is the language of love

Pink Floyd during the Dark Side of the Moon Tour

Cannibals, Pirates, and PhDs: How Did I Get Here?

I mentioned in some tags earlier that I’ve only actually been a real fan of Pink Floyd for under a year, and that the confluence of events that led up to it is pretty absurd. Some interest seemed to be taken in this, so I though I’d elaborate.

I didn’t know how to shorten this timeline and have it make any sense, so it’s... long. But idk, I think it’s pretty funny. If you’re nosy like I am this is for you.

My Backstory Timeline:

early childhood: my parents essentially mainline me and my little sister with The Beatles. I know almost no songs written past the 70’s until at least sixth grade. I develop a childhood crush on Paul McCartney, a joke that the universe really decides to play the long game on.

2014: my dad calls me over one night, and gravely tells me he’s been waiting to share something until I’m old enough. I brace myself to be told about sex or secret half-siblings. Instead, he tells me I need to listen to The Wall. Irritated at the idea of wasting an hour and half of my night, I nevertheless comply and go up to my room and put it on. I do not come back from this, clearly having inherited some sort of generational curse.

Around the same time, I am also secretly watching Hannibal every time my parents send me upstairs because Game of Thrones is “too gory”. This will trigger three important things: an interest in psychology, a love of horror media, and a classical music phase will train my attention span to last well past the three minute mark.

2014-2023: Over the intervening years, I become a casual fan of Pink Floyd, but make a deliberate point not to learn anything about the band. I like being able to imagine my own meanings for the songs. Also, I am motivated against this by a childhood memory of being deeply frightening by a picture of old Paul McCartney (LOL). I do not want that to ever happen again, so no learning.

Cut to April of 2023: I am finishing up my first year of my PhD program studying media psychology. I am in a bad place mentally, and am going through another horror movie phase to fill the hole. As a result, I get very into American Psycho. The main character, Patrick Bateman, is a fan of superficial 80’s pop music, particularly Genesis. I decide to start listening to Genesis to see if I agree with his tastes. While researching “best Genesis albums”, I come across The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. I listen to it, and am blown away. I had no idea that the Phil Collins band made music like that. This sends me down the prog-rock rabbit hole. I still won't learn any lore.

Summer of 2023: MEANWHILE, I am also going through another pirate phase. I have a fairly encyclopedic knowledge of 18th century piracy (and am still quite active in the Black Sails fan community). Around this time, I get really obsessed with this one random guy named Dennis McCarthy who was hanged in 1718.

I decide to work poor Dennis into a science fiction story I’ve been working on. The premise is essentially that the universe is an abandoned simulation, and a ‘glitch in the matrix’ starts to, among other things, bring people from the wrong time periods back to life. The format of the story is vaguely monster-of-the-week, in which the characters have to solve various problems caused by mistakes in the code. I think, “hey, you know what would be perfect for this? that fanfic I wrote about The Wall in high school.” Said fic (which that stupid fucking beatles movie stole from me) is about a world in which Pink Floyd never existed, but a wannabe rock-star discovers a box full of their records and decides to copy them. While he is touring his plagiarized version of The Wall, he realizes that the events of the album are starting to happen to him in real life. By working this concept into my new story, I go through another one of my periodical The Wall phases. It's in full swing when fall rolls around.

September of 2023: This semester, I take a grad-level narrative theory class in the English department. I decide it would be helpful to follow along with a specific example, so I choose The Wall. Using the terminology I am learning in the class, I start to realize that The Wall is…. incredibly narratologically fucked up. To help orient me, I watch the bootleg concert recordings, and the trick with the surrogate band sends me so out of my mind that I decide I must break my rule about never learning band lore.

This is where the two plot-lines converge. I don’t remember which came first, but around this same time, I think to myself “hey, if Genesis was hiding such an incredible album under the 80’s pop, what must Pink Floyd be hiding?” On that whim, I put on Piper at the Gates of Dawn, which equally sends me so out of my mind that I decide I must break my rule about never learning band lore. I needed to know what the fuck happened to get them from Piper to The Wall.

September-November: In the two months between the onset of this and finally making another sideblog, I dedicate all of my free time to learning as much about Pink Floyd as humanely possible (and writing a 20 page essay for that narrative theory class). As you can imagine, this is a lot to unpack all at once for someone who didn’t even know who Roger or Syd or any of the rest of them were. Luckily, I am over-educated enough to be a very fast learner. Aside from the band lore itself, I of course also fall in love with the rest of Pink Floyd's discography musically-speaking. Having this interest to latch onto genuinely pulls me out of my depression.

Cut to February 2024: I am really enjoying myself, and want to keep this going as long as possible, but I am starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel on Pink Floyd lore. I decide I need to feed the fire by supplementing with lore from another band. The Beatles seem to have a strong fan presence on tumblr, why not revisit a childhood favorite? The universe laughs at my expense.

That about brings us up to date. I have gone through so much character development over the last eight months, it’s crazy. Pink Floyd is definitely one of those things that is less of a “phase” and more of a permanent part of my mindscape. Weirdly enough, since I am studying media psychology, all of this has also been really good for my career? I never took an interest in -real- media figures (as opposed to fictional characters) before, and I feel like I have a much clearer sense of things now. It's definitely influenced my research, so whatever domino effect this has on my future is bound to get even funnier.

Anyway, that’s my backstory!