19h • 🎸 General
If we are just talking about music...
I have been taking a deep dive into Time and it's guitar solo, trying to break down and analyze each lick it is made up of to better understand solos in general.
You can't really study Time without also studying Breathe as its reprise is the unofficial final verse of Time.
I stumbled upon a reddot post comparing the prose of both of these songs and it got my story teller brain working and I figured this was the best place to share my thoughts.
The introspective nature of this era of Pink Floyd's lyrics are honestly my pick for the greatest of all time.
Simple prose almost like limericks, but they really packed a punch.
Breathe and Time parallel stories of individuals making two different decisions early in their life.
With a 5 act structure illustrating how they different and similar these paths can be.
Breathe is somewhat optimistic but also mysterious enough in verbiage that it can be taken as a tale of optimism or caution.
Time on the other hand is clearly cautionary and banally tragic.
To keep this guitar related, this shows in the great chord progressions of both, with breathe being one of the most unique I've ever heard.
Time is much more of faithful to a slow moving melancholic
The protagonist of Breathe leaves home early and with ambition determined to decide his own fate
Where as in Time they wait around for something to come to them
In Breathe they make memories and enjoy life in their prime
In Time they grow bored and waste their days until they realize their prime is almost over.
In Breathe the now middle aged protagonists ambitions bury him into his work, as he presumably forgets to sit down and enjoy the life he's built.
In Time the protagonist spends his middle age years trying to make up for the time he wasted.
The ending of breathe seems more up to interpretation,
At first I thought it was a song about how ambition can keep you away from what makes life great.
As riding the tide let's you live long and fly high.
But the protagonist did not make that choice, so he presumably rode the biggest wave and died early due to stress.
But another way to see it a that maybe riding the tide is fine and can get you through life, but it may be worth it to live life to the fullest and take risks, even if you die younger. You will have lived a fuller life than the poor sap from time.
In Time, the deathbed realization is a lot harsher. It's clear now that nothing ever materialized close to what his imagined as a child. And now he's faced with the face that the life he lived was far more meaningless than he ever could have imagined.
The fifth verse of Time is really a shared fifth verse with breathe.
It is essentially the one experience we will all share.
Peace in death.
Sorry if this sounds like a fifth grade book report but it got my brain working and I think it's a wonderful example of being creative with lyrics and actually finding deep meaning in a very simple concept we all take for granted.
I have always felt Time was Pink Floyd's true masterpiece, both lyrically and even the solo which I think from a climactic stand point, is only truly rivaled by Stairway to Heaven.
Comfortably numb always gets the spot, but I just don't think the piece hits as hard as time.
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If we are just talking about music...
