Breakthrough versus Wearing the Inside Out

[Damn!t]

Actually his ex-wife's depression and attempts of suicide

Yup.
I'll have to dig up that promo video Reechard had when he released broken china.
Lovely cover from Storm.

[snifferdog]

Has he gotten divorced again??? I noticed he wasn't wearing a wedding ring during the Which One Is Pink documentary?

[Syd'sSexy]

Has he gotten divorced again??? I noticed he wasn't wearing a wedding ring during the Which One Is Pink documentary?

I had read a few months ago that he and Millie were separated. Are they divorced now? Is Rick available??? Muahahahahahah!

[nosaj]

Actually his ex-wife's depression and attempts of suicide, as I figured out from that interview I mentioned. And I find that theme in the lyrics easily.

After I heard it was a concept, then I could apply it. What I'm saying, is that without that knowledge, I would never have guessed there was a concept based on listening to the music and reading the lyrics. I accept that it is supposed to be a "concept", but it is not that clear at face value.

[David Smith]

I second that, the lyrics appear to lack a lot of the motifs and recurring ideas that are generally associated with concept albums

[pffan1990]

Is all this true? I'm a little freaked out, because I predicted the Rick/Millie split in my dream a couple years ago. In the dream sometime before I saw Rick in Chicago in April 13, 2006: I was on my old high school campus when I saw Rick walking around. Long story short, I approached him and talked to him as a fan. But I could sense he was sad and he didn't have the ring on. He told me his wife was leaving him and then he couldn't find a way to keep them together. So I told him that the three of us would have to have a sit-down talk and try to fix the problem. The problem was that I waited at the meeting place for a long time and they both never showed up. Then the rest of the dream kind of took a different turn and other things happened.

I'm a little freaked out about this because Rick is really my favorite PF member and I have always had a huge respect for him. And I was happy for him and Millie when he did that Broken China album. And they have that young son Ben together. I'm a very personal person and I always like to learn things about people that sometimes freak them out, due to my mild Asperger's Syndrome. I always like hearing about people's relationships and always get sad when the marriages split; like recently I found out that an old high school friend and his high-school sweetheart - who had later gotten married and had a few kids - had just gotten divorced.

Anyway, if anyone here could point me to some articles about the separation/split, that'd be great. I will keep Rick in my thoughts and prayers as I hope his marriage won't end as this is already his third.

Back on topic, though, I like "Wearing The Inside Out" for many reasons, one including the fact that Rick sings on it. I was hoping this song would be performed at the Chicago show I went to but instead it was "Coming Back To Life" that was played.

[Hudini]

I second that, the lyrics appear to lack a lot of the motifs and recurring ideas that are generally associated with concept albums

So do the lyrics on "Dark Side Of The Moon", but you still call it a concept album.

[David Smith]

I second that, the lyrics appear to lack a lot of the motifs and recurring ideas that are generally associated with concept albums

So do the lyrics on "Dark Side Of The Moon", but you still call it a concept album.

I feel that would be an unfair comparisson

Dark Side of the Moon has the recurring motifs of the sun and the moon standing for positive or negative forces in life. They appear in the majority of songs on the album that feature singing. On top of that the closing piece blatantly echoes the lyrical content of most of the previous tracks (going as far as to directly quote the first one) through the list technique, anchoring that the songs are all linked.

And just look at the conflicting ideas in the songs themselves:

The song Money (which echoes the materialism of the song Breathe) is instantly followed by Us and Them; a song that ends on the idea of money as a division between men to a song that explores such divisions (furthermore, ending on a set of lines about money as division). Furthermore one song is a reprise of the other, with the lyrics clearly written in contrast to the original to show a difference in ideas. This reprise follows the song Time which is in direct contrast with Breathe (a song about hard work ethic vs. one about apathy and enjoying smaller things in life rather than all we 'touch and see'). Questioning the faithful at the end of Time leads to a song where the speaker has a definite fear of dying present, something a little faith could sort out, the idea of the unknown, in other words... The Dark Side of the Moon

I would say the songs all appear fairly linked

To cement the connections between songs, musical themes are repeated throughout and songs all flow in to each other. As such, audiences listening to it for a first time should be able to pick up on some sort of concept from the lyrics

Broken China to me sounds more like a collection of independent songs wherein 9 of them happen to have lyrics that seem vaugely related, with only the ideas of drowning and depression being consistent between songs. By the same standard we would have to call an album like Meloncollie and The Infinite Sadness a strong concept album as the songs are all vaugely connected (and that's not knocking MCATIS as it is one of my favourite albums of the last 20 years). I accept that it is a concept album, but it does not strike me as a particularly strict one. I would say it is a succesful concept album to the same extent that On and Island is. But then being that neither Wright nor Gilmour have ever claimed to be great lyricicists (whereas Waters openly reffered to himself as one of the 5 best of all time) it hardly surprises me.

As for the actual question of the thread, i prefer Breakthrough because of the lyrics, and i find the vocal performance (be it by Rick or Sinead) very powerful

[Hudini]

Alright, David, I may have been exaggerating a little, but you said it yourself: there are recurring motifs in the lyrics on "Broken China", although they are not strictly linked to form a story. And that's the same as on "Dark Side", although "Dark Side" does follow a concept in a strict way which makes it more conceptual.

As for the music - I believe the musical themes on "Broken China" do form a concept, all being very dark and depressive. I don't think it's necessary for a concept album to have recurring musical motifs. Per instance, King Diamond recorded 12 concept albums and neither one of them has recurring musical motifs except in the same song.

But this is really way off topic now, and we've discussed a lot of this before already in a thread called "Is Broken China A Concept Album?".

To get back on topic, I still think both "Wearing The Inside Out" and "Breakthrough" fit perfectly where they were in the first place.

[David Smith]

But this is really way off topic now, and we've discussed a lot of this before already in a thread called "Is Broken China A Concept Album?".

Doh

Still, your post did make me read over the Broken China lyrics, and to be honest they were better than i remembered them being, so that was a nice surprise. In particular, Far From The Harbour Wall and Breakthrough (to keep this post relevent) stand out

[bpmolder]

Breakthrough for me, hands down, is one of the most beautiful lyrics I have ever seen.