the lyrics here, although not Wateresque, are a my second favorites on the record. the whole Earth=Woman thing is not new but it works well and again, they're delivered as if Gilmour means it (which he probably does).
CBTL - this song contains everything i dislike about TDB. too many anonymous guitar solos: i must say that i'm not a fan of Gilmour playing a Telecaster. that sound doesn't suit him. he's a Strat guy. anyway, there's like six guitar solos on this song? that's a lot. Gilmour complained in the past about the balance between music and lyrics, welp, to me, guitar wanking is not music, at least not entertaining music. his "less is more" philosophy should apply to this as well. none of these lead parts comes to the heel of FOS, Echoes, Time, Money, SOYCD, Dogs, Mother, CN, TFMH, TFC, etc. it's just filler. i assume that Gilmour likes to play them but they don't add anything positive to his resumé. aside from the guitar issue, this song holds many horrid elements: the DRONE, the syrupy intro, the march drum beat (cowbell
), the excessive reverb and echo in Gilmour's voice, the fact that this song keeps on repeating the same chord sequence over and over for over six minutes and the cheesy ending. i could go on about details but i think you guys catch my drift 
when i thought that i was done with the negativity regarding this song, i realize that there's also an awful set of lyrics to it
](./images/smilies/eusa_wall.gif "Brick wall"){kind=small}
. my take on them is that, again, they're directed towards US, the fans. here, David asks us where we were when he was burned and broken (well, FTR, i was probably in badder shape than you, David and yet, i was listening to your music all along). another very problematic line is "while you were hanging yourself on someone else's words, dying to believe in what you heard". i tend to take it as a Roger referrence, i may be wrong on this though, but if i ain't, it's a cheap shot at a) the fans who didn't care about that crappy feud and b) Waters (because Gilmour was as classless as him in the 80s/90s turmoil). "dangerous but irresistible pastime" wtf is that pastime? riding planes? playing guitar? being the leader of Pink Floyd? i don't relate! and to end it all: "i took a heavenly ride though our silence, i knew the waiting had begun and headed straight into the shining sun". this part puzzles me to no end because it's supposedly an update on the verse before but it's so nebulous, i'll take it for what it is: crytpism for cryptism's sake ie. a big bowl of nothing.Keep Talking - this is the first song i've heard from TDB. i wasn't overwhelmed. i was whelmed. i think that it's a less imaginative take on Yet Another Movie, which is in many ways superior to this. i like the little delayed guitar riff that runs throughout the song, the Take It Back classical guitar loop, most of the blobs are alright too, they enhance the claustrophobic nature of the lyrics - i also like the hammond B3, the guitar solo is good but not great while the synth solo that segues seamlessly into the former is much more memorable (maybe it's because there wasn't a hundred Rick's solos before on the album) and i LOVE the drum fill before we get into the last part of the song. i'm not fond of Gilmour going all Peter Frampton on us at the end but i rekon that it (the talk box) fits into the concept of the song. btw, his talk box fucked up in Montreal 1 94 which i attended. i thought it was a pretty nice moment of levity
. i happen to dislike the female mini-choir. they sound good though but it's not something i'm interrested in. a duet with Sam Brown would have been much more à-propos. i don't know why they put that Hawking speech in there - i know it makes sense but it's not a revelation. i mean, Stephen Hawking is a genius; that not the kind of speech i expect from a genius such as him but whatever...the lyrics are ok. no clunker in there really but nothing extraordinary either.
Lost For Words - this tune has a pleasing sound that's quite different from the rest of the album's. until the bridge it manages to sound quite close to the listener's ears - not as distant as on many other TDB songs. the guitar playing is tasteful throughout although a little organ solo from Rick would have been much welcomed. Gilmour's voice is perfect from beginning to end there. the instrumental break is something we've got to get used to on TDB: a break in the drum beat, reverb, echo and sound effects and some voices. here, a sportscaster for a boxing match...it reminded me of a song on an album released in 1992 by some guy named Roger - ok nevermind...
this one is a lyrical burst of frustrations that's badly organized. "i felt persecuted and paralyzed" is far less subtle than anything that Waters ever wrote in The Wall but people always blame Waters for sounding miserable - go fucking figure. "is it true that you beat your fists on the floor?" well now that's poetry! "you know you just can't win" - well said buddy!
as an aside, i think that this kind of intra-band fighting was best left in the papers. Waters never openly wrote a song about his old bandmates and much power to him. you know how songs about current news tend to age pretty bad? well, the Waters vs. Gilmour feud wasn't a headline back then; it mattered to some Floyd fans to a certain extent but this band have kept such a low profile in the press that writing a song about it was pretty much irrelevant. it is a shame that Gilmour chose to include this vitriolic song just before the last proper song of the Pink Floyd canon. on an album on which everything seems so calculated, they should have known better.
to be continued again!
![[-D-]](./images/smilies/eusa_clap.gif "Applause"){kind=small}
