Essential Pink Floyd Songs

I was never a huge fan of Pink Floyd, although I really enjoy The Wall album and film. I'm also glad I was able to see it performed live outdoors at Wrigley Field in 2012 on a warm, summer night, which was my first trip to the famous Chicago stadium.

10. "Money" (The Dark Side Of The Moon)
I recall buying this album on cassette as a gift for my parents when I was probably 14 or 15 after I got my first job, but then I ended up playing it repeatedly on my own. It seemed like I never stopped playing it for an entire summer on drives to and from work. Maybe it was because I was finally earning my own money that it struck a chord, and any rock song with a saxophone earns extra points in my book.

9. "Wish You Were Here" (Wish You Were Here)
This song seems to foreshadow the themes that would make up the band's next album, The Wall. The introduction portion of the song is neat, as it sounds like it's being performed on a radio with a single guitar playing before the full band joins in.

8. "Have A Cigar" (Wish You Were Here)
I was first aware of this song because of Foo Fighters' cover that was on the Mission: Impossible 2 soundtrack which featured Brian May. What's interesting was that Pink Floyd used an outside singer that was neither Gilmour or Waters, and the Foo Fighters' cover features a rare Taylor Hawkins vocal.

7. "Comfortably Numb" (The Wall)
This list is going to include much of the album The Wall, which is Pink Floyd's best album in my opinion. Honestly, I can't really get into much of their music outside of The Wall and songs on Dark Side, Wish You Were Here, The Division Bell, and A Momentary Lapse Of Reason. I used to like a lot more but I think I've grown tired of much psychedelic rock n roll. This song actually sounds like it could have fit musically on The Dark Side Of The Moon and while much of The Wall was written by Waters, this sounds like it's more of Gilmour's creation. Maybe that explains why it's stylistically like their previous albums. Gilmour's playing is so smooth.

6. "Young Lust" (The Wall)
While watching the movie version of The Wall, during this part of the song I recognized the girl who would later star in the vampire western movie, Near Dark; just an odd trivia fact.

5. "Time" (The Dark Side Of The Moon)
I remember in high school I actually tried to sync up watching The Wizard of Oz while playing Dark Side Of The Moon. It was probably in my junior year, right after I first bought a DVD player. It didn't really work out too well, likely because I wasn't stoned and I was also using a cassette tape. It was tricky since I had to pause the movie so I could flip the tape, and the only time it ever seemed to match was this song. The chiming of the clocks in the song seemed to match Dorothy while she was in a house with a grandfather clock chiming.  

4. "Run Like Hell" (The Wall)
This might be the most rockin, kick ass song in Pink Floyd's catalog.

3. "Learning To Fly" (A Momentary Lapse Of Reason)
Tom Petty has a song titled "Learning to Fly" as well as the Foo Fighters with "Learn to Fly", although this is my favorite of all three. This album was written after Roger Waters had left the band but I think David Gilmour held it all together nicely and it's my favorite album following The Wall.

2. "Hey You" (The Wall)
This song begins disc two of The Wall and it's also my favorite among the thirteen tracks. I actually missed this one when seeing The Wall live because I was stuck in an endless t-shirt line, though I could hear it. I like the guitar tone in this song because it sounds "spooky" and matches theme of "isolation" within the song.

1. "The Happiest Days Of Our Lives/Another Brick In The Wall, Pt. 2" (The Wall)
I really like Bob Ezrin's production on albums in the 1970's from Alice Cooper and KISS, so when I revisited this album before I was going to see it live in 2012, I paid closer attention to the production side. Right away I noticed Bob Ezrin's fingerprints- the children's choir singing backing vocals, a squealing car sound, among other things. I guess absorbing so much music is starting to have it's benefits, because I noticed I was right about this song. This song was originally supposed to be much shorter, but Bob Ezrin went behind the band's back to record the children's voices, looped a disco beat, and a hit single was born. It's a stroke of genius because "Another Brick In The Wall, Part 2" has become an anthem and a classic rock staple. I even heard Alice Cooper perform a version of "School's Out" that transitioned into the chorus of this song. I had to include "The Happiest Days Of Our Lives", too, because it's not the same without it.