Continuing the discussion from What the BBS means to me:
The meaning of pink floyds lyrics please feel free to chuck in your opinions.
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Did you see the frightened ones?
Did you hear the falling bombs?
Did you ever wonder why we had to run for shelter when the
Promise of a brave new world unfurled beneath a clear blue Sky?
âŚ
Goodbye, blue sky
Goodbye, blue sky
Goodbye
Goodbye
.
(Goodbye Blue Sky / The Wall)
They told you to be afraid, they told you that you needed protection, and yet here we are, masters of this life, food and shelter and richness enough for everyone to live well in peace. Why did you consent to let them re-frame the world, keep you in perpetual fear, control you, own you, end you?
Pink Floyd was singing about 9/11 in the US. They were singing about the #Brexit in the UK. Theyâre singing about hard realities in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Theyâre singing about those who cultivate collective fear and then use it turn a peaceful aesthetically pleasing perhaps even spiritually fulfilling existence into a crater-strewn landscape of shit, fear, and misery. Merchants of terror and currencies of authoritarianism and control, and always, their unending lies of justification, imprisoning and destroying the world in order to protect it, clipping spiritsâ wings.
Why are we hiding in bomb shelters under clear blue skies?
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Juxtaposing happy or light-sounding music against dark lyrics may seem like an easy trick, a cliche, but with âBrain Damageâ, the penultimate song on Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd really made a poignant and thoughtful song about mental illness. They didnât romanticize it but they didnât treat it as something to be ashamed of either. And with the next song âEclipseâ I think they tried to bring together everything; together these two songs try for a literal universal vision.
On a more personal note the older I get the harder it gets to listen to The Wall. A lot of it is good but too much takes me back to an overly self-absorbed adolescence.
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Did Israel_B actually say that Pink Floydâs antisemitism is contained in their lyrics/music? If not, this thread isnât really designed to address his claims.
Then again, he didnât back up his claims, so perhaps itâs just as well.
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Roger Waters dislikes the State of Israel, and has repeatedly criticized it. That in in of itself is perfectly acceptable, but it crossed the line imo in his Goodnight Blue Sky imagery, with the pig, Jewish star bombs, and dollar bills.
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[quote=âWoodchuck45, post:7, topic:87531â]
but it crossed the line imo in his Goodnight Blue Sky imagery, with the pig, Jewish star bombs, and dollar bills.[/quote]
I had no idea what you were referring to until I did some digging and learned that on Pink Floydâs most recent concert tour of The Wall they would perform the song while in the background, on the concert screen, ââŚbomber planes fly in from the distance, they drop not bombs, but dollar signs, euro signs, religious symbols, and corporate logos.â (Wikipedia)
How can you credibly take a presentation of a pile of symbols, cherry pick one or two, completely recontextualize them as if there were no other symbols present and then style that an anti-Semitic message? That is completely preposterous! Do you play the song backwards as well, just in case it contains Satanic messaging?
These disparaging remarks about this art are almost offensive in their wrongful presumption and accusatory tone. I donât believe they could have made earnestly. They seem to cross some threshold into the meaninglessness of noise and the disingenuous cognitive dissonance of a willful culture jamming signal. I canât believe that anyone would seriously put that accusation forward. That is not constructive or useful cultural commentary to be making about that song or its message, and I cannot comprehend what could justifiably motivate such an attack. Someone who finds Goodbye Blue Sky to be a dog-whistle for anti-Semitic ideology probably sees such messages in clouds above and in rorschach patterns, too.
I couldnât disagree more, and I hope you were joking. Roger Waters seems to have made the statement he hates apartheid, not Israel. Whatâs wrong with hating apartheid and the injustice it perpetuates? Apartheid is evil.
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The whole album is legit amazing.
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As I mentioned earlier, there can be a difference between criticizing the State of Israel and being anti-Semitic.
Since you refer to Wikipedia, Iâm going to assume youâre not familiar, first-hand, with his recent imagery at his concerts.
Putting a Jewish star on a pigâs head isnât simply criticizing Israel; itâs offensive to Jews worldwide. While I do not support the State of Israelâs policies nor its leadership, painting the nation as being led by Nazis is pretty fucking offensive as well.
Iâll leave this thread with a quote Mr. Waters made a few years ago:
The Jewish lobby is extraordinary powerful here and particularly in the
industry that I work in, the music industry and in rock ânâ roll, as
they say,
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I see a lot of other symbols there, I donât think that anyone needs to feel particularly singled out. The pig is a recurring Pink Floyd thing dating back thirty-nine years to the Animals album cover and itâs frequently used in reprise. I think the entire world is now looking at actions taken by Israeli authorities in defiance of the United Nations itself in abject shock, disappointment, and consternation. Defying the UN on humanitarian grounds doesnât put any policy in good company.
There is some significant need for soul-searching and an apparent paucity of moral thinking on display in policies, actions, and outcomes over there, whether weâre talking about the illegal annexations and settlements of Palestinian land in the West Bank, harassment of worshippers at Haram esh-Sharif in Jerusalem, knives dropped by the IDF in front of unarmed muslim women, walls dividing communities and the land, or handcuffed prisoners summarily executed in the steet. You either stand for that stuff or against it, but the good guys donât stand with it. Iâm just fine with Roger Waters calling out evil in the world wherever it may exist, in the policies of nation-states or the strategies of multinational corporations. Evil is as evil does.
I want to attribute it to the youth of that UN-chartered state; the United States did some terrible things when it was only sixty-nine years old as well. In this modern interconnected shrinking world, it is a good thing that fewer misdeeds go unchallenged. Itâs a damned shame, Israel should be a beacon and an example to the world, a force for good and stability in the region. Netanyahu would find he has the support and respect of the entire world, if only he would turn away from this isolating miserable course of harm and defiance.
The worst thing about all this is the frequent misappropriation of the term âSemiteâ when used in anti-Semitic accusations and the cognitive dissonance that results. The Palestinian Arabs themselves are also Semitic. Why donât we bathe in that irony for a while. Nobody gets to declare themselves the âtrue Semitesâ above the rest, nor can Netanyahu anoint himself as some sort of King Herod, lord of all Jews everywhere.
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Then use the Israeli flag. The Star of David is a Jewish symbol; the Israeli flag features the Star of David (ie, is a superset).
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As you point out, the Israeli national flag also prominently features the same symbol. Your position seems completely arbitrary if youâre saying the use of one associated symbol is allowable in art and the other is completely verboten as Entartete Kunst.
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Are there other religious symbols on the pig?
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Reportedly, yes (see above wikipedia citation).
OK, my next question would be from what other (if other) religions, but wikipedia doesnât say.
It doesnât, no. I still havenât found a clear photo of the markings on the pigâs back or belly. There are Christian crosses formed from hammers, but I donât see any other creeds clearly identified.
In any event, it takes very little cultural literacy to understand that The Wall is entirely against fascism. Had it come out in the 1930s, it would have been a statement against the Nazis and their ilk. Attacks on Pink Floyd are made in solidarity with fascism in all its forms everywhere, in support of authoritarianism, in celebration of the degradation of human dignity, and in keeping with German National Socialist philosophy. The brazenness of the doublespeak required to denigrate them by styling them anti-Semitic seems stunning. Itâs an attack on everyone who holds Pink Floydâs artistic statements about mankindâs world as both morally righteous and sacred.
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And the California flag prominently features a bear. If I have a beef with the state and I shoot a bear, is that going to be obvious to anybody?
But the Israeli flag IS NOT the same symbol - it is a different symbol symbolizing a political entity in a particular location.
A Jew in Japan (to make a âcompletelyâ ârandomâ example) has nothing to do with the Israeli flag (unless he is an Israeli expatriate).
But the Star of David does NOT connote Israel, except to idiots and anti-semitic asshats.
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Iâm disturbed by the conflation of âPink Floydâ (a band that has not contained Roger Waters since 1985) and Roger Waters (a musician who has not been a member of Pink Floyd since 1985, except for a handful of concerts).
The floating pink pig featuring a Star of David* has been a recent âfeatureâ of several Roger Waters concerts, and NOT of any Pink Floyd concerts (AFAIK).
* which does not symbolize the modern political state of Israel
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Iâm disturbed by this entire sub-thread, introduced provocatively to this Pink Floyd topic. It is heartbreaking to see such hate and delusion sprewed out on this forum, especially over something completely absent from the bandâs albums and their lyrics. If you donât understand him, re-read the Haaretz interview (above) as many times as is sufficient to Get It. Roger Waterâs opinion and statements seem justifiable and reasonable. Widely-reported atrocities perpetuated against the weak, powerless, and disenfranchised are not. Get on the right side of history and leave the band, its members, its music, and its message alone. Such attacks on any of this are attacks on decency itself.
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