Pink Floyd: Comfortably Numb Meaning
Song Released: 1980
Comfortably Numb Lyrics
Is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me.
Is there anyone home?
Come on, now.
I hear you’re feeling down.
Well I can ease your pain,
Get you on your feet again.
Relax.
I need some information first.
Just the...
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WOW all these yrs and I just discover this lol I suppose this song has meant many diff. things to me since I was a teen ,have even seen them live.
I would love to know what the guy was thinking actually. I have been through all manner of mind numbing things in my life ,drugs,p.t.s.d. amnesia,stroke,100's of near death experiences.
I post now because this looks a lot like some of my rambling recently after ,before,or as I awake from sleep walking.
The out of body feelings and numbness a person gets from fever,or all manner of medical problems or exhaustion and medication can bring this on.
These are some of my feelings during postictal after long seizures or right before a long aura and seizures.
YOU STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM ME YA HEAR" Thanks I awoke suddenly 2.a.m.? pain? confusion? broken? Medication SUCKS I'd rather be an addict again.breathing color,feeling in reds and yellows,taste in silver like metal hearing ,blue gray,fading, I would like to SCREAM but then others will know,burning? cold?afraid to lay down ,haunting dreams,can only smile with eyes closed,pushing,pulling, from the inside,I am pissing "IT" off,clear but numb,a fishbowl,sleep while standing? HURT? NO, LIFE
I WILL KEEP MYSELF I WILL FIND A WAY" Awake again,2a.m. COLD,rush of warm,BLOOD ?,damn,quiet,choices? confusion? feeling? grey,ringing in very low tones,911 in a blizzard? wait and find the cuts ,big mess ,broken tables,broken? will the others know I am "broken" pain LOL ,LIVING in short bursts,how many joints can you dislocate at once? IT pushes me down WHY,WHEN,MAYBE FORGET THIS TIME? clicking sounds dark,blue,green,feelings flatlined?VERY small mind,closed,peeking out? IT WON'T LEAVE
To explain seems senseless, but was able to "feel" the sounds the senses so ENHANCED that the waves became focused confusion. The edge is an odd place ? a date,time SURE, will say goodbye and check in no sweat and lol at "IT" But the unknown is my demon now ? losing time in lg. blocks is something we joke with UNTIL it happens.Is like having a stroke but then recovering 100's of times."IT" pushing me is why I may be acting diff. "IT" is close lol no sweat ,BUT when ?
It all seems pretty familiar if I read my rambling and listen to Pink Floyd WOW good thing I am sober drug free Huh! Rock n Roll fan forever Rick Wichita Ks -
You can't rely say it is or isnt either of the two schools of interpretation, his numbness to life or drugs. i think this song was inspired by the two concepts, drug taking (i guess heroin) and the whole numbness to life, plus his diabetes as a child, all of which hit the writer at once and thus formed the lyrics to this song, a celebration of how many things in life are very similar in a very beautiful way. like all great art, it can be percieved in different ways
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The lines about "when I was I child I had a fever - my hands swelled up like two balloons"
refers to a phenomenon called alice in wonderland syndrome where you have a strange sense of becoming extremely large and then extremely small very rapidly. It can be isolated in one part of the body ( hands) or it can be everything. It is a sensory hallucination brought on by high temperature. I had it as a 4 year old child when I had german measles and I definitely wasn't on drugs. I still remember the sensation very clearly though. -
to me, the song is about mourning the loss of a child's fascination with the world, how snowflakes are less than holy after you grow up, how the splendor of the world has faded away into a routine, how fleeting that feeling is and a recognition that we are not banal creatures despite our routine ability to become so..
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I thought it was common knowledge that this song was about Walter Freeman.
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Here is a quote that is pretty much synonymous with all the other articles I read of the meaning according to waters himself: "Waters himself has stated in interviews that ``Comfortably Numb'' is a recount of two life-altering (not mind-altering) experiences he endured. Waters often thinks back to an illness he had as a child where he ran an excessively high fever and was delirious. There is also an experience that he had in 1977 where he fell ill prior to a concert in Philadelphia. He was suffering from abdominal cramps, which may or may not have been brought on from undiagnosed hepatitis, and a doctor injected Waters with tranquilizers to ready him for the show. The experience left Waters ``comfortably numb.'' It's easy to see how the pre-show injection administered to Pink's character on the album and in the movie could have been inspired by Waters' real-life experience when he became sick prior to a concert."
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Love the whole album, and love Pink Floyd.... I am shocked that so many said something about having a fever. That's weird. I felt that as a child. That's probably when I learned to leave my body when I didn't want to be somewhere. I never discussed this with anyone at all, but I remember having a fever was an out-of-body experience. I was floating, not really there, just looking down, not feeling anything, things were distorted, and it was a little similar to being choked until you passed out, and then coming to.
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This song describes a psychiatric disorder called depersonalization disorder or DD.
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I actually heard him on the radio one day talking about the song.He said one day he had a bad stomach bug and was feeling sick before a show. A doctor gave him a shot. He said he didn't know what it was but it made him feel weird.
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Now I have not seen the movie and I have read about it quite a lot in here. The guy above me sounds pretty right on if that's true. That would explain it.
Dont condem me when I say my opinion cause it's out there.
I thought this song had to do with the government. I listened to the album The Wall and I think it definitely could be about a man building his own wall against the world, or is it the government building a wall around us?
In that time there was a lot of people protesting about how the vietnam war wasnt being told to them and trusting the government was seldom. That within the government there were and are people in the army being tested on. I mean that's what I think is kinda whats goin on.
That maybe even followed from childhood saw a glimpse of something and never saw it again till he was older in a chair being told he's been hurt wheres the pain? But I'll need some information first before I help you.
Then the courus I think that he is slipping from himself being drugged morphine w.e, and he can't hear what they are saying....like.. "like a distant ship's smoke on the horizon and your only coming through in waves" so small and many echoes I think. It's describing the fall of his conciousness and what he's beginning to hear. |
he remembers his childhood feeling sick and knowing that he's been sick before and this is not like a sickness back then its much different.
the pin prick therell be no more ahhhh
I think it's almost a resisting thing that he is understanding whats happening and hurts him and resisting and here's the pin prick. The doctor looks at him while he relaxs "I do believe its workng, can you stand up? for the show....." I think the show is America that you need to show that you are ok and that everything is fine, but it's not he's just drugged like a zombie I think. Fooling everyone. Like the media did...
then when he was a child last verse. Maybe the government has been watching him since he was young. Father was in the Army maybe and maybe it was really something more that happened...The son being watched and the kid noticed it out of he corner of his eye turned to look but it was gone couldnt put his finger on it now the child is grown (he is coming back) and the childhood dream is gone because he is now property of the government.
there lol that is mine. But I think a lot differently then a lot and I don't care if its wrong. -
Unless I didn't read all of these interpretations on the song. All of you are wrong. This isn't from my point of view. It is the facts. This song was written about Roger Waters experience after being shot with tranquilizers for stomach cramps by a doctor, before a show in Philidelphia on a tour in 1977. The song was put out 2 years later in 1979. --Chad B.--
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Hello.
Is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me.
Is there anyone home?
---Pink, was in a condition of a deep depression, near coma
he's only thinking, unable really to speak
Come on, now.
I hear you’re feeling down.
Well I can ease your pain,
Get you on your feet again.
--Someone see Pink's bad condition and unhappiness, offering some help
Relax.
I need some information first.
Just the basic facts:
Can you show me where it hurts?
--Pink now experiencing something completely new. For the first part of his life, Pink has only fall further in insanity where others don't count, now he understand he is in a new emotional track, where he feel the importance of empathy and care for the others. (can you show me where it hurts?) He experience an awakening.
There is no pain, you are receding.
--everything seems right maybe for the first time of his adult life
A distant ship’s smoke on the horizon.
--Yes, now he understand things going to be different a new way of living his life has arrived
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I can’t hear what you’re sayin’.
-The state of mind of his new condition comes in waves, but his body is out of motion
When I was a child I had a fever.
My hands felt just like two balloons.
Now I got that feeling once again.
--everything seems right maybe for the first time of his adult life, referring to happy childhood early in his life where the blue sky existed for him.
I can’t explain, you would not understand.
This is not how I am.
I have become comfortably numb.
--Strange experience he is experiencing: a mix of euphoria, happiness not understandable to other
Ok.
Just a little pinprick. [ping]
There’ll be no more --aaaaaahhhhh!
But you may feel a little sick.
Can you stand up?
I do believe it’s working. good.
That’ll keep you going for the show.
Come on it’s time to go.
--this awakening comes very late in his life, he must stand up and be functional again (for the show)i.e. every day life
There is no pain, you are receding.
A distant ship’s smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I can’t hear what you’re sayin’.
When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse,
Out of the corner of my eye.
I turned to look but it was gone.
I cannot put my finger on it now.
The child is grown, the dream is gone.
--He learn things that makes him more an adult and now more a functional person and less a dreamer
I have become comfortably numb.
comfortably numb song is the first inning of a new life where dirty feelings and dirty thoughts disappear and let place to more human friendly feelings. -
I'm going to go verse by verse for the song. Much of what I write will be similar to the top rated interpretation which I like a lot. My reason for doing this really is to put my spin on the "distant ship smoke on the horizon" section. But I want to do the whole song to get there.
"Hello.
Is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me.
Is there anyone home?"
Syd Barrett had a mental breakdown at one point in his life. This part of the song clearly indicates an interaction with doctors and continues throughout the song, an image reinforced by the Pink Floyd's movie "The Wall". This is clearly the tone a doctor takes with a patient when the patient has his eyes open but as the saying goes "the light's are on but nobody's home".
"Come on, now.
I hear you’re feeling down.
Well I can ease your pain,
Get you on your feet again."
This is what doctors and therapists promise all of us isn't it? Not a real cure, but to get rid of enough of the pain to get us "back to work". If I sound like I'm mocking here I'm really not. Without work life falls apart quickly. But the verse here feels like so many Paxil commercials so it's hard for me not to feel cynical at the tone layered in the words.
"Relax.
I need some information first.
Just the basic facts:
Can you show me where it hurts?"
Doctor's office dialogue, pretty plainly. And now the "patient" speaks.
"There is no pain, you are receding.
A distant ship’s smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I can’t hear what you’re sayin’."
Complete disassociation. The mind, overwhelmed by the pain of life, can't turn off the senses, but instead turns off the part of itself that creates meaning from them. Alone in a crowd to infinity. Nothing is real.
"When I was a child I had a fever.
My hands felt just like two balloons.
Now I got that feeling once again."
The mind is now firmly split in two. There's a body somewhere, I can point to it because I believe I still have hands, but there's virtually no feeling. To have almost no feeling in your hands, which are your primary contact with, and how you touch the world and affects even how you see and hear the world, is a devastating symbol of numbness.
"I can’t explain, you would not understand.
This is not how I am.
I have become comfortably numb."
As written. He and "the doctor" are not able to communicate. He is indeed comfortably numb and out of contact with a world that is to painful to bear.
"Ok.
Just a little pinprick. [ping]
There’ll be no more --aaaaaahhhhh!
But you may feel a little sick.
Can you stand up?
I do believe it’s working. good.
That’ll keep you going for the show.
Come on it’s time to go."
More doctor-therapist speak as if to say 'Who needs emotions? What you need is to work. The show must go on and your personal agonies are a distant second to our success rate as a clinic. Here's a new kind of comfortable numbness. It will let you participate as a fellow member of the sleepwalking wounded, snug in your blanket of chemically induced numbness.'
"There is no pain, you are receding.
A distant ship’s smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I can’t hear what you’re sayin’."
The chorus, repeated.
"When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse,
Out of the corner of my eye.
I turned to look but it was gone.
I cannot put my finger on it now.
The child is grown, the dream is gone.
I have become comfortably numb."
And now here are the lines I wanted to comment on because they rip into me in a very special way. Please note, this is more intended for those of us that have been brutally disappointed by our lot in life and how this world treats us and how we treat each other. Those of you insulated in a current dream of happy youth or passionate love will not see a connection with what I'm about to say. You are lucky and may your good fortune last. But for the rest of us here's my interpretation.
We like to pretend as people that the past is in some dark distant corner of our mind, far away, where it can not hurt us. But you are the same person that played with toys as a baby, had your heart broken at school in a variety of ways, and patched yourself up to get a job, perhaps fall in love and have a family, and are reading this now. The same person. Every day when you first wake up that part of you that as a child saw the magical possibilities of the world, flew in your dreams, fantasized about becoming a poet, a millionaire, a rock star, opens it's eyes for a millisecond and wonders if it's OK to come out and play. But before the pain of disappointment can start the mind slams shut, the memories restart, and we raise our shields against the pain of day to day living. Those of us who don't, well they get to dance with Syd Barrett's doctors and therapists. Those who can't do even that are not here anymore. They've checked out. "The child is grown, the dream is gone." It's like that dream you have that haunts you when you wake up. You feel as it slips away a desperate meaning that somehow explains an important truth, or is a glimpse of a better place and if you could just remember the key it would take you away from all this, but the instant you look too hard it dissolves into infinity. Lost forever.
That was the part I wanted to comment on. All of us have a part of our mind that reminds us to be who we were yesterday when we wake up. Despite the fact there are a million different people we could be, somehow we repeat the days of our past almost identically until it's time to leave. Somewhere underneath what we think of as "us" is the real us, the person that was there even before we learned to think with words and were a being of pure emotion. But for the vast majority of us, there's only the continual murky dream of "me".
Thanks for reading. I hope you find what you are looking for in life. Never stop looking. Ever. Even if you can't see past the darkness. -
About the wiki thing, it is actually more reliable then people think. There are people (that work for wiki) that go around 24-7 fixing "mistakes" that others input. Also, wiki lists sites and different references, so if you don't like wiki then you can go to a site that it recommends. Although, there is still a possibility that when you read from wiki the people that fix it just haven't gotten there yet, so you could be reading false information.
Now, Comfortably Numb.
I agree with previous posts that interpretation is subjective. And since it is subjective the song becomes more beautiful, like art. Maybe Roger Waters was talking about his diabetes or hepatitis or being detached from the world. But that's just what it means to him! He could have also intended the song to be interpreted in many different ways, in any way. People would enjoy the song much less(or any song at that) if they knew the song only had one intended interpretation, because the people who wrote this song are just as boring or interesting as anyone else, they are human. But if we detach the song from the song writers and interpret it ourselves, we are free to romanticize and daydream and relate to the song. It would be difficult to relate to a song that only had one meaning. I for on can not relate to hepatitis or diabetes. But there are certain aspects or interpretations that I can relate to, like feeling detached from the world at times, and needing something(weather it be human interaction or a "pick-me-up" =) to get goin thru the show.
The interpretation that I like is that of a friend talking to another friend(I like to think a man and a woman).
Hello.
Is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me.
Is there anyone home?
-I like to think that either this is a man talking to his woman friend from outside her door(more direct non-symbolic interpretation), or he his with her and she is day-dreaming and he is trying to get her attention.
Come on, now.
I hear you're feeling down.
Well I can ease your pain,
Get you on your feet again.
-Perhaps the man heard from another friend that the woman is feeling down, or depressive, and he wants to go and make her feel better, "get [her] on [her] feet again." (this is roger waters speaking to her)
Relax.
I need some information first.
Just the basic facts:
Can you show me where it hurts?
-Now this one is a little bit more difficult to translate,its ambiguous because showing someone where something hurts when you are depressed doesn't really work(do you point at your brain, your heart, or just say it hearts everywhere?). (Just to clarify why I think it is depression this person is suffering from, if you notice the lyrics when they say "I hear you're feeling down." Most people, I assume would not say, "feeling down" when they are physically hurt, but only when they are feeling sad.)So it doesn't really make sense when he asks where it hurts unless he didn't know that it was depression she was suffering from, but this seems unlikely. He is probably asking sarcastically, implying that there is no need to feel depressed because it's a mental state that can be fixed mentally. So he is saying ,stop feeling down and just be happy. He asks her where it hurts to emphasize that she doesn't really know where it hurts, and that it's silly to feel down when there is no reason to feel that way. (I realize that physical release of substance in the brain may cause depression or happiness, i.e. endorphins make you happy =D, but nonetheless he is saying don't feel sad and decided to emphasize in this way,(I have done so as well))
There is no pain, you are receding.
A distant ships smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're sayin.
When I was a child I had a fever.
My hands felt just like two balloons.
Now I got that feeling once again.
I can't explain, you would not understand.
This is not how I am.
I have become comfortably numb.
-Now the first two lines is Roger Waters speaking. Hes saying that you can't hide your pain from me, you can't recede, implying that she is telling him to go away or that she wants to be left alone. Then he says "a distant ship's smoke on the horizon." This is a metaphor for feeling happy. He again is telling her that she should just be happy.
-The rest of this set of lyrics is spoken by the woman. Maybe she has become so overwhelmed with depression that she is hyperventilating, or becoming nauseous(yes it is possible) and because of this she is becoming light headed and feeling sick. That would explain why she is not hearing what he is saying and why he is only coming through in waves. Then she says that when she was a child she had a fever and she feels the same symptoms now. She then goes on to say that she is not like this.(She is not usually depressed and feeling this way, assuring Roger Waters that this feeling will not be permanent.) She became comfortably numb because after a long episode of feeling depressed you fall into a state of numbness, and it feels good because although you are not happy, you are also no longer depressed(only for a bit, I have experienced it myself, just as many other people probably have) Hence the comfortable part in the numbness.
Ok.
Just a little pinprick. [ping]
Therell be no more --aaaaaahhhhh!
But you may feel a little sick.
-"Ok" meaning that he is tired of seeing her sad and feels he has no other choice(he made up his mind about something "ok") Then he pulls out a hypodermic needle and tells her it will only be a pinprick and the pain will go away. Now the sick part is also ambiguous because you can feel sick in many ways. Maybe its heroin he is giving her and he is warning her that if you stop taking the drug and you are addicted you will feel sick, such is the common side effect of heroic addicts. But, it could be a variety of many drugs that can make you feel better and then sick later, if you consider feeling deprived of the drug after being addicted is feeling sick. (Alcohol, variety of medication including anti-depressants! hmmm, suggestive, although I don't know of any anti-depressants that require a pin-prick, so ill stick with an addictive drug such as heroin or morphine.)
Can you stand up?
I do believe its working. good.
Thatll keep you going for the show.
Come on its time to go.
-This is obvious I think. He is asking if the drug worked or not and decided that it must have. Now "going trough the show" doesn't necessarily mean that she is going to perform somewhere or at a show at all. It's simply a phrase meaning that you can go on through the day or that he wants to take her somewhere(Carnival? Museum? Movies? Bowling? Anything!)
There is no pain, you are receding.
A distant ships smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're sayin.
When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse,
Out of the corner of my eye.
I turned to look but it was gone.
I cannot put my finger on it now.
The child is grown, the dream is gone.
I have become comfortably numb.
-Now this is my favorite part to interpret. The first half of this set of lyrics is the same as earlier in the song, but this time she is under the influence of drugs that caused these symptoms. Then she goes on to talk about a dream or a goal that she had when she was a child. She caught a glimpse of her goal but then it was gone( possibly the reason why she is depressed?? she isn't satisfied with herself and wishes she would have met her dreams and goals) Then she kids herself and says that her dreams where naive because she was only a child and now she is grown and she thinks more realistically.
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