Comfortably Numb

The Wall is a concept album, and deals largely with themes of personal isolation.The songs create an approximate storyline of events in the life of the protagonist, Pink. Pink's father dies during his childhood (Waters' father was killed during the Second World War). Oppressed by his overprotective mother, and tormented at school by tyrannical, abusive teachers, each of these traumas become "another brick in the wall".The album includes several references to former band member Syd Barrett, In 1975 "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" – a song that happened to be about Barrett. By that time, the 29-year-old Barrett had become quite overweight, had shaved off all of his hair (including his eyebrows), and his ex-band-mates did not at first recognize him. In the film The Wall, where the character Pink shaves his body hair after having a mental breakdown, just as Barrett had. Due to mental illness exacerbated by heavy drug use Syd went into self-imposed seclusion lasting more than thirty years. As with the other songs on The Wall, "Comfortably Numb" tells a segment of the story about Pink, the album's protagonist. This song has to do with Pink's battle to handle the world. According to Rolling Stone, the lyrics came from Roger Waters' experience when he was injected with tranquilizers for stomach cramps by a doctor prior to playing a Pink Floyd show in Philadelphia on the band's 1977 In The Flesh tour. "That was the longest two hours of my life", Waters said. "Trying to do a show when you can hardly lift your arm". The experience gave him the idea which eventually became the lyrics to this song.