Neuroscientists have just figured out how to reproduce music using listeners’ neuronal patterns. They hook electrode hairnets into subjects’ heads, switch on the stereo, and record the resulting brain activity. Guess which song elicits the best audio playback? Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall.”
This comes as no surprise to me; for half a century my brain has lit up when it hears Pink Floyd.
It all started in:
1973: A month after graduating high school I attended a party in a field outside Tulsa. All the cars pulled into a big circle with their headlights facing inward except for our host. He backed his van into the final slot and flung open the rear doors to reveal a pair of speakers with subwoofers the size of manhole covers.
The lights went out, and we lay on our backs for our first-ever experience of Dark Side of the Moon. The percussive heartbeat of “Speak to Me” kicked in just as the Quaaludes did.
1974: My freshman composition essay deconstructing the song “Time” got an A+++. Only time that ever happened.
1975: I got a job as DJ on a progressive radio station, actually getting paid to put on headphones and zone out to “Shine On You Crazy Diamond.”
1976: At last the annual television broadcast of The Wizard of Oz aligned with my having a TV and a stereo in the same room. Per instructions, I dropped the needle on Dark Side of the Moon after the third roar of the MGM lion. Blew my mind.
1990: The Wall is performed at the site of the recently demolished Berlin Wall. I was the mother of a six-month-old, so had to send my regrets. But I got to see the 2012 revival at Key Arena, which was itself demolished just seven short years later. Coincidence? Perhaps…perhaps not.
1994: Pink Floyd brought The Division Bell tour to Vancouver. A friend stood in the ticket line for five hours (because that’s how we rolled in 1994). Finally his turn came. He strode happily up to the window, cash in hand for our party of six, when the woman behind the counter called “Sold out!” and BAM — dropped the shade.
He stared at the glass, too shocked and disappointed to move. His paralysis paid off when the shade was yanked back up. A second show had been added, and he was the first buyer.
That’s how I got to see David Gilmour’s underarm sweat from front row center when he struck up “Learning to Fly.” I thought I would die—which would have worked out just fine, because that’s the song I want played at my funeral. Preferably with lyrics projected onto a screen so everyone can sing along.
There had been plenty of preshow sweat, too. When the Canadian border guards asked if our trip was for business or pleasure, I — knowing my husband well — hollered “pleasure” from the passenger seat.
But as I had feared, Jeff was too excited for that. He exclaimed, “We’re going to the Pink Floyd concert!” The guard gave us a hard look and directed us to pull into the holding area and enter the customs building. We answered some questions that I was too nervous to remember later, because through the window we could see two officers inspecting our car.
We thought we were going to prison for international joint-smuggling, but apparently they weren’t allowed to open glove compartments on suspicion of rocking out.
1995: For my 40th birthday one of my DJ friends gave me the CD of Pulse. It had a tiny flashing red light on the spine that wouldn’t burn out for four years.
1999: The Pulse light burned out.
2023: The 50th anniversary of Dark Side of the Moon blew my mind a second-millionth time.
2055: For my 100th birthday, I’ll have my own head wired for sound. Then I’ll fly into the middle of a field, open wide my sub-woofing mouth, and the percussive heartbeat of “Speak to Me” will ring out across the land.
Cindy Hoyt has endured a lot of eye-rolling over the years when she waxes rhapsodic about Pink Floyd. Now that science agrees with her, she’s got the last laugh—just like the lunatic from “Brain Damage.”
