No. 254 – Speak to Me / Breathe / On the Run

Performer: Pink Floyd

Songwriters: Nick Mason, Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Rick Wright

Original Release: Dark Side of the Moon

Year: 1973

Definitive Version: P.U.L.S.E., 1995.

Renting the back bedroom from Mike and his family in Evanston in the summer and fall of 1987 introduced me to a couple of important things. The first one was Gulliver’s pizza. Actually this didn’t become important for another 20 years.

I was a Gino’s East man, and I had only so much money to spend on pizza. When I was going to indulge, it was going to be Gino’s … or Edwardo’s stuffed spinach pizza, which I found that spring while covering New Trier’s baseball team. It was no Gino’s, of course, but Edwardo’s was easier to find in the suburbs.

Gulliver’s was OK, but what stood out was the funkiness of the joint itself. I don’t remember whether it was the same in 1987, but I would suspect it was. Gulliver’s décor now is … well, I don’t know how you’d describe it beyond antique junk dealer. There are mirrors and chandeliers and fixtures—all of which have price tags on them—adorning every spot of wall and ceiling. The lights aren’t all turned on, thank goodness, otherwise you’d go blind.

Upon rediscovering Gulliver’s two decades later after moving to Chicago (and losing my favorite pizza funkatorium—Ranalli’s), I found it to be way better than I remembered it to be. Now it’s part of the regular rotation, along with Gino’s, Lou Malnati’s and Pizzeria Due.

I typically get Gulliver’s to go when I visit on Pizza Night in America. I get spicy sausage, mushroom and onion, and as I write this, I have a hankering that will go unrequited. Laurie also has a hankering—we haven’t been in months—and I promised I’d wait till she could go, too. We’re targeting the next PNIA, so, hopefully this weekend ...

The other introduction courtesy of Mike in the summer of 1987 was far more important—yes, even more important than pizza. It was Pink Floyd.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I knew Pink Floyd quite well before then. What suburban kid growing up in the Seventies in America didn’t? I also hated Pink Floyd.

Well, maybe that’s too strong a word. I hated Another Brick in the Wall, sure (still do), and didn’t care for Money (also still true), which, of course, are their two biggest songs. I knew a little more from The Wall and Dark Side of the Moon, but nothing impressed me enough to buy in. I didn’t have a single Pink Floyd record amid my stacks of Genesis, Yes and Rush. Crazy, right?

It might have happened while at Gulliver’s, but one night, Mike said that Pink Floyd was coming to town in September 1987 and his live-in galpal, Angela, didn’t want to go. Did I want to?

I was no fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I also was no dummy. Pink Floyd was a legendary band. It seemed if I were a rock fan—and, of course, I was—I had to see Pink Floyd at least once. If nothing else their light show had to be spectacular.

I’ll have more to say about the concert later, but the takeaway in today’s episode of this here blog is I became a fan of Pink Floyd that night. I didn’t run out and buy the entire back catalog—I had no money then—but I began to actively seek Pink Floyd music. A month later, I had Wish You Were Here, The Wall and Dark Side of the Moon on tape.

It was like a whole new world opened up to me, and the deeper I dug, the more I was rewarded. Over the course of the next year, I listened to Dark Side, Wish, The Wall, Animals and Momentary Lapse of Reason practically nonstop.

It made me think back to a time when things could have been different. I don’t know how, exactly, but I’m sure they would have been to some degree.

My Aunt Martha was married to my Uncle Bob back in the Seventies. One summer—must have been 1975—they both wore black T-shirts that said Pink Floyd and had the insignia of what appeared to be a spaceship but I later learned was the robotic handshake emblematic of the Wish You Were Here album.

I was very into Venus and Mars by Paul McCartney & Wings, and the image of the spaceship—I didn’t know it wasn’t until later—intrigued my 11-year-old mind. What does that album sound like? I was curious when the album came out, but ultimately, I didn’t pull the trigger on such a purchase.

After my discovery and emersion in 1987-88, I always wondered what would have happened had I bought Wish You Were Here in 1975 and listened to that for the next year instead of, say, the Theme from SWAT or Bachman-Turner Overdrive. We’ll never know, of course. For all I know, I could’ve ended up like the dude on the bed in the On the Run video, soaring into the sky only to crash ignominiously into the wall of the Rosemont Horizon.