Pink Floyd: Comfortably Numb Meaning

Song Released: 1980

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Comfortably Numb Lyrics

Hello.
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...

1.  

   anonymous

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   Mar 24th 2007, 02:25 report

   
   

   A lot of people think that all Pink Floyd songs are about drugs, they're not. But this one is. It's not about heroin though, and it's not about the wall movie. It's about MORPHINE, which shares a lot of side effects with heroin. I don't know why he was on morphine, I've heard it's because of a hand injury and the morphine helped him play on stage.
   
   If you don't believe this song is about morphine, do some or any strong opiate and listen to this song, you shall see. Nothing can describe the feeling any better than these lyrics. Besides, what else can make you feel a little prick besides heroin, and doctors don't give out heroin.
   
   Now if this song makes you feel good for some other reason. If you think back to your childhood and that makes you feel more content with your adult life and this song helps you with that, then that's great. That's what music is for. Relate it to what makes you feel good. If you're not into drugs then this song probably does seem like more of a release from reality thing.

   
   
   
   

2.  

   anonymous

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   Mar 23rd 2007, 22:19 report

   
   

   Read all about it
   
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfortably_Numb

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
   
   
   
   

3.  

   anonymous

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   Mar 19th 2007, 00:49 report

   
   

   dont turn to wikipedia for answers. anyone can get on wikipedia and change what it says

   
   
   
   

4.  

   anonymous

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   Mar 3rd 2007, 23:12 report

   
   

   The song isn't about drugs (heroin). The song is about Roger Waters who had hepatitis. The part about when he was a child was about him as a child and because he had hepatitis he would feel like he did as a child. Before the concert he was injected with a perscribed medication. The lyrics are a conversation bettwen Waters and a doctor.

   
   
   
   

5.  

   anonymous

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   Feb 4th 2007, 02:36 report

   
   

   I was always under the impression that the song was originally written about a man who remembers that as a child he once got sick and was in a delirious type of state. And that as an adult he sometimes still felt that delirous state he once felt as a child leaving him feeling detached from reality. But when they use the song in 'The Wall' I do believe they use the song in refference to Pink litterally not being able to go and do a show therefore having to take heroin to be able to perform. The original meaning of the song wasnt in refference to heroin but can be translated easily to that scenario.

   
   
   
   

6.  

   anonymous

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   Jan 10th 2007, 15:17 report

   
   

   You're the stupid fricken idiot. What's great about great music and lyrics is that people can have their own way of interpreting it, based on what feeling we get inside by listening to it. You can't say anybody's wrong about how they feel about it, can you? and being real Floydians is not about buying everything they ever give out, it's about to really listen and study to their music
   !

   
   
   
   

7.  

   anonymous

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   Dec 17th 2006, 23:55 report

   
   

   Anyone who says Heroin or drugs is a part of this song is a filthy little boner and should be shot. If any of you are REAL floydians then you would buy the double album 'Is There Anybody Out There- The Wall Live 80-81', and read the booklet inside. Then go to Wikipedia.Com and look it up and read that one. You stupid fricken idiots.

   
   
   
   

8.  

   anonymous

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   Nov 16th 2006, 17:03 report

   
   

   This song is perhaps about Mental Illness and Depression ie when he talks about being a child and having a fever and having 'that feeling once again'(psychosis) and others not being able to comprehend. Then he sings about the thing he cannot put his finger on, which is happiness, a fleeting glimpse of happiness the ship on the horizon is also the metaphor for happiness which is now unattainable because of Depression.

   
   
   
   

9.  

   anonymous

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   Nov 16th 2006, 12:12 report

   
   

   Actually, contrary to what the person above me said, the album came out in 1979...The movie came out three years later in 1982.

   
   
   
   

10.  

    anonymous

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    Oct 17th 2006, 19:54 report

    
    

    This song is not about drugs. For those naysayers who haven't seen the movie, watch it - it explains it all. Don't forget the movie was released before the album came out.
    The song is about waters' experience w/hepatitis and him having to get a shot before performing years before.
    Sheesh!

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
    
    
    
    

11.  

    anonymous

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    Oct 17th 2006, 12:10 report

    
    

    Actually, this song is about David Gilmore's experience with morphine during a doctor's visit. Contrary to popular belief, the Pink Floyd guys were not druggies, just boozers mostly.

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12.  

    anonymous

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    Oct 13th 2006, 11:04 report

    
    

    This song about being high

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13.  

    anonymous

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    Oct 11th 2006, 11:50 report

    
    

    I have listened to this track on numerous occasions. I agree with some of you with your own meanings. There is a real story behind this and I have tried to understand the "patient's" words and linking them both together. Where he says he had a fever and his hands felt like two balloons, I thought about what balloons do and they basically go up so what if he were dreaming he was rising to heaven ie. Dying but was saved and this would link up with "fleeting glimpse" in the second part. Ie he feels he is at death's door again and remember's about the last time he had the feeling as a child with the fever ?? He caught a glimpse of death and obviously he didn't want to go there again but he has come full circle and is there again. His hectic life style, and I do believe it is connected with drugs etc, has had it's toll on his body and soul and instead of a fever - he has inflicted this on himself with the same result. I think he doesn't care anymore - he has failed himself. A bit of self pity in this song ? And a warning to others ? Maybe I'm way off the mark but it is everybody's interpretation isn't it ? A truly brilliant song with great music.

    
    
    
    

14.  

    anonymous

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    Sep 21st 2006, 20:59 report

    
    

    If anyone has watched the movie the wall it tells the story of how he was sick when he was a child, (when I was a child I have a fever, my hands felt like two baloons). And when it says "hello hello, is there anybodi in there, just nod if you can here me, is there anyone at all,) that is the doctor that pink's manager has hired to do anything to make him go on stage and earn money

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15.  

    anonymous

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    Sep 20th 2006, 22:13 report

    
    

    The song is about a band member who is attempting to get quit doing heroin and it is reflecting in his preformances so the band gets a "doctor" who is really a drug dealer to "numb" him out before a show...Aka injecting him with heroin and making him play to the ability he used to play at while still habitually using the drug. His hands get balloon like when the drug gets in and he is only screaming before being injected because he is attempting to stop using this drug and noone is backing them, only making it imposible for this to happen

    
    
    
    

16.  

    anonymous

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    Sep 1st 2006, 15:49 report

    
    

    You must first see the movie to understand. Pink is comfrotably numb by doing heroin and when you come off of a heroin trp you feel sick and the only way to get better is to do more heroin, so therefore he is comfortably numb. In the song it says you may feel a little pin prrick which is him shooting up for that show. He shoots up before the show so it can go on.

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17.  

    anonymous

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    Aug 23rd 2006, 11:23 report

    
    

    Hello?
    Is there anybody in there?...
    A person doped, has lost his image...State of let go!
    And now he is approaching himself...Romanticizing his awareness...So reaching out his own pains(memories) there’ve become just a fact for him!
    I hear you're feeling down
    well I can ease your pain
    get you on your feet again...He himself flying out and talking to the image that we all leave with (our name …existence…memories…past…that is what make you feel ‘u’)
    
    'a distant ship, smoke on the horizon.' this is shear romanticism of doped state...Everything that come out of your memory is beautiful...Everything that you see...
    And he comparing these feelings 'fever'
    ...This song a series of thoughts running out one after another...The way we think even consciously…sitting in a classroom…and having sex somewhere out in the mind…
    
    
    'a distant ship, smoke on the horizon.' this is shear romanticism of doped state...Evrythng that come out of your memory is beautiful...Evrything that you see...
    And he comparing these feelings 'fever'...This song a series of thots running one after another...The way we think even consiously

    
    
    
    

18.  

    anonymous

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    May 30th 2006, 22:22 report

    
    

    I'm guessing he means that when he was a child he had dreams of actually becoming someone, but that ended and now he's on drugs. Hes so depressed,that he takes the drugs, they make him comfortably numb?........

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19.  

    Boogieman481

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    May 24th 2006, 15:04 report

    
    

    Don't think too much into this song. Roger Waters said in an interview about the song, "I think it's funny how everyone thinks so much about 'comfortably numb'. It was actually all written about a time when I was a child and got a horrible fever. I got rushed to the doctor and after him shining lights in my eyes and making sure I was coherant, he jabbed me with a shot of something. Then I got better."

    
    
    
    

20.  

    anonymous

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    May 23rd 2006, 06:46 report

    
    

    I've always considered this songa about electric shock treatment.
    
    here in new zealand we had really shocking stuff in the mental hospitals, like they use to give ect to paitence who were miss-behaving and just because they [mental health wardens] didn't like them.
    
    its just my knowledge about ect that makes me feel like there is a connection, especially since the amound of insanity in pink floyd.

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