Hey you

I have been a Pink Floyd fan for many years. Nothing special; there are many of us. I have also been a fan of language/lyrics for many years; again, nothing special. However, listening through "Hey you" last night, I was struck (as I am every time I hear this song) by a particular lyric that strikes me on some very deep level, and I am not exactly sure why.

Simply, "Hey you, would you help me to carry the stone".

I generally find myself living in the world of complex, deep-meaning (or just deep sounding) lyrics. So, I am struck by the simplicity and wonder this Roger Waters lyric. I think it has to have something to do with the intangibility of our current society. 99% of my chosen career deals with the intangible. Though I get advances of the books that I help edit/publish, everything else that I do is electronic, bits/bytes of information and keystrokes, and I am definitely in the majority. The few years that I taught were very tangible: students, books, chalkboards, etc., but I am quite sure that even that level of realism has certainly shifted over the past few years.

Perhaps this lyric is my Siren call, back to a time where life was not more simple (in fact, quite the opposite), but to a time when the manual and physical arose with the sun. A time when I didn't get my skin color by the light of my computer at midnight, but instead chose a career whose lyric was not "hey you, would you email me the specs for our new WYP4P/POD TOCas that is due tomorrow..."

Of course, it is more likely that I have ignored the obvious allusion to Sisyphus, but who's counting...

shanti,
mjh

"now that I know that I'm breaking to pieces, I'll pull out my heart and I'll feed it to anyone..."--"Disintegration", the Cure.