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Something I thought of earlier today: Dust In The Wind vs. Wish You Were Here


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13 members have voted

  1. 1. song

    • Kansas - Dust In The Wind
    • Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
  2. 2. and album

    • Kansas - Point Of Know Return
    • Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here


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These are kinda similar songs to their respective artists. Both bands had worked a long time to reach a critical / commercial zenith on the preceding album, and both had done it by playing by their own rules and developing their craft of unusual, proggy tunes until they'd discovered an iconic sound.  The albums that contain each of these songs were no slouches either, commercially or critically, and are both held as masterpieces comparable or superior to the ones that preceded them.  Yet each album contains a short, simple, and somber radio-dominating acoustic ballad which seems to be, if not out of place, then a brief respite from the proggy gloriousness surrounding it.  So... which song do you prefer?

Edited by Entre_Perpetuo
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2 minutes ago, ST3V said:

Wish You Were Here has very special personal sentiment for me. For a time long gone. It's the clear choice for me here. 

What's this? ST3V not voting for Kansas??  :ohmy:

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I really wish I got into Pink Floyd. Huge discography, music fans adore them, I can hear the talent, I respect them.

 

I just put any album on and think it's crap.

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Two very different songs from my perspective, so it's hard to compare them.  Dust In The Wind is a much more positive, uplifting song, whereas Wish you Were Here has Floyd's cynical bite.  Both are great in their own right, of course.

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2 hours ago, goose said:

Two very different songs from my perspective, so it's hard to compare them.  Dust In The Wind is a much more positive, uplifting song, whereas Wish you Were Here has Floyd's cynical bite.  Both are great in their own right, of course.

Hmmm.  “Positive and uplifting” is an interesting take on Dust In The Wind.  Is that a bit of a glass half-full/glass half-empty thing?

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On 4/20/2022 at 10:48 AM, GeddysMullet said:

Hmmm.  “Positive and uplifting” is an interesting take on Dust In The Wind.  Is that a bit of a glass half-full/glass half-empty thing?

 

Dust in the Wind has a special place in my heart, a rare pop song that's left a lasting impression.  WYWH has been a bit played to death in my own personal music rotation, and as brilliant as it is, never really connected at the same level.  Both songs tackle a similar fatalist subject from a similar perspective, the devil is in the details as they say.  I think Floyd is better when they're snarky/arrogant in their musical approach.  They don't do 'touchy feely' very well, and WYWH is definitely then *trying" to accomplish that (by their own means).

 

Great song comparison topic.

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I might be the first one not to vote straight ticket. In any case I'm unevening the two polls.

 

WYWH never ceases to hold my attention, which is saying something for such a simple song. It really comes down to the mix and the vocals I think, the way everything is so undressed up, especially at the beginning. That acoustic solo is played so... haphazardly? Lazily? Those aren't the right words, but it really does sound like Gilmore just picked up a guitar after seeing his whole future flash before his eyes and saw his death, and those were the first notes that came out of him.  Then he starts singing and I'm not usually one to offer heaps of praise on PF's vocals--a rare band that I absolutely love where the vocals aren't necessarily incredible most of the time... great melodies though, give a great melody to any singer and they'll sound 10 times better--but anyway the dry, aching vocal here is absolutely the highlight of the song. They're out of tune and time in all the right places, with just enough harmony added to make the best lines pop. "We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl..." It ends well too with those brassy but somehow still understated synths, and one of them barely holding on to the notes trying to hum along with the guitar. It's very similar to Dust In The Wind on the surface, with similar fatalistic lyrics and bare bones acoustic accompaniment of a plaintive vocal, but Dust In The Wind is a real singery ballad. It's so touching it verges on corny, with a pretty acrobatic vocal in some places, and that big sweeping violin solo in the middle.  Don't get me wrong, I love the song, but if Steve Walsh didn't have so much emotion in his voice, or if that violin melody was a little less moving, it would all fall apart. I'm not sure I can say the same for WYWH. I feel like anyone can pick up that song, and without trying very hard make it sound very real and good.  Anyway none of that is a particularly great reason to vote for one over the other, but WYWH is my pick for the songs.

 

As far as the albums go.... WYWH the album is kinda... overrated... "where's the beef?" Seriously in between an album as experimental and colorful as DSOTM and one with as palpable an atmosphere that you just want to live in as Animals... WYWH somehow manages to not have enough going on and to not connect what it does have going on super well. I don't dislike any of the songs, per say, but there are definitely days when I'm not really patient enough for the very long build up of the first SOYCD, and I find after it gets going that it doesn't really go much of anywhere besides a great hook and a pretty killer sax solo... you kind of expect more out of a 13 minute song sometimes.  I won't go into every single song, but the two that tend to miss the mark the most often for me are WTTM and HAC, which (as you can imagine) really takes a chunk out of the album when I'm not in the mood for them. On the other hand, POKR is a fabulously rated album, never far from the top of Kansas rankings (if not right on top where I myself would put it). I'm a bit biased as it was my first Kansas album, but it seems to me to be their equivalent of Permanent Waves. Best production so far, more emphasis on the shorter songs while still retaining proggy qualities about them and a couple longer tunes to really stretch out on. The key/violin/guitar/whatever that thing is solo on Closet Chronicles still amazes me. The title track is almost too short for how perfect it is (don't get me started on that bridge!), and Portrait (He Knew) should have been a massive hit. That build up at the start of the song is simple... but soooooo effective. So POKR wins for me album v album.

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On 4/20/2022 at 10:48 AM, GeddysMullet said:

Hmmm.  “Positive and uplifting” is an interesting take on Dust In The Wind.  Is that a bit of a glass half-full/glass half-empty thing?

I've always taken the song's message around our insignificance as permission to let go of things rather than a lamentation.  It seems there's a clear religious/Christian undertone that offers hope.  Floyd's Wish You Were Here doesn't have that element.  So, yeah, optimism vs pessimism.

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10 hours ago, Entre_Perpetuo said:

 

As far as the albums go.... WYWH the album is kinda... overrated... "where's the beef?" Seriously in between an album as experimental and colorful as DSOTM and one with as palpable an atmosphere that you just want to live in as Animals... WYWH somehow manages to not have enough going on and to not connect what it does have going on super well. I don't dislike any of the songs, per say, but there are definitely days when I'm not really patient enough for the very long build up of the first SOYCD, and I find after it gets going that it doesn't really go much of anywhere besides a great hook and a pretty killer sax solo... you kind of expect more out of a 13 minute song sometimes.  I won't go into every single song, but the two that tend to miss the mark the most often for me are WTTM and HAC, which (as you can imagine) really takes a chunk out of the album when I'm not in the mood for them. 

I feel the same way.  I love the Shine On suite, especially the second half, but prefer to listen to it straight through.  And Wish You Were Here is an iconic single.  Welcome to the Machine and Have A Cigar are pretty dull, with the latter saved by some of its lyrics, including "The band is just fantastic, that's is really what I think, Oh by the way, which one's Pink?" and "We're so happy we can hardly count".

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2 hours ago, goose said:

I've always taken the song's message around our insignificance as permission to let go of things rather than a lamentation.  It seems there's a clear religious/Christian undertone that offers hope.  Floyd's Wish You Were Here doesn't have that element.  So, yeah, optimism vs pessimism.

I really like that interpretation of Dust In The Wind. I suppose it says something about me that I've never liked the song because I heard it as an existential lament and never picked up on an element of hope. I may hear it differently now. That might not change my regard for the song but I like the idea of trying a new way of listening to it when it comes on the radio instead of instantly turning it off.

 

Wish You Were Here I never heard as an existential lament but always very face-value as a song of missing someone precious who is lost. It's a song that reminds me very strongly of a particular difficult time in my life, but in a comforting way. Wish You Were Here the album is the only Pink Floyd album I ever really connected with. I still love it. I don't particularly care for Welcome To The Machine and Have A Cigar as songs by themselves but Wish You Were Here might possibly be #1 on my all-time list of albums that demand start-to-finish listening to be honoured and savoured properly.

 

Tangentially relevant: Pink Floyd did the song Time, which is the only song I disliked even more when I was a kid than Dust In The Wind for the feeling of existential dread it gave me. Dust In The Wind is positively sunny and cheery compared to that one! 

Edited by GeddysMullet
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5 hours ago, GeddysMullet said:

I really like that interpretation of Dust In The Wind. I suppose it says something about me that I've never liked the song because I heard it as an existential lament and never picked up on an element of hope. I may hear it differently now. That might not change my regard for the song but I like the idea of trying a new way of listening to it when it comes on the radio instead of instantly turning it off.

 

Wish You Were Here I never heard as an existential lament but always very face-value as a song of missing someone precious who is lost. It's a song that reminds me very strongly of a particular difficult time in my life, but in a comforting way. Wish You Were Here the album is the only Pink Floyd album I ever really connected with. I still love it. I don't particularly care for Welcome To The Machine and Have A Cigar as songs by themselves but Wish You Were Here might possibly be #1 on my all-time list of albums that demand start-to-finish listening to be honoured and savoured properly.

 

Tangentially relevant: Pink Floyd did the song Time, which is the only song I disliked even more when I was a kid than Dust In The Wind for the feeling of existential dread it gave me. Dust In The Wind is positively sunny and cheery compared to that one! 

Alan Parsons, who engineered DSOTM, also did his own song called Time years later, and I do hear a bit of Floyd in it. What do you think of that one?

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