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Pink Floyd's The Wall is one of the most famous rock operas of all time, and probably my favorite
part of it is the dream-like doctor sequence represented by the song Comfortably Numb.
in it, the main character, Pink, is injected with drugs in order to let him perform, mirroring
Roger Waters's actual experience taking muscle relaxants to deal with stomach cramps before
a show.
it's also fascinating harmonically, and juxtaposes a lot of different musical elements to drive
home the story.
it all begins in the verse: (bang) which is just four chords in a descending line.
this resembles a fairly common technique where we walk down the scale (bang) but in Comfortably
Numb, they do something a little different.
in the third bar: (bang) we'd expect this line to end on the V chord, but instead they
skip straight to the IV.
the bass still walks through the V, though, so it's pretty clear this is an intentional
omission.
they really don't want to play the V chord.
but why not?
well, in order to understand that we're going to have to talk about what's not going on
here: functional harmony.
this is the idea that different chords in a key have different functions, or jobs, to
do, and the V chord has probably the most important job of all, dominant function.
this means it directs you back to the root of the scale, giving you a really strong sense
of resolution, and the verse of Comfortably Numb doesn't want to give you a strong sense
of anything.
the IV minor can still sort of resolve back to the I chord in what's sometimes called
a plagal cadence, so we're not completely lost, but it's a lot weaker.
then we get to the chorus, which sounds something like this (bang) although they actually play
each chord for twice as long, but who has time for that?
anyway, there's a lot of changes here, starting with the key: the verse was in B minor (bang)
and while we could theoretically analyze the chorus in that key too, it makes a whole lot
more sense if we think of it in D major instead.
(bang) that may sound like a huge shift but in practice it's not, because B minor and
D major have the exact same set of notes, they just use them differently.
this C major chord is still a little hard to explain in D major, but we'll get to that
in a minute.
first, though, I want to look at these four chords: you've got the I chord here and here,
and then you've got the V chord here and here.
remember how I said earlier that the V chord has the most important job in functional harmony,
and pairing it with the I chord gives a really strong sense of resolution?
yeah, they're not playing around here.
this section is deeply functional.
and that juxtaposition is really important to the song's story: the verse is minor and
non-functional, representing the far-away doctor forcing Pink to take drugs against
his will, whereas the chorus is both major and functional, representing Pink's internal
monologue.
his own thoughts are clear, but the outside world, including the doctor are far, far away.
but we're not quite done, because once it's established itself in D major, the chorus
shifts to this.
(bang) we could analyze this as the bVII chord going to the IV chord, but that, I think,
misses the point: we're just playing the same thing as the first half, but down a whole
step.
C and G are the I and V chords in C major, and it looks like we've just changed keys.
this helps add a bit more edge to the chorus: Pink's thoughts may be clear, but they are
far from settled.
moving back and forth between two major keys stops the section from ever really landing,
even with all those resolutions.
the transition is hidden a bit by the G major near the end of our last bar of A. G major
is in both keys, so it lets us pivot smoothly between them.
anyway, that bit repeats again, and then we go to the refrain, which I could not for the
life of me find a transcription for that actually sounded like the right arrangement, but these
are the chords: (bang) and since chords are what we're talking about, that's good enough.
anyway, this is weird.
it looks kind of non-functional at a glance, but if we ignore these weird A chords at the
beginning, we've got the same four chords from the chorus, just in a different order.
we start with A major, the V chord in D, which implies we're about to resolve, but instead
we play a quick G major, then resolve to C instead.
then we go back to G major, which is still the V chord in C, but instead of resolving
there, it goes to D major.
as we mentioned before, G major is one of the two chords that our two keys share: it's
the V in C, but it's also the IV in D, so using it here gives us the same plagal cadence,
or IV-I resolution, that we saw in the verse, bridging the gap between the two.
and that's pretty much it, harmonically speaking, but I don't think I can talk about Comfortably
Numb without discussing what is often considered to be one of the greatest guitar solos of
all time.
well, actually, there's two solos in the song: the light solo and the dark solo.
the light solo is right after the first chorus, and it's reasonably short and sweet.
the dark solo, on the other hand, comes after the second chorus, and it's super long and
wonderfully expressive, but it's actually not all that complicated.
for starters, as far as I can tell, the notes he's playing are almost all just drawn from
the B minor blues scale (bang) which is a classic choice for solos in minor keys.
it has a really emotional sound and brings just enough dissonance in all the right places.
the solo as a whole takes advantage of the song's incredibly slow tempo, and can be broken
up into three sections.
at the beginning, he's playing slow and low.
this section is full of long, held notes with expressive bends for emphasis.
for those of you who aren't guitarists, a bend is when you play a note, then pull the
string down, increasing the tension on the string and raising the pitch, and they're
all over this solo.
the empty space left by those long, held notes helps play into the sedated, almost anaesthetic
theme of the song, but after a couple times through the progression, he starts to pick
up the pace, playing busier licks and more notes per bar.
this builds the energy, but he keeps the range fairly low, giving him room to build further
into the third section, where he finally starts adding in the high notes.
this structure gives the solo a distinct beginning, middle, and end, and that keeps things exciting
throughout, which is impressive given that it lasts for like two whole minutes.
oh, and one last thing I promised my audio engineer roommate I'd mention: the reverb.
the guitar tone is drenched in it, and it really adds to the space-y, distant feel of
the solo. and the fade-out at the end is great because the solo just sort of drifts off without
ever really finishing what it was trying to say.
it leaves it to your imagination, and that's a really powerful statement.
anyway, that's Comfortably Numb, but before we go, my friend Elliot recently dragged my
brother and me out to an abandoned water park in the middle of the Mojave desert and filmed
the whole thing, and the video just went up over on his channel, so click the card to
check that out.
it was an absolute blast, even if it got hot enough to steep tea in my water bottle.
I've actually been working on a lot of cool stuff with friends recently, and I'll make
sure to keep y'all posted as those projects come out!
until then, thanks for watching, and thanks to Patreon patron Amlor for suggesting this
song!
if you'd like to see your favorite song analyzed, just head on over to Patreon and pledge at
any level.
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