35 Best Pink Floyd Songs

By Michael Perone / October 26, 2013

15. "The Gold It's in the..." 16. "Wot's...uh, the Deal" 17. "Stay" from Obscured by Clouds This is another film soundtrack and remains one of my favorites; it was hard choosing just a few songs. I consider "Wot's...uh, the Deal" to be one of my anthems. In fact, it was my "handle" when I started using e-mail for the very first time freshman year at college. "The Gold It's in the..." is another partial song title that I've actually heard on the radio a few times, though I can almost guarantee you've never heard it before, unless you're a diehard Floyd fan such as myself. Apparently, the movie was about quitting everything you're doing and joining the gold rush, so that's what the song tried to illustrate in its fun, jumpy manner. "Stay" is not the classic American song that's been featured in movie trailers, restaurant commercials, and the Dirty Dancing soundtrack. Instead, it's a heartbreaking, beautiful song (as most Floyd songs are) about a one-night stand: "Stay/and help me to end the day/And if you don't mind/we'll break a bottle of wine/Stick around/and maybe we'll put one down/'Cause I want to find/what lies behind those eyes." It's in searching for what "lies behind those eyes" that Floyd transcended their own limited boundaries of pop music.

18. "Time" 19. "Money" 20. "Us and Them" from Dark Side of the Moon Honestly, if you haven't heard these songs by now, you've been living in a cave. Yes, they're overplayed on classic rock radio stations everywhere, but they still deserve a place in this collection. After all, they're probably the three biggest singles of Floyd's entire four-decade history, not including The Wall. This album is likely the most famous concept album ever made and has stayed in the top five best-selling albums of all time for decades. The band wanted to attack life, its highs and lows (okay, mostly its lows), with all the important issues: time, money, and war ("Us and Them") being the most obvious, but also death ("The Great Gig in the Sky"), insanity ("Brain Damage"), and even perfectionist workaholics ("Breathe"), with lines like, "Run, rabbit, run/Dig that hole/in the sun/When at last the work is done/Don't sit down/It's time to dig another one." Nick Mason's playful yet intricate drum work in the intro of "Time" is a wonder to behold, and keyboardist Richard Wright adds a delightful flourish to the battle-scarred epic "Us and Them." Waters wrote the words and music to "Money," and its classic bass line has been aped by countless bands since. This is the concept album by which all others are measured.

21. "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" 22. "Welcome to the Machine" 23. "Have a Cigar" 24. "Wish You Were Here" from Wish You Were Here This was a concept album about the poor state of the music industry. Since that time, not much has changed. As most know by now, the nine-part "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" ultimately became an ode to the band's founding member, the final part of which was inspired when Barrett dropped by a recording session and was virtually unrecognizableso much so that Waters originally didn't know who he was. Barrett's hard-living (and hard-partying) ways had left him a shell of his former self, hence the title of the song. "Welcome to the Machine" is about creative bands being forced into the soulless production of rock singles instead of taking their time to craft an audible work of art. The album's titleand title songagain refer to Barrett, who was a music genius and not necessarily in this business for the money. After their huge commercial and critical success with Dark Side of the Moon, the band's record label wanted Floyd to quickly pump out another hit. Disillusioned with record execs and the whole music/marketing scene, Waters answered by penning an entire opus aimed at the very hand that was feeding him. His classic, twisted sense of humor is best showcased in "Have a Cigar" (the only Floyd song, incidentally, that isn't sung by a member of the band), where a clueless record producer tries to woo the band after being impressed by their sales ("The band is just fantastic/That is really what I think/Oh, by the way/which one is Pink?").