Why "Comfortably Numb" is the best song ever

I have written this while a little drunk, after watching Pink Floyd’s “Pulse” concert yet again. But what the Hell – I’ll post it anyway:

Music can stir your soul. When music is at its best, it connects with your soul directly. But this song goes beyond that – it makes a connection with your soul, then lifts it out of your body, gently caresses it, holds it up to God, squeezes it in its fist and then throws it back into you with a forceful but caring slam.
Listening to it is not a musical encounter, it’s a spiritual experience.
Everyone remembers the first time they heard it, and the way they reacted to it. And every time you listen to it again, you find something new to entrance you.
Why does it work? Who cares? It could be the wonderful contrast between the two vocal styles used by the two singers. It could be David Gilmour’s pain-soaked emotionally raw rendition of the title line. It could be his sumptuous, almost-unarguably-never-bettered guitar solo. It could be the way the instrumentation seems to gel perfectly with the tone of the lyrics. It could be the fact that those lyrics are meaningful enough to bring tears to hardened eyes and ambiguous enough to apply to everyone.  It could be the incredible third act, in which Gilmour’s guitar becomes another voice, carrying on the tone of what came before and then screaming its way through the final, dying moments of the track.
Or maybe it’s simply a combination of everything. A culmination of the confluence of a collection of geniuses, working at the height of their individual powers and lifting each other into a previously unreached apex of artistic brilliance.
It is as close to perfection as you can get. Nothing about it could be improved. Not one beat. Not one note. Every decision made was the right one – from the strange pronunciation of the work ‘sick’ to the number of notes the ‘I’ is held for before the last line of the chorus.
If you are reading this and are not familiar with the song I am speaking of, then I implore to rectify that immediately. Find it, start it, sit back, close your eyes and allow yourself to be taken to places you never knew existed; some within you, some without.
It is beautiful beyond words.

RC 25-6-21