Richard Wright, R.I.P.

I suppose I should be sadder about this. Out of all the bands that have come and gone on my life's playlist, Pink Floyd has been one of the most constant; I've been told that Animals scared me as a toddler, and I've not gone a year since without finding something new and affecting in the music.

Whether it was being way too into The Wall in my early high school days,...tripping out to Ummagumma and Atom Heart Mother a year or two later.... playing cover tunes in my first teenage band...getting freaky with Echoes during college...identifying uncomfortably with Dogs when I was a young career-oriented adult, or with Syd as a depressed musical fuckup...or throughout all, finding truth in Time...the Floyd has always been there.

And Rick's contributions, while frequently overshadowed by the more prominent members, have always touched me. Aside from the obvious, the brooding beauty of "Great Gig in the Sky", I've always loved the little moody piano bits (there's an easily-missed bit of classically-influenced genius right after the big intro to "Sisyphus", for instance) and the wonderfully organic and atmospheric synth lines (the wonderful faux-exotic "Heart of the Sun", and most of "Crazy Diamond"- but especially the majestically sombre closing minutes that resolve into that last desperately hopeful major chord).

And then again, there was "Wet Dream", which I totally failed to like at all. Still, it was a hell of a lot more likable than any of Mason's goofy solo stuff. At least Rick never tried to do a dumbass experimental jazz record with Carla Bley.

Yet I'm not all torn up about his death. I guess it could be that he really hadn't been around in any real way since the mid 70's, at least for me. He was lucky enough to escape the debacle of "The Final Cut" (which hasn't made it into my playlist since the late 80's) , but unlucky enough to come back into the fold for the underwhelming "Momentary Lapse" (which I saw on tour, and I'll admit it was great fun when I was a high school kid) and only relatively less underwhelming "Division Bell" (which never made it into my playlist).

I'm only as sorry as I would be for any human being who died prematurely. I felt worse about Syd, but that's because I identified with the poor disturbed recluse. I'd probably feel worse about Gilmour, because he was so much more a part of the music...and probably a little worse about Waters, even though he strikes me as kind of an asshole whose music has been so uninspiring and predictable to me for the last few decades.

Maybe it's just that I'm too old and callous to feel anything personally affecting about any musician's death any more. Maybe all the really good ones are already gone, most of whom went before I even knew who they were.

Anyway, it's too bad, but there it is. He's gone, and I barely felt anything...and I kinda feel worse about that than about his death itself. And I guess when it gets right down to it, I'm mourning the loss of the silly adolescent attachment to the individuals that make the music...which was, I'm now almost sorry to admit, nearly as important to me at one point as the music itself.

And maybe I'm afraid that it may mean that I'm losing the ability to be moved by music.

I doubt it...just hearing the strings on Nick Drake's "Way to Blue" almost raised a tear earlier this evening. But I'm still a little afraid that I could start to no longer feel music, and that would be just about it for me.

So just maybe I feel like Rick Wright's death symbolizes, in some abstract way, my own death. And it makes me uncomfortable that I don't feel more strongly about it. Maybe.