Comfortably Numb

The Inside Story of Pink Floyd

By: Mark Blake

Narrated by: Graeme Malcolm

Mark Blake draws on his own interviews with band members as well as the group's friends, road crew, musical contemporaries, former housemates, and university colleagues to produce a riveting history of one of the biggest rock bands of all time. We follow Pink Floyd from the early psychedelic nights at UFO, to the stadium-rock and concept-album zenith of the seventies, to the acrimonious schisms of the late '80s and '90s. Along the way there are fascinating new revelations about Syd Barrett's chaotic life at the time of Piper at the Gates of Dawn, the band's painstaking and Byzantine recording sessions at Abbey Road, and the fractious negotiations to bring about their fragile, tantalizing reunion in Hyde Park.

Meticulous, exacting, and ambitious as any Pink Floyd album, Comfortably Numb is the definitive account of this most adventurous and most English rock band.

Critic reviews

New York Press, 1/20/09
“You really do feel as if you’re being sucked into the drama. That’s a testament to Blake doing his job…It’s a journalistic take on the band, and its reads like a history book. It’s respectful and revealing, but not in a scandalous way.”

Blurt Magazine, 2/09
“Mark Blake has clearly done his share of research…Blake is at his best [when] providing those details that leap off the page while placing Pink Floyd squarely in the context of the times.”

phenomenal

A fantastic, but rather biased story of the band. the narrator did a fantastic job.

Great history of Pink Floyd

As a long time fan of Pink Floyd this book is a must for all fans. Very thorough.

Hearing how the sausage is made

I've been a PF fan since the early 80s. I actually bought this because I wanted to confirm my suspicions about Roger Water's mental health. Wow! Confirmed and then some. Roger had plenty of trauma in his life that appears to have left him with quite a bit of anxiety and insecurity. Anxiety gets worse as you get older, and there are often elements of paranoia with it as well. If you ever wonder why some people end up as bullies, just look back at his youth. I imagine he was bullied ruthlessly with no father figure. Anyway, very well researched book.

The Absolute Definitive Story of Floyd and Company

First off, the narrator was the perfect choice to put forth the author's words. English, sympathetic and warm. I was extremely impressed how much time the author devoted to the legendary Syd Barrett and Syd's influence he left on the band and his enormous clutch of fans. Syd's life is threaded all throughout this book, as if the author could have added to the titled, "...and Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Syd Barrett. Nothing is left to the imagination, and the author's words are written as if he were a "behind the scenes" ghost in their entire career, including the individual members' personal lives outside the band in just enough snippets to keep you wanting more. I've listened to this one three times, and will undoubtedly return again, as I get more out of this book each time I come back to it. I'm always left with the feeling that I'm just as much an insider as the author and his sources, fortunate enough to feel as though I am as much a 5th member of the band, their friends and associates of their career up to 2008, when the book was published. If there's anything else to be said about Pink Floyd, the members' side projects and all it's machinations, it's nowhere in sight. As more than just a casual fan, I've yet to discover anything quite as magnanimous in the 45+ years I've been following the ultimate rock behemoth, Pink Floyd. An immense thank you to Syd, Roger, Dave, Nick and Rick, for creating some of the greatest rock music to have ever been created in the mid-20th century through the beginning of the 21st, as well as your ability to influence countless other bands and dedicated orchestras even today, and for never selling out your integrity through all of rock's changes and attitudes, and for remaining true to the non-conforming sound of Pink Floyd to the very end...reviewed by Marc Austin.

Very interesting story, but sometimes too detailed

Loved the story. Lots of great background on SydB and the interesting relationships between the band members. But, at times, it seemed like it dove into too much detail that didn't really add much value to the overall story.