Pink Floyd - Childhood's End

I'm always amazed at the number of people who love Pink Floyd and wear their T-shirts but are only familiar with The Wall or Dark Side of the Moon.  I'm at least stoked when I find someone who knows that the entire album Wish You Were Here is great, and that it's hard to find a better Floyd song than "Shine on you Crazy Diamond" and that "Shine On" is in fact so amazing that "Wish You Were Here" falls short in comparison (although they are two completely different types of songs).

An album they made which I rarely see or hear mention of is Obscured by Clouds.  I doubt many will agree with me on this but, I think that it's a better album than The Wall.  I mean seriously, how many songs on The Wall are actually great!  I think just one, "Comfortably Numb" and then some others are good, and some others, thank God I grew up in the era of the CD so I could just hit skip or record a tape or burn a CD that just contains the good stuff.

Click to learn more about Obscured by Clouds

Here are some notes I copied from adadmasrinsky's youtube channel:

Childhood's End appeared on the Pink Floyd rock album, Obscured by Clouds, which was based on the band's soundtrack for the French film La Vallée, by Barbet Schroeder. Some copies of the album refer to the film by its alternate English title, The Valley. The LP was released in the UK on June 3, 1972 on Harvest/EMI and then in the U.S. on June 15, 1972 on Harvest/Capitol. The album reached #6 on the UK album charts and #46 on the U.S. album charts (where it was certified Gold by the RIAA in March, 1994). In 1986, the album was released on CD. A digitally remastered CD was released in March 1996 in the UK and August 1996 in the U.S.

The Song Childhood's End was inspired by a science fiction novel of the same name, by Sir Arthur C. Clarke, orignally published in 1953.

This song reminds me of the Sinai, Egypt, where many of the images from this video are shot.

The lyrics go as follows:
You shout in your sleep
Perhaps the price is just too steep
Is your conscience at rest
If once put to the test?
You awake with a start
To just the beating of your heart
Just one man beneath the sky
Just two ears
Just two eyes

You set sail across the sea
Of long past thoughts and memories
Childhood's end
Your fantasies
Merge with harsh realities
And then as the sail is hoist
You find your eyes are growing moist
And all the fears never voiced
Say you have to make your final choice

Who are you and who am I
To say we know the reason why?
Some are born
Some men die
Beneath one infinite sky There'll be war
There'll be peace
But everything one day will cease
All the iron turned to rust
All the proud men turned to dust
And so all things, time will mend
So this song will end