I don't know much about Richard Wright, the Pink Floyd keyboardist who died from cancer on Monday at the age of 65. Richard Wright was one of those rock stars who was heard but not seen. Pink Floyd was not a band of personalities like the Beatles or the Rolling Stones. They spoke through their music, and if you grew up listening to Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals and the Wall, you heard Richard Wright loud and clear.

Pink Floyd relied heavily on the keyboards and piano. It always seemed to me that Wright was to keyboards what George Harrison was to guitar. Not flashy, but innovative, using his instrument to develop the song and move it along. It was Wright who played the most discordant keyboards I have ever heard, from Dark Side of the Moon. Next time you feel like shit, when you hate the world, when you've had enough, cue up Us and Them. It will not make you feel any better. It will make you feel like you are not alone. And that it's OK to hate the world.

The song is Us and Them. It's the only song from Dark Side of the Moon that I am not tired of. This was a song about alienation. Perfect for the early 1970's, when the world was leaving a traumatic era and entering a new one, equally traumatic. 1973 seems like a scary year to me, though I barely remember it. To me, Us and Them is the sound of 1973. Listen to the discordant notes that Wright plays as he brings the listener into the depths of early 1970's madness, particularly at the beginning and 33 seconds into the song.