the saddest song out there

My default answer usually goes to It Ain't Me, Babe by Bob Dylan, covered by Robin Pecknold. But this evening, while reading a paper on universal basic income (because my course was talking about constraint optimization) and I was just singing along to Tracy Chapman's Fast Car (which, undoubtedly also a very sad song), but then YouTube autoplay brought me to one treasure that I almost, almost forgot.

David Gilmore - Wish You Were Here, live at Meltdown Concert 2002.

I stopped reading the paper or scrolling through anything else. For the whole 4 minutes 50 seconds, I was fixated. I always consider this song is terribly mesmerizing but this time I felt like I almost cried on the spot.

So you think you can tell

Heaven from hell?

Blue skies from pain?

Can you tell a green field

From a cold steel rail?

A smile from a veil?

Do you think you can tell?

Did they get you to trade

Your heroes for ghosts?

Hot ashes for trees?

Hot air for a cool breeze?

Cold comfort for change?

Did you exchange

A walk on part in the war

For a lead role in a cage?

How I wish,
how I wish you were here

We're just two lost souls

Swimming in a fishbowl

Year after year

Running over the same old ground

And how we found

The same old fears

Wish you were here