I was listening to Pink Floyd's Meddle on my headphones last night as the world twitched in its sleep. "Fearless" came on, and I must say that I still feel as hypnotized by that track as I did upon first hearing it my sophomore year in college. In fact, there are few tracks that I repeat as quickly upon their close. My tastes may have evolved past the acid-drowned psychedelia of much of Pink Floyd, but this track still makes me mourn for that first listen. Goddam nostalgia. I rushed over to the stereo in my bare feet and almost tripped over the tangled cord of the headphones to push it back to the rambling shuffle of the acoustic guitars and the quickened collapse and pound of its drums. It rolls and rolls, never really morphing all that much, and the snippet of Rodgers/Hammerstein chorus that sounds like a soccer chant simmers along its base. It stops and retreats, and Gilmour's guitar at one point bends into a country whine. I used to see myself as a musical pedagogue, bound to instruct and inform the audio-blind (I still may but that's neither here nor there). I would turn this song up at full shrieking volume and wait unil the neighbours came knocking. Maybe I would give them a copy. They never knocked; they just turned up their Dave Matthews and left me to my endless repeats. And damn if that ain't all I have the right to ask.