Man's Perfect Acoustic Guitar Solo Of Pink Floyd's 'Comfortably Numb' Attracts Large Internet Following

Apr 01, 2020 by apost team

This young Finnish guitarist Juha Järvinen — also known as Acoustician on YouTube — gave an instrumental rendition of Pink Floyd’s iconic single Comfortably Numb back in 2016, which originally came out on the English rock band’s eleventh album The Wall in 1979. The oft-covered Floyd track has a storied musical history.

From 27-year-old pop sensation Miley Cyrus to hundreds of random musicians on YouTube, Comfortably Numb has been covered ad nauseum since its release more than five decades ago. That’s why Finnish guitarist Juha Järvinen’s acoustic cover is so refreshing. Unlike Cyrus’ weighty, over-the-top rendition, Järvinen lets the track speak for itself, opting for an acoustic, instrumental version and eschewing theatrics of any kind. The Finnish musician even opts to exclude his face from the video, focusing the camera on the guitar itself, so that viewers can admire the musician’s deft handiwork on the guitar.

apost.com

The stripped-down cover lets the track to breath, so we can hear the beautiful melodies and Pink Floyd’s unadulterated musical genius. Fans of Järvinen — and he has quite a few on YouTube for not being a famous musician — should be familiar with his musical approach. Nearly every video he uploads follows the same simple format. The camera is trained on his acoustic guitar, crafted from a beautiful and exotic monkey pod wood, and Järvinen simply plays. Järvinen is also consistent in that every cover showcases the young guitarist’s musical prowess. Other popular covers of Järvinen’s include Guns ‘N Roses Sweet Child of Mine, Dire Straits’ Sultans of Swing and Metallica’s Fade To Black. But perhaps Comfortably Numb is among Järvinen’s best.

When you stop to think about it — that a Finnish musician in the 2010s would cover a decades-old Pink Floyd track for hundreds of thousands of viewers from across the world — it is astounding. That’s just to say that the track has travelled quite a ways since its storied beginnings in the late 1970s.

As Pink Floyd fans undoubtedly know, Comfortably Numb began as a leftover demo from David Gilmour’s first 1978 solo album, according to Open Culture. While working on the band’s legendary eleventh album, The Wall, Gilmour decided to take the unfinished track — at the time it was little more than a simple chord progression — and use it for the album. But bandmate Roger Waters, who eventually wrote the lyrics to the track, wanted to take the song in a different direction. And out of this tension — Gilmour’s desire for the song to have a hard edge and Waters’ preference for theatrics — arose what we hear today, the finished product.

The song often makes it onto Pink Floyd top ten lists and its a strong contender for featuring one of the greatest guitar solos of all time. Järvinen, who is a master of the acoustic guitar, takes advantage of this excellent songwriting and the beautiful instrumentation, breathing new life into a classic that is more than a half-century old. And that’s what’s so great about covers — they provide music with an afterlife.

What did you think of Juha Järvinen’s (Acoustician's) cover of Comfortably Numb? Is it better than the original? Let us know and pass this on to all your friends and family members who are Pink Floyd fans.