What on earth do the lyric to "Welcome to the Machine" mean?

I don't actually know but to ME it's about coming of age, getting a job etc or something along those lines.... hmm very badly put but I'm gonna post instead of cancel anyway.

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Not Now John might not be me, but he wishes he was.

The entire song (Whole album really) is about a new band being signed to a new record contract. It's taking a jab at the music industry and how they treat their artist.

In the song "Have a Cigar", the line "Oh by the way, Which's One's Pink?" is meant to show how record executives will sign a band based on projected sales yet know nothing about the individual members or the bands artistic direction.

Into PF since Live 8 Huh.... how old are you anyway?
Oh and welcome... Please read over the rules and guidelines before posting and try to avoid duplicating previously covered material.. Thanks and have fun.

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I have always been here.
I have always looked out from behind these eyes.

A manufactured dream, one that is mass-produced and sold to the youth of the nation. When it is realized, it turns out to be the complete opposite of what was expected. Sail on the steel breeze, ride the gravy train on a cold steel rail, and welcome to the machine.

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what do you teach your children about me?
what do you teach your little children about me?
pimp, thug, bling drug lord of the undergrounded kings
how can you be so sure i won't call down the rain?
what do you teach your little children about me?
you point your gun, wait, hide and run. i see it plain

I swore that Which's One's Pink? was a jab at interviewers or people asking them that exact question, maybe I am wrong or maybe it has both meanings

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All movement is accomplished
in six stages,and the seventh brings return

It means whatever you want it to mean

Seriously. Otherwise it wouldn't have any appeal at all.

Cheers

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Driving without insurance. Selling insurance.

When I hear it I always think of a disallusioned working class young man leaving childhood behind and finding out nothing he did till that point in his life makes absolutley any difference to the fact that he now has to go out and get some benign job where he will work till retirement. I try not to find out what they actually mean when they were written it ruins it for me.

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Not Now John might not be me, but he wishes he was.

i think it represents managers and such in the music biz. "...What did you dream? It's alright, we told you what to dream!"

it seemed to me that in The Wall, with the kids in masks and the bricks in the wall songs, it was about confomity and losing crativity. Like becoming one of the "bricks" in the wall. Know what i mean?

I don't mean to sound all nose snubbing when i say this but i guess it would help new fans. The name "Pink Floyd" comes from bluesmen named Pink Anderson and Floyd Council.

??????
sullysnet was nearly right (apart from the fact that line is in "Have A Cigar")it is something they got asked in a interview (before everyone starts I read an interview with Dave where he says this) ....

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Not Now John might not be me, but he wishes he was.