Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of the Moon

The Dark Side of the Moon has been out forty years now.  Much has been written and said about it in that time.  What could I write that hasn’t already been written?  I’m not sure but I’ll give it a try.  My own experience with this album started in the spring of 1981.  I was getting ready to graduate from high school when my brother showed up and gave me a $50 bill to buy whatever I wanted.  I bought four albums that day – two from The Doors [LA Woman and Morrison Hotel], and two from Pink Floyd [DSOTM and The Wall].  I have been hooked on both The Doors and Pink Floyd ever since. 

A couple of years later when I was a sophomore in college, I went to visit a female friend of mine.  She lived in an apartment off-campus, I was in the neighborhood and I dropped by.  When I walked in, there was one wall in the “dining room” that was a mural of the DSOTM album cover.  In the dining room was another girl named Carol.  I saw her and the mural at the same time.  I was kind of taken aback by the mural and when I asked who painted it, Carol said that she did it.  “Wow!” [I thought…someone who likes something I like!]  I never came back to the apartment, but I never forgot the girl who painted the mural.  Little did I know then that Carol and I were going to get married four years later.

I went through at least two vinyl copies and two CD copies of this album.  My theory for the reason this album spent over 14 years on the Billboard charts is because of people like me.  After one copy wears out, you go out and get another copy.  What is it about The Dark Side of the Moon that has made it so endearing to me?  Is it the quality of the recording?  Dark Side is one of the most clear, clean, crystalline, ethereal albums one could ever hope to hear.  I “test drive” stereos [both home and car stereos] with Dark Side. Is it the many voices you hear in the background?  The music?  The lyrics?  The singing?  The album cover?  The answer is “yes.”  On this album there was a fine balance between lyrics [Roger Waters] and musicality [David Gilmour and Rick Wright].  There wasn’t too much of one or the other.  For the first time on a Pink Floyd album you could hear female voices singing with the band [not on top of them like on Atom Heart Mother].  Dick Parry and his sax provided Pink Floyd with another lead instrument.  David Gilmour and Rick Wright sang exquisite harmonies.  Roger Waters wrote lyrics that are both thought-provoking and vivid in their ability to paint a picture without talking down to his audience. 

Roger Waters: “Dark Side of the Moon was an expression of political, philosophical and humanitarian empathy that was desperate to get out.” 

David Gilmour: “The ideas that Roger was exploring apply to every new generation. They still have very much the same relevance as they had.”

In 1971, Pink Floyd released Meddle.  Side One included short songs, but Side Two contained  Echoes, which Roger Waters dubbed “an epic sound poem.”  He also said that Echoes was his first expressions of empathy.  They found a direction and wanted more music like Echoes.  The Dark Side of the Moon began as a piece called Eclipse (A Piece for Assorted Lunatics).   The band toured extensively in 1972, and during this schedule they developed Eclipse.  This was back when groups would “road test” their material before they recorded it.  During breaks in touring they’d convene at Abbey Road to record what they refined on the road.  Nick Mason once said "the concept was originally about the pressures of modern life - travel, money and so on.  But then Roger turned it into a meditation on insanity."

The songs:

Speak To Me – "...I've always been mad , I know I've been mad, like most of us have. They have you explain why you're a madman even if you're not mad..." Machines, ticking clocks, ringing cash registers, a heartbeat, mad laughter, Clare Torry’s screaming, someone saying “I've been mad for fucking years—absolutely years” – all of this in 1:07.  As brief as it is, it serves as an overture for The Dark Side of the Moon.  Right away you know this isn’t going to be a typical rock album.

Breathe – “Don’t be afraid to care/Look around, choose your own ground…”  That’s one way of saying “relax, be yourself, don’t be afraid to speak out about the things of which you care, and choose your own path in life.”  Rick Wright said he came up with the chord sequence from Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue.  David Gilmour threw in some of his own chords as well.

On The Run – This was a guitar song before Pink Floyd discovered the VSC3 synthesizer.  It was called “The Travel Sequence” then.  This is Gilmour and Waters’ vision of what the future sounds like.  Footsteps -  running away from something, or someone.  Or perhaps it’s just the pressures of traveling, running through airports so one doesn’t miss a connection.  But at the end, a plane crash.  "Live for today, gone tomorrow, that's me ..." - Roger "The Hat" Manifold

Time – This is about wasted time, and time relentlessly marching forward.  At the beginning of your life you have all kinds of time to do the things you want, but toward the end of your life there just aren’t enough hours in the day.  Life is short so don’t waste it.   Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way…  That lyric from Roger Waters gives one keen insight into the English character.  I think it speaks to the “stiff upper lip” quality of the English – one may be going through some kind of personal trauma, but don’t you dare let anyone know about it.  On the inside there could be much anguish and turmoil, but outside there is the façade, the public mask that hides what’s happening inside.  This is the song where the female voices make their first appearance on the record.  When the vocals were mixed they sounded like they were put through some kind of oscillator, which [to me anyway] has the effect of making the voices sound like they were recorded underwater.  Time is also the last Pink Floyd song on which Rick Wright sings lead [he alternates verses with David Gilmour].  He wouldn’t sing lead again until Wearing the Inside Out [on 1994’s The Division Bell].

What does all of this mean?  To borrow a phrase, “time waits for no one…”

The Great Gig in the Sky – “I am not frightened of dying. Any time will do: I don't mind. Why should I be frightened of dying? There's no reason for it — you've got to go sometime.”  The music is by Rick Wright.  Clare Torry’s vocal was completely improvised.  The band knew what they wanted – they wanted improvisation, and Rick Wright told her to “think about death, think about horror.”  She did her vocal very quickly but was embarrassed by her performance.  Rick Wright recalled that what she came up with was exactly what they were looking for, that they thought what she did was “wonderful.”  Since there are no lyrics, Clare Torry’s voice is another instrument, and a very effective one.   "I never said I was frightened of dying…"

Money – Quick – name another popular song that’s in 7/8 time!  I’d have to think about it for a bit, but right now it escapes me.  I don’t know how Alan Parsons managed it, but the cash registers are in sync with the beat of the music.  The message of the song is very simple – the guys in Pink Floyd like money, and lots of it.  Most of the song is in 7/8 time, but when it’s time for David Gilmour to solo, the band switches to 4/4 time and it’s time to rock.   I love it when a band can change time signatures [and back] in mid-song and make it look easy.

Us And Them – Rick Wright wrote the music for this one.  The only Pink Floyd song I like better than this one is Comfortably Numb.  When Michelangelo Antonioni made his film Zabriskie Point, Wright had a piece for him that was called The Violent Sequence.  Antonioni rejected the piece because it made him fell too sad.  This was something they had since 1969.  They didn’t use it for Atom Heart Mother, Meddle, or Obscured by Clouds, but they dug it up for Dark Side.  I don’t know why the kept it under wraps for so long, and I imagine they don’t either.  The track itself fades in with Rick Wright’s Hammond as Money fades out.

‘Forward!’ we cried from the rear and the front rank died/The generals sat and the lines on the map moved from side to side… Roger Waters is a lyrical genius here.  Here he congers a picture of generals who are so disconnected from the pain and suffering from those doing the actual fighting.  Those who are making those lines move back and forth are not human.  People who are putting up with things like trench foot, dysentery, typhus, cholera, interminable artillery barrages, poison gas and wholesale death in “going over the top” are an abstract concept to those who are “safely out of range” [a theme Waters would return to on his Amused to Death album].  Anytime I see a war movie like Paths to Glory or Joyeux Noel, where generals are depicted as being clueless to the conditions of the men they command, I am reminded of this lyric.

Any Colour You Like – A spacey, psychedelic jam.  Apparently one of the roadies had a saying about their guitars, something like "you can have it any colour you like." Gilmour admits to nicking his guitar sound here from Cream’s Badge, that swirling Leslie sound that later became identified with George Harrison.  It’s a nice bridge between Us And Them and Brain Damage.

Brain Damage – Gilmour’s guitar riff throughout the song reminds me of The Beatles’ Dear Prudence.  Roger Waters finally gets a lead vocal at the end of DSOTM with this and Eclipse.  Inspired by Syd Barrett perhaps? The bit about “when the band you’re in start playing different tunes” just screams Syd, because that really happened.  Roger Waters once said he had a vision of a piece of grass somewhere in Cambridge, the kind of place where “they” tell you to “keep off the grass.”  The lunatic ignores the sign and enjoys the grass, even though “they” try to “keep the loonies on the path.” 

Eclipse – Life, as seen by Roger Waters –

All that you touch
And all that you see
All that you taste
All you feel
And all that your love
And all that you hate
All you distrust
All you save
And all that you give
And all that you deal
And all that you buy, beg, borrow or steal
And all your create
And all you destroy
And all that you do
And all that you say
And all that you eat
And everyone you meet
And all that you slight
And everyone you fight
And all that is now
And all that is gone
And all that's to come
And everything under the sun is in tune
but the sun is eclipsed by the moon.

There is no dark side of the moon really.  Matter of fact, it’s all dark.

Tidbits:

The voices – Roger Waters’ idea.  He had questions on cards that he would ask people, like their own roadies, the doorman at Abbey Road, or other musicians who happened to be there recording an album [in this case, Paul McCartney & Wings Red Rose Speedway]. The questions:

Are you afraid of dying?

"I'm not afraid of dying, anytime will do. I don't mind. Why should I be afraid of dying? There's no reason for it. You've gotta go sometime." - Gerry O'Driscoll, doorman at Abbey Road

"I never said I was afraid of dying" - Puddie Watts, wife of Pink Floyd road manager Peter Watts (father of actress Naomi Watts)

"Live for today, gone tomorrow, that's me." – Roger “The Hat” Manifold, Pink Floyd roadie

Do you think you're going mad?

"I've always been mad. I know I've been mad, like the most of us are. Very hard to explain why you're mad, even if you're not mad" - Gerry O'Driscoll

"I've been mad for fucking years, absolutely years, been over the edge for yonks, been working with bands so long, I think crikey." - Chris Adamson, Pink Floyd roadie

When was the last time you were violent, and were you in the right?

"I was in the right! Yes, absolutely in the right." - Chris Adamson

"I certainly was in the right." - Gerry O'Driscoll

"I was definitely in the right. That geezer was cruising for a bruising." - Puddie Watts

"I was just telling him, he couldn't get into number two. He was asking why he wasn't coming up on freely, after I was yelling and screaming and telling him why he wasn't coming up on freely. It came as a heavy blow, but we sorted the matter out." - Chris Adamson, Pink Floyd roadie

"I don't know, I was really drunk at the time!" – Henry McCullough [Wings guitarist]

"I mean, they're not gonna kill ya, so if you give 'em a quick short, sharp, shock, they won't do it again. Dig it? I mean he got off lightly, 'cause I would've given him a thrashing, I only hit him once. It was only a difference of opinion, but really, I mean good manners don't cost nothing do they, eh?" – Roger “The Hat” Manifold

The cover – designed by Storm Thorgerson, who died a couple of weeks ago.  He had simple instructions, especially from Rick Wright – make it simple, make it bold.  Storm came up with seven different cover designs, but each band member picked the Prism immediately.

The clocks – Alan Parsons is responsible for all the clocks at the beginning of Time.  He was making a recording for EMI to promote the “new” sound of quadraphonic, and he recorded all of these clocks in a clock shop.

The Dark Side of the Moon is an ageless masterpiece.  It doesn’t sound the least bit dated.  It’s one of my Desert Island Discs.