What can be said about this album that hasn’t already been said? It has consistently over the years charted again and again. It is the best rock album of all time, the greatest concept album of all time, and in my opinion, one of the greatest pieces of art of all time. In my attempt to analyze the deepest of albums, I will delve into each track, looking for meaning, symbolism, and anything else that I can possibly find. Let’s start from the first track (or tracks)
Speak To Me/Breathe: The opening track to this rock masterpiece begins with a heartbeat, along with some other samples that you will hear throughout the album. The heartbeat represents a child being born, the start of new life in the world, and as the heartbeat and sounds get louder, we hear a man’s voice: “I’ve been mad for fucking years…”. An odd placement for this quote? Not at all. The first thing this child is exposed to in the world is madness, but that is not, of course, all it experiences. There is a whole world of experiences in life. Once the baby is born, we enter the Breathe section of the track, in which the child is given his first advice: “breathe, breathe in the air. Don’t be afraid to care.” We could all use this advice sometimes when we need to slow down and take a break, and when we think that caring is not appropriate: the advice giver (presumably the parents) believe it is always alright to care about things. The song also mentions “Racing towards an early grave”. This becomes a theme throughout the album, as Gilmour, Waters, and the rest of the band challenge us by saying: slow down! Take in what life has to give you, you are racing towards you’re own death. Enter On The Run.
On The Run: On The Run is a set of about 7 synthesizer notes played over and over again with different filters and waveforms for 2-3 minutes. During this time we hear sounds of a man running, and a woman on the loudspeaker listing the names of flight destinations such as Rome and Cairo. The man is late for his flight. He is running for this flight, but we do not find out if he makes it or not. But then we hear the plane. With quotes during the song such as “Live for today, gone tomorrow, that’s me…” we hear the plane go down, but the quoted man is not crying, rather laughing. This is strange, but not really. At this point the man believes he can do two things: either laugh, or cry. He chooses to laugh, and then the plane crashes, after which we hear the sound of running footsteps: The man was running for a plane that would have killed him, but he missed the flight. I love the irony here.
Time:Time is one of the greatest rock songs, nay, greatest pieces of music in history. Maybe because it is so Timeless, but in any case, time is a lament on the passing of time, an ode to the never ceasing never stopping trudging of time, and how it races by you. “No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun…” laments the fact that so much of one’s life is wasted waiting for life to begin, when in reality life is ever-present. So Pink Floyd sees a balance between RUSHING around all the time and doing nothing. There must be some balance between the two ends of the spectrum. Time ends with a reprise of Breathe in which people attend a funeral, whispering :”softly spoken magic spells”. These are presumably prayers at the funeral, the idea of which Waters is perhaps mocking. Time comes, goes, and then there is Death.
The Great Gig in the Sky: The female vocalist, Clare Torry, was told she had to sing a song about Death without any lyrics. This masterpiece was the result of her and Pink Floyd’s working. The idea of death to the band was so incredible, so absolute, there were no words that did it justice, so they just omitted all the words altogether. Brilliant, really. The song is an ode to Death, and at the beginning, we hear the only words in the song “I am not afraid to die, anytime will do, I don’t mind. Why should I be afraid to die? No reason for it, you’ve gotta go sometime…” This quote is profoundly unafraid, and although violent, the song ends with a sense of peace at last, a sort of quiet coming to terms with the circumstances. This is the end of Side One, if you were listening on Vinyl.
Please flip the record (or tape) over to Side Two.
Money: Ah, money, what makes the world go round. Waters and company portray it as the “root of all evil today”. Money is what makes things happen, it is what makes the world go round, it drives people mad and kills them. but more than that, it is a false prophet. The Bible mentions that man cannot serve both God and Money. That is what Pink Floyd is basically saying: you cannot live both for enlightenment and for personal profit: you must choose.
Us And Them:A great song, but what does it mean? Think war: There are two sides: us and them. The good guys, the bad guys, whatever. But it also refers to human nature. The war represents the human nature of conflict, and how we are quick to send others into trouble while avoiding our own, as the general who cries “Forward!” In the song witnesses the entire front rank die. Human nature, therefore, can be quite cruel.
Any Colour You Like:This is a musical interlude, with no lyrics or quotations, but the title alone suggests to me that there are many different people in the world, and these people help make life what it is: different and interesting every day. Any Colour You Like refers, to me, to making life any thing you want it to be. The title is a reference to Henry Ford’s quote about the Model T, saying a customer could have it any color he wanted so long as it was black. What Gilmour and crew is saying is that people have the illusion of choice, that the colour you choose is irrelevent: everything is black in the end.
Brain Damage:This song is all about insanity. It represents the sector of humans that do suffer from insanity. This song is perhaps a tribute to Syd Barrett, who began the band back in the 60’s. Syd Barrett eventually went insane, perhaps from all the drugs he took, perhaps from other reasons, but this song which mentions “if the band you’re in starts playing different tunes, I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon” They want to see Syd again, but it’ll be on the dark side of the moon.
Eclipse:The final track on the album is my favorite. It brings the entire album together. It lists all of the things that make life, well, life. It is a summation of all that you touch, see, beg, borrow, steal, etc. But the meaning of the album, shrouded in mystery to this point, is finally revealed: It is about going insane! All of the tracks of the album are things that contribute to human insanity! Money, Time, Death, Feverish Hurrying, Brain Damage, War, The Illusion of Choice, everything from Birth to Death leads us to insanity, meaning that the Dark Side of the Moon is actually referring to the insane mind, as it becomes cold and dark, as people creep into your brain that are not really there. It is all about going insane. The final quote of the album: “There is no Dark Side of the Moon really, as a matter of fact it’s all dark.” This is so profound. The Dark Side of the Moon is the ENTIRE Moon. Every human being experiences the "Eclipse" of the brain. “The Sun is Eclipsed by the Moon” Even though everything under the sun is in tune, the sun is eclipsed by the moon, bringing out the insanity in all of us eventually. It is inevitable. An incredible, incredible album. One for the ages
My Ratings:
Music: 10/10
Story: N/A
Concepts: 10/10
Overall: 10/10
The greatest album in music history
No comments:
Post a Comment