The Dark Side of the MoonStudio album
Recorded: June 1972 - January 1973
Released: 1 March 1973
Band lineupRoger Waters (bass)
David Gilmour (guitar)
Richard Wright (keyboards)
Nick Mason (drums)
Clare Torry (vocals on "The Great Gig in the Sky")
Dick Parry (saxophone on "Money" and "Us and Them")
All lyrics written by Roger Waters.
Side A1. Speak To Me
(Mason) (1:13)
2. Breathe
(Waters, Gilmour, Wright) (2:46)
3. On the Run
(Waters, Gilmour) (3:35)
4. Time
(Waters, Gilmour, Wright, Mason) (7:04)
* Includes a reprise of "Breathe".
5. The Great Gig in the Sky
(Wright, Clare Torry) (4:48)
Side B1. Money
(Waters) (6:23)
2. Us and Them
(Waters, Wright) (7:50)
3. Any Colour You Like
(Gilmour, Wright, Mason) (3:25)
4. Brain Damage
(Waters) (3:50)
5. Eclipse
(Waters) (2:03)
ReviewThis was the album that first sparked my interest in music. Not only is it more focused and consistent than anything Floyd did previously, but it is also their first album for which each side runs continuously, without pauses between tracks. This feature is something later Floyd works, and Roger Waters's solo albums, would adopt as their modus operandi. It's also a feature I really appreciate, as it seems to meld the album together, and which would later attract me to other artists which do the same thing, such as Frank Zappa.
This album and I have had our disagreements, but now that I listen to it again, it occurs to me that that's probably because I used to overlisten to this, and to Floyd in general. Like, a
lot. Now that I hear it again with fresh ears, the reason why I fell in love with this record is coming back to me. This album represents a level of direction and coherence most bands would never even approach. It's a concept album about "things that make people mad", with a central theme of insanity, and on both counts it delivers spectacularly.
Side A is a 20-minute condensation of a human life. Speak To Me and Breathe, often paired as one track on CD releases, represent the time in which a child has come into the world, and is being schooled on its quirks and oddities. Speak To Me itself is one of the most dramatic album openers I've ever heard, beginning with a repeating heartbeat sound, and slowly building up with sound effects and people talking about insanity, finally climaxing in a woman screaming (a sample from Clare Torry's performance on The Great Gig in the Sky) to segue into Breathe.
Speaking of people talking about insanity, that's a running theme throughout the album. Pink Floyd brought various people around the studio (including Paul McCartney, whose responses didn't make it onto the final album) in to ask them their thoughts on various broad topics, such as insanity, death, money and so forth. These answers appear throughout the album, in contexts where they add their own meaning to a song.
On the Run is an excellent example of this. The backing music consists of a synthesised piece put together by Roger and David fooling around with a VCS 3, but the main source of variation in the track comes from sound effects including boarding announcements, what sounds like a train passing by, and of course snippets of speech from the studio volunteers. This piece can be thought of as representing the disorienting, fast-paced frenzy of adult life.
Time is a song about time, or the lack of it. It represents a midlife crisis, in which the protagonist realises that they have wasted years of their time without even noticing it go by, and suddenly life seems much shorter than it once did. It also includes a beastly guitar solo from David, followed by a reprise of Breathe as the protagonist returns to their roots ("home again, I like to be here when I can").
As the last notes of Time fade out, in comes the tour de force of side A. The Great Gig in the Sky is a reflective piano composition from Rick, which starts out simple and quiet, with lap steel accompaniment. A voice talks about not being afraid to die, and then the majesty of this piece takes full swing. Clare Torry, a session vocalist at the time, was asked to perform an improvisation over the backing track, and perform she did. This wordless vocal track, with Clare's voice being essentially used as an instrument, sounds more powerful and inspired than any saxophone solo I've ever heard, almost moving me to the point of tears. This performance is just beyond words.
Side B kicks off with Money, a blues rock song about, uh, money. As far as I can tell, the main attraction to this song is that it's in 7/4, since the song itself feels somewhat out of place here. The guitar solo is good, but not great, and the cross-fade into Us and Them just adds to the feeling that Money was recorded as a single and tacked into the concept album as an afterthought.
Us and Them is based on The Violent Sequence, an unused Rick composition from
Zabriskie Point, although it's been developed substantially into a proper song. The lyrics deal with the absurdity of war, dwelling on the fact that the soldiers who die in battle are "only ordinary men", and "who knows which is which, and who is who?". These are probably my least favourite lyrics on the album, although that perception might be influenced by knowing how over-the-top Roger would take songs about war in years to come. The high point for me is a sax solo from Dick Parry, which really works well over these powerful chords.
The final refrain of Us and Them segues directly into Any Colour You Like, an extended instrumental jam, and (as far as I remember) the only ever Gilmour/Wright/Mason collaboration without a Waters writing credit. The song is a simple I-IV progression, the same as Breathe, though in a different key. It starts out with a very psychedelic-sounding synth solo, where Rick's synth is passed through a feedback delay timed to the beat of the song, resulting in a cascading effect of each synth note repeating in various places across the stereo image.
There's a brief midsection in which two Gilmour guitar tracks take turns presenting short, improvised licks, leading into a guitar solo proper to round off the affair. Then the chords from bridge of Breathe get repeated, but instead of a return to the D minor vamp, the key changes to D major, and Brain Damage starts.
The album is concluded by a pair of songs, written by Roger, dealing directly with the matter of insanity. As far as I'm aware, this material was largely inspired by Syd Barrett's descent into madness. This finale is proof that Roger's writing really does work best in small doses; unlike later albums which would be almost entirely authored by him, these songs work so well partly because they give closure to a collaborative effort, in which each band member contributes his own piece of the puzzle.
After Eclipse finishes, the heartbeat which opened the album returns, and we're left with one final thought from one of the in-studio victims: "There is no dark side of the moon, really. Matter of fact, it's all dark."
I'd forgotten why I loved this album so much once upon a time, and this listen has brought it back to me. All of the songs here are direct and to the point, with no room left for extended improvisation, and as a result all of the solos that
do appear are kept short and sweet as well. The whole thing has a sense of unity, partly due to being a concept album, but also because of the continuous playback on each side, which makes it work much better as an album than as a collection of songs. Unmissable.
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