25. Pink Floyd – Dark Side of the Moon
I had heard a few Pink Floyd songs here or there before, but I was first really introduced to them by my good friend, Molly [who I really should email]. I had given her a mix tape of some Pearl Jam, and she, in turn, made me some Pink Floyd tapes. She and I spent a lot of time interpreting song lyrics, so we went through some songs from Dark Side of the Moon, and I found them to be quite good. I like it when an album seems to be one connected unit trying to get across some sort of central message, rather than a disjointed collection of pop songs. (though this can be taken to an extreme, which isn’t a good thing). Later on, she hooked me the album on cd, and I listened to it a lot. Soon afterwards, Hope college showed The Wizard of Oz in time with Dark Side of the Moon, and Tim, Molly, and I went to see that. It was pretty slick, it an weird “um… That’s trippy” kind of way. To this day, when I hear the line “The lunatic is on the grass…” I picture the scarecrow popping up by the yellow brick road. Since that time, I’ve been a fan of this album, and it remains one of a precious few that when a song comes up on random, I must listen to the entire album rather than listen to just that one song. This album also gets props for having one of the kewlest album covers of all time. Simplistic, yet universally recognized.
This album has a number of excellent songs on it, including Money, Time, Us and Them, and Eclipse. While there are a few other Floyd tunes that I really like (On the Turning Away, Comfortably Numb, Wearing the Inside Out, Learning to Fly, etc..) this is by far my favorite Pink Floyd Album. Some lyric clips that I’ve collected from this album over the years:
- For long you live and high you fly
And smiles you’ll give and tears you’ll cry
And all you touch and all you see
Is all your live will ever be
— Breathe - Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
— Time - Run rabbit run
Dig that hole, forget the sun,
And when at last the work is done
Don’t sit down it’s time to start another one
— Breathe - And if the cloud bursts, thunder in your ear
You shout and no one seems to hear
And if the band you’re in starts playing different tunes
I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon.
— Brain Damage
I have a lot more floyd for you. Listen to ‘the wall’. Analyze it, and see what you come up with. Same goes for ‘Wish you were here’.
Currently I have in my Floyd collection:
a_momentary_lapse_of_reason
a_saucerful_of_secrets
atom_heart_mother
dark_side_of_the_moon
echoes
meddle
relics
the_division_bell
the_wall
wish_you_were_here
Of them, I’ve listened to The Wall, Wish You Were Here, Dark Side of the Moon, and A Momentary Lapse of Reason the most. I’m a big fan of The Wall, and the movie was … well.. weird in a kewl way, i thought. With the exception of Comfortably Numb, I can’t listen to just one song on The Wall without listening to the whole thing… which either means I skip past the song, or prepare to be listening to Floyd for a while. But yeah.. I always welcome more Floyd.
Dude. “Animals.” Listen to “Animals.” Have you heard the news? The dogs are dead!
Wish You Were Here is my favorite Floyd album, but if you don’t have Animals in your collection, you really need it.
Do you have all of these “at work?” I need to listen to some more Floyd.
We’ve all always heard about how _Dark Side of the Moon_ was the best Floyd album, as it spent “N” weeks on the Billboard charts (where “N” is some ridiculous number). It’s a good album, and only gets better when heard through a nice set of headphones.
However, I have to agree with Jonathan: _Wish You Were Here_ is still my favorite Floyd album. There was a time where I liked _The Wall_ better than either, but after the VH1 special, I came to understand that album as Roger Waters’ personal “thing”. As good as _DSotM_ is, I’m probably one of the relatively few that prefers _WywH_. This might just be an anti-establishment reaction against _DSotM_…