There has been so much written about Dark Side of the Moon that to even attempt to add more could be seen as either reckless folly, a journey of writing insanity or a grandiose piece of that is seen as just adding to the cannon and millions of words that have surrounded Pink Floyd’s much admired 1973 album.

To suggest that writing about one of the most famous, seemingly perfect albums of all times is easy would be folly in itself. The entire album is so complex, has so many layers and underlying wonderful distractions that it really is no wonder that it one of the best selling albums of all time and even after 40 years still has that very special power to give the listener an experience that is almost unlike any other. A journey into a realm that wouldn’t be out of place in science fiction, a self help manual or as one musician once said sixth form school boy poetry. To take the latter point of view takes away from the astounding way the album is presented. Beneath the strikingly bold and iconic album cover is an album of breathtaking quality, one that started a run of four consecutive albums by the band, Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals and The Wall, which should be considered not only in the top 100 albums of all time.   Due to their subject matter, they should be dissected, poured over and deconstructed to find what made the band really tick during that turbulent, progressive and enduring six year period.

Dark Side of the Moon from start to finish still feels raw. Not unfinished or unsound but because of the desperation, the agony and reflections it offers on life are so meaningful that to listen to it for a couple of hours still sends messages of pessimism for the future of humanity and how humans are defined and in the end defiled by time. The underlying themes of madness, isolation, loneliness, fear, greed and finally death are all wrapped up in the album’s structure and at times can be so powerful, so evocative and potent that the listener can feel as though they are being crushed beneath the weight and possibility that carries the music along.

The use of simple but inspiring and defining words meld with the lyric sheet in some sort of musical dance in which the listener finds themselves outnumbered, but not dangerously so, by David Gilmour, Richard Wright, Nick Mason and Roger Waters. The four members of the band use their skills throughout, in the best words of the B.B.C., to educate, inform and hopefully entertain. The addition of Clare Torry on the sublime and chilling Great Gig in the Sky and the incredible Dick Parry on saxophone, gives the band a broader but more bountiful scope in which to capture their images.

The album starts with Breathe, a song that could be looked as a 16 line poem and one that draws in the listener with its gentleness and simple heartbeat. The rhythmic sound soothing as one imagines a child relates to hearing their parents heart through the chest when they are receiving a hug, the sound of a recognizable emotion in which to take comfort. This reassurance is all too soon over as the madness and complexity of life starts in earnest with the sound of cash registers, a screaming woman and the overheard conversations of those talking about life and death come crashing in and destroying the casual peace that had started.

There are perhaps few songs that scale the heights of Progressive Rock tried so hard to achieve than Time or Money, both of which were released as singles from the album and in both humanity finds themselves permanently short of.  The realisation in Time that the vocals could be describing, not just an age group that was labelled Generation X but also subsequent generations that have followed since, in that childhood is meant to be enjoyed and not an endurance but somehow since the Second World War, teenagers and young adults seem to be under more and more pressure to achieve early, to have a plan in place that they must carry out for all their life. However the song alludes and directs the listener to realise that you can only put off being a child for so long and at some point life must begin, the trouble is no one tells you when you should be doing it. The line “and ten years have got behind you…” is a frightening prospect. The waste that it implies is terrifying and the realisation that a seventh of your life has been and gone and you have nothing to show for it is perhaps one of the strongest and enduring images of the album.  Ten years is an apt time to consider when looking at this song. In terms of the band, within ten years they would be thought of as nearing the end themselves as they released what really should be considered a Roger Water’s solo album in The Final Cut, the fighting and the pressure becoming too much perhaps. In the previous ten years, the pivotal and perhaps defining moment in American history had taken place with the assassination of John F. Kennedy, closely followed by the deaths of his brother Bobby and the civil rights activist Martin Luther King. In Britain the Profumo affair signalled the dying embers of a Government that had ran out of steam and ushered in Harold Wilson’s Labour Party and spying for the Russians became the order of the day with Kim Philby being named as the ‘third man’ in the Burgess-Maclean spy ring. If the previous ten years had been exciting times then what could one person do?

If Time reminded people that they could not put off the inevitable and final adventure then Money showed the way of greed. Its angry and reverberating refrain was only accentuated by the sound of tills rattling and money being poured in almost as quick as people could spend it. Money uses the bass line perfectly as a moody accompaniment which even 40 years on still resonates and stokes the fire of watching people spend money on almost frivolous items in the vanity of believing it impresses. 40 years on the most resonating line still holds sway in that the holder of the money thinks they’ll buy a football team with their cash. In an almost frightening parallel with modern day life this has come true, rather than the staple of the nation’s game being owned by those in the community, now anybody can own a team and run it as if it were their own private fiefdom, the games authorities can also be seen to cash in on the wealth that is now generated by television pumping millions into the game. It is a damning indictment that words from 40 years before can prophecy where the game and life was heading.

The album stands out as being one of the finest pieces of music recording ever laid down and with the addition of Dick Parry on saxophone it gave Pink Floyd an earthy and almost majestic feel which had been missing of the band’s early offerings. It offers a moment of bursting energy as if the dying cries of Clare Torry were being muted and drowned out by the this beast of brass. Ironically ten years later Dick Parry’s saxophone would be amongst the final things heard on The Final Cut album, ten years between the two events; the circle of life is complete.

The album finishes as it begin with the rhythmic heartbeat, however now rather than the serene reminder of safety it has come to mean much more, the counting down of a person’s life perhaps, each heart beat ticking down to the eventual demise or passing of the one it is inside. It is how you use the time between the heartbeats that count in the end.

Ian D. Hall