Finally,the time has come to put hands to keys. I promised(myself? cos I don't know anyone who actually reads this) a songwise analysis of the magnum opus to rule all magnum opii (sounds like a spinoff of Magnum PI).
Interestingly,the opening track of Dark Side of the Moon isn't a track at all. Speak to me is at most a collection of sounds interspersed with random dialogues, and it may appear to a first-timer as utter and absolute cow dung. Well, I don't think too highly of the piece even now for that matter. But as you listen to the album again and again, it becomes a part of the experience. As I mentioned before, DSOTM isn't really an album. It's one long song,and Speak to Me just gels in so well. You can start directly with the next track,which is perhaps the first actual song,but it feels so incomplete and abrupt once you get used to listening the entire album at once,which,in my humble opinion,is the only way. The heartbeat sound at the start of the track is quite obviously the very essence of the album. Pink Floyd's obsession with cyclic compositions also seems to have originated here, cos the heartbeat sound is also heard at the end of Eclipse,the closing track of the album,and if you repeat the album, it segues into Speak to Me again,so that the journey is never really finished. This was perhaps a relatively vague indication towards the much clearer use of cyles in The Wall,where there is a much more explicit and clear purpose and meaning to it. That the end of an era is the beginning of another.
The heartbeat sound gives way,well,actually it keeps running the background,as some other weird sounds, similar to cash register type jingle at the start of Money, take over. The spoken words that follow are amazing in the craziest way. Much of these don't make much sense, but that doesn't do much harm to their amazing quotient. These were answers to Waters' question Are you Mad? Almost all the featured answers were given by the road crew and the Abbey Road studio staff.
Spoken Parts:
I've been mad for fucking years, absolutely years, been over the edge for yonks, been working me buns off for bands....
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...
Surprisingly, Nick Mason received sole songwriting credit for this one. To me, the song appears totally Watersque. But if Mason did come up with the idea, kudos to him even though it might appear there wasn't really a song to write. The idea was priceless nonetheless,though Waters has later said that the credit was kind of a gift to Mason. That obviously didn't help band relations, but then Waters never did much to that effect anyway.
The song ends with a chilling scream by Clare Torry,who later provides a much better glimpse of her vocal talents on The Great gig in the sky. Again, once you get used to listening to the album, you can't wait to hear Breathe after the scream. And also, you don't want to listen to Breathe without the scream.
I'm in a bad way from trying to kick the addiction!
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9 comments:
WOW.. that's some heavy analysis of floyd dude.
but i gotta hand it to you.. u're right..
listening to the whole album toegther makes sense.. but listenin to diff songs in bits and pieces makes anyone go "wat the fuck is this?!"
anyway.. BREATHE is one of my all time fav's.
the audio clippings are one thing.. BUT the vague lyrics, which absoluetly make sense, is another thing which attracts me.
awesome entry dude
rock on!
\m/
It's the nature of consept albums, that you'll need to listen them from the beginning to the end. In 'The Wall' it's even more important as most of the songs won't make any sense if you are not familiar with the whole story.
DSOTM has something special. You can never get tired of it and once you've made it to the end there is this odd sensation that you have heard something special.
One thing that I hate with most of the new stuff that comes out is that it's made for just those 4mins that the song lasts. This has a reaction that people won't concentrate for long peaces like this. Music loses some of it's magic and meaning, I mean you just can't put something that would fill the whole album in 4 minutes.
Great entry, pleasure to read.
I must completely agree. Although born in '91 when Pink Floyd were after their peak I love almost every their song. Not listening to the whole album but a single song is a kind of barbarism!
P.S. I'm afraid they'll never reunite, moreover when Rick had passed away.
waters DID in fact write the song, but "gave" it to mason as "a gift". apparently he regrets it now.
I totally disagree. My opinion about this introductory song is that its a brilliant idea - an indispensable part of the album's concept.
Even before we are born, we are exposed to the “pressures of modern life” as our mother is under those same “pressures.”
Read this article for a complete analysis http://users.wpi.edu/~vamend/speaktome.htm
I think the very first song is essencial to this record, particularily because it's about things that people talk about frequently, like money, time, madness, and all the other subjects. The first song makes an introdution to all the songs so that the listner can get the feeling of having heard the songs before when he listen to the actual songs.
Makes sense?
you're absolutely right, to understand pink floyd - one should listen to the whole album again and again, and not pieces by pieces, and yet...you always get different interpretation of the DSOTM, there's no other band like PF !
good review!! and keep blogging!! want to read more about how people interpret Pink Floyd music!!
blogon stooges
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