← Behind The Song: Classic Rock Chronicles
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97.1Fm the drive presents the behind the Song podcast, taking you deeper into classic rock's most timeless tunes. Here's your host, Janda when was the.
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Last time you really listened to Time by Pink Floyd? Really absorbed the lyrics of the song? That question might take you back to the first time you heard the Dark side of the Moon, an album that stands alone in many ways, including the awesome way that this particular album has somehow become a part of us since its release in 1973. We are far past a casual relationship with it, and there's a reason for that. By dealing in a spectacular and yet somehow introspective way with concepts like life, death and greed, as well as the mental illness that took hold of their leader Sid Barrett, Pink Floyd summoned up a collection of songs on this album that chimes with the stuff of human existence on a real level. It's why the Dark side of the Moon is the record holder on the Billboard 200 chart for being the longest charting album in in the chart's history, over a thousand weeks and counting, and why it's one of the best selling albums in the world. It's a behemoth of the rock era, one of the most important releases in the entire genre, and when it comes to time, Track four on side one, we have a song that confronts us with our very path of existence. It traces the whole pattern of life from youth to death and the great beyond in 6 minutes and 53 seconds of pure poetry and amazingly creative creative audio imagery, ticking clocks and all get into it in this episode of the behind the Song podcast. If you like this episode, there's no time like the present to give it a thumbs up and hit. Subscribe and let us know in the comments. What's incredible to believe is that Roger waters was only 28 years old when he wrote the lyrics to Time, which at its essence is a view of life from the middle, looking back and realizing how much time has passed in the blink of an eye and looking forward, imagining what's next. They are the words of a man older than his 20s, but they came at the perfect time for Pink Floyd. The Dark side of the Moon is the band's eighth album after releasing the metal album in 1971 and then Obscured by Clouds in 1972, which was used for the soundtrack to the French film La Vallee about travelers on a spiritual quest, a theme that must have struck a chord with the band members at that time because Pink Floyd were still reeling from the ousting of Syd Barrett in 1968 due to his mental health, but his impact and his presence still loomed large. David Gilmour took over on guitar, and Waters became the creative leader of the band. But they didn't forget Barrett. In fact, Gilmour, Waters, and keyboardist the late Richard Wright all helped produce Barrett's two solo albums after he left Pink Floyd. But by 1972, it was all over. Barrett had retreated from the music industry and was spending his time away from the public, painting and gardening. Much of Pink Floyd's music up to the Dark side of the Moon dealt with more obscure themes lyrically, which Roger Waters set out to correct. With this album, he says he had a realization that he was right in the middle of his life. That moment when you realize that the days aren't quite as long as they used to be and time seems to speed up rather than slow down. The lyrics get right to the point of the uncomfortable idea that life is short. In a band meeting before they got to work on the album, Waters told the rest of them that he wanted to deal with concepts that make people mad, which is to say, the existential anxiety of life. Everything about this album is carefully chosen to have monumental effect, down to the COVID artwork. One of the most recognizable covers of all time, Richard Wright, had requested a simple and bold design for the Dark side of the Moon, and that's exactly what they got. The COVID is a white triangle intercepting a ray of white light, a prism creating a rainbow spectrum, all against a solid black background. It is a truly iconic artwork, put up in poster form on bedroom walls and printed on countless T shirts since this album's release in 1973. The design was created by the late Storm Thorgerson, the artist most closely associated with Pink Floyd, but who also designed so many famous album covers for the likes of Wings, Bad Company, Elo and Tons More. But especially with this particular album cover, Thorgerson's reality bending vision provided an important visual element to the timeline of rock and roll itself. A couple of things to note about the production of Time. First, the clocks. Alan Parsons, engineer at Abbey Road, where the Dark side of the Moon was recorded, had the clocks in the can, so to speak. He had recorded a quadraphonic test for EMI at an antique shop, recording each clock in the store separately on a portable tape machine. He had the shop owner stop all the clocks so that he could record them one at a time for the test. EMI didn't have a reason to release this test, but Parsons had the idea to play it for the members of Pink Floyd for this song when they heard it, it was a no brainer for them to add it to time. The ticking sound you hear after the cacophony of the alarm clock subsides. Tick tock, tick tock. That sound was created by Roger Waters plucking two muted strings on his bass. Just one of the experimental approaches that the band took in making this album, using their instruments in new ways to make this body of work so special. Parsons has said that working with Pink Floyd was arguably the biggest challenge he ever gave himself, and that's saying something, since he was also on hand, of course, at Abbey Road to work with no less than the Beatles. And then there's the use of the rototoms drums by Nick Mason on the song, performed on a set of eight rototoms that give it that big sort of echoing, percussive sound. The use of rototoms was pretty new in 1973. The concept of the rototom, a drum that can change pitch by rotating the drum head, was only conceived a few Years before, in 1968, by Al Payson, a percussionist for the Chicago Symphony. Another interesting thing about Time is that the lead vocals are shared by Richard Wright and David Gilmore, with Gilmore taking the verses and Wright taking the bridges, and the two harmonizing together at times along with the background vocalists. This would be the last time Wright sang lead on any Pink Floyd song until 1994, with the song Wearing the Inside out on the Division Bell album. It all swirls perfectly with Wright's organ in the intro, and then Gilmore's first verse explodes into your ear and the lyrics go like this, ticking away the moments that make up a dull day. You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way. Kicking around on a piece of ground in your hometown. Waiting for someone or something to show you the way. And isn't that what our youth is? We spend the first part of our lives looking for guidance or a path on what to do with the rest of it. An idea supported by the bridge that comes next with the soaring backing vocals of Leslie Duncan, liza strike, Barry St. John and the American R and B singer Doris Troi, who our fans know as the singer of the one and done hit Just One Look. Back in the early 60s, after her one smash hit, the Beatles signed her to Apple Records, which is how she came to be in London and working on this session. Richard Wright takes the lead vocal next, with Gilmour also harmonizing. Tired of lying in the sunshine Staying home to watch the rain. And you are young and life is long and there is time to kill today. And then one day you find 10 years have got behind you. No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun. The idea that when you're young you think you have plenty of time to kill until all of a sudden you realize that time is a thief. As the old saying goes, 10 years got behind you just like that. No time to waste when you realize, like Roger Waters did when he wrote these lyrics, that while you've been waiting, life has been moving fast all along. I would put David Gilmour's guitar solo at this point in the song right up there with one of the best in any rock song, perfectly matching the tone of the lyrics with where he takes the notes on this journey through an existential question. It is totally awesome. And then we hear Gilmour's almost desperate sounding lead vocal on the second verse after the solo that really confronts the hard part of time. That time is slipping past us all, every second of every day, he sings. And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking, racing around to come up behind you again. The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older, shorter of breath and one day closer to death. It may well be the most we'll ever be confronted with the idea in a rock song that we are all on a somewhat futile race here, that we in our short lifetimes are small pieces of a much larger picture. And that no matter how much we try, we will never outrun the rising and the setting of the sun, which will go on as it has for eons before us and after us, but yet run we must and do every day. It's this idea that makes people cry when they hear time, as Roger Waters wife did the first time she heard it. Richard Wright takes the next bridge, the part of the song that deals with nearing the end of one's allotted time with that sun chasing race nearly over. He sings Every year is getting shorter, Never seem to find the time. Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way. The time is gone, the song is over. Thought I'd something more to say. We've gone on the entire arc of life here from fancy free youth to grabbing destiny's wheel to acknowledging the regret of things left undone. We will always have more to say and so little time to say it. The album version of Time then includes a reprise of Breathe and David Gilmore takes the lead vocal on the last lines of the song, lines that paint a picture of what the great beyond might look and feel like out there, beyond the setting sun at the end of time. Home, home again. I like to be here when I can. When I come home cold and tired, it's good to warm my bones beside the fire. Far away across the field the tolling of the iron bell calls the faithful to their knees to hear the softly spoken magic spells, the finality of the iron bell ringing signaling the inevitable arrival of the end date that we all reach sooner or later. An ancient cycle that seems to lead to another dimension crossed over after the bell tolls to a magical place where something even more ancient than time itself awaits. It's humbling to really listen to time, and because this album is a masterpiece, I don't believe it's a mistake that the next track, Great Gig in the sky, seems to seamlessly carry through with how time ends and get on with the question of what's next in the afterlife. I think that in context, it's even more fitting that there are no lyrics in the instrumental Great Gig in the sky, just improvised vocal sounds made up on the spot and sung by session singer Claire Torrey, who was recommended for the job by Alan Parsons and who was only 25 when she sang it. Standing at a microphone at Abbey Road makes my hair stand up. Roughly one in every 12 people is estimated to have a copy of the Dark side of the Moon. This is probably a good time to give the whole thing another listen. It's a true masterwork by a band at their creative peak, with songs that deal directly with the human condition in an enormously innovative way. Truly a concept album for all time. I'm Janda and this has been behind the song. If you like this episode, give it a like and subscribe to the channel and check it out on TikTok too. Special thanks as always to Christian Lane for the music you hear on these podcast episodes. You can find me on the air at 97.1fm the drive in Chicago and at wdrv.com on the way. Much more classic rock and roll.