More than Music

Sound Bite

The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd is one of the most enduring record albums of all time. Admired for their unique sound and philosophical lyrics, Pink Floyd tapped into humanity's deep roots in philosophy, psychology, religion, mythology, literature, and history. Their monumental 1973 album continues to appeal to people after fifty years. This book explains how the album evokes, and resonates with, cultural chords in all of us, evoking our deep passions, fears and dreams, resonating with cultural chords across generations.

About the Book

More Than Music is a rigorous examination of one of the most enduring records of all time, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. Analyzing the album from many different avenues, the book provides clear correlations of the music and lyrics to many aspects of human culture, from ancient times to the present. Each song is examined line by line to show how the album evokes and ties together themes from myriad philosophical, mythological, psychological, religious, historical, literary, and other cultural sources. The book shows how William James and Carl Jung, Ecclesiastes and Kierkegaard, D.H. Lawrence and T.S. Eliot, Horace and Orwell, Jesus and Buddha, Beethoven and Strauss, William Blake and Jean-Paul Sartre, The Beatles and Gilbert and Sullivan resonate throughout The Dark Side of the Moon. They are among the most powerful sources of who we are and why. Coming to see how the album knits together so many diverse elements into a seamless whole, the interplay of many factors that make up society is illuminated. This book will give readers a new way of looking at how the factors of philosophy, religion, psychology, mythology, literature and poetry, history and politics derive meaning and depth from each other. Readers will never listen to The Dark Side of the Moon the same way, but they’ll never look at the underlying factors the same way again, either.

Introduction

Jimi Hendrix was dead and the Summer of Love was gone. North Vietnam burned beneath American carpet bombing. Man’s giant steps on the moon were growing old. Timothy Leary was already outside, looking in. Richard Nixon was moving from a landslide victory toward a historic disgrace. Charlie Manson got a new home in San Quentin. Bangladesh was starving. The drugs were the best, the music was loud, the Grateful Dead were touring Europe.Into the tumult of the early 1970's, Pink Floyd released their eighth studio album, The Dark Side of the Moon.The Rock RenaissanceOn March 1, 2023, The Dark Side of the Moon will be fifty years old. The Dark Side of the Moon still sells hundreds of copies even now. Being a staple of Classic Rock stations everywhere, you can hear songs from it almost every day, and maybe you can sing along because you have heard the words for years. You find Pink Floyd cover bands selling out in many cities, month after month. You see Pink Floyd prism t-shirts on school kids, their parents, and their grandparents. What explains the continued fascination of The Dark Side of the Moon ? Why does it appeal to people who were not around in the Seventies? Why does it appeal to people whose parents weren’t around in the Seventies?

Table content

3 The Rock Renaissance 3Why You Listen to The Dark Side of the Moon 4Side One 5Band One: Speak to Me 5Hearing From the Collective Unconscious 7The Voice of the Trickster 10Many Songs, One Album 12Band Two: Breathe 17Kierkegaard and Finality, Updike and Fecklessness 18Camus, Sartre, and Laboring 20Blake as Visionary, Lawrence as Witness 21 Moving Images 23Wave Riding and WaveBand Three: On The Run 31Band Four: Time 33Illusions of Time and Consciousness 35Band Five: Breathe Reprise 47Band Six: The Great Gig in the Sky 55Side Two 60Band Seven: Money 61 Band Nine: Any Colour You Like 79Band Ten: Brain Damage 81Band Eleven: Eclipse 93