Ravinia 2023 Issue 5

“ It was probably the most focused moment in our career, all of us working together as a band. ” writing techniques and revisiting previous musical detours they’d never fully realized. For instance, Pink Floyd had made several avant-garde soundtracks in the late ’60s and early ’70s with trendy foreign filmmakers like French New Waver Barbet Schro- eder and Michelangelo Antonioni. The music for Schroeder’s film, La Vallée , was eventually released as Floyd’s 1972 album Obscured by Clouds and contained emerging musical intervals that would find their way onto the upcoming album. Similarly, a quiet, somber, instrumen- tal piano piece written by Wright for a sequence in Antonioni’s 1970 coun- terculture-themed Zabriskie Point was unearthed and expanded to be the basis for “Us and Them,” the evocative centerpiece of Dark Side . “It’s amazing, now, to think we had that piece of music recorded in 1969 for the film and we didn’t dig it out and use it. It’s a lovely piece of music. It was obviously waiting to be reborn for this album,” Gilmour asserted. Additionally, experimental incar- nations of the album’s final, tragic truth declaration, “Eclipse,” originat- ed on the road while the band was touring extensively. “On the Run” was also first performed onstage, but later completely revamped into a tense, futuristic, sequenced instrumental in the studio. A testament to the impressive execution and cohesion of the album is how it seamlessly segues from one song to another. Oftentimes each song is intricately woven together with sound effects. For example, Dark Side listeners still are regularly jolted by the chiming cacophony of clocks that opens “Time” or drawn to the sharp sound of dropping coins and chugging cash registers that introduce “Money.” Further proof of this effortless flow is how easy it is to forget the titles of many of the individual songs or de- termine when each truly begins—one happily realizes it’s a unique listening experience meant to be one continu- ous piece of music, titles and begin- nings be damned. The album, recorded for the most part at the famed EMI Studios (now called Abbey Road Studios) in Lon- don, also ascends with key contri- butions from engineer Alan Parsons (who, at 18, worked on The Beatles’ Let It Be and, later, Abbey Road ), mix supervisor Chris Thomas (who went on to produce The Sex Pistols, Roxy Music, The Pretenders, and Elton John), several Floyd crew and studio employees who added their voices and maniacal laughs throughout the album, saxophonist Dick Parry, vo- calist Clare Torry, and gospel-tinged backing singers Lesley Duncan, Doris Troy, Liza Strike, and Barry St. John. Torry kills it with a wailing, desperate, groaning vocal that fuels Wright’s plaintive piano passages on “The Great Gig in the Sky.” Her instinctive, improvised vocal histrion- ics elevate Wright’s tasty, jazz-infused movement to triumphant, heavenly heights, mirroring the song’s reference to death and the afterlife. “The band did not want me to sing words. I real- ized I had to use my voice as if it were an instrument,” Torry recalled. Parry’s perfect, sporadic saxophone solo adds frenetic frenzy to “Mon- ey” before Gilmour’s raging guitar explodes into a memorable classic rock jam, also languidly accenting the otherworldly drones and echoes of “Us And Them.” DARK SIDE also may boast the most recognizable album cover of all time. The iconic image of a glass prism taking in a single beam of white light and refracting it out as a spectrum of color—all set against a stark, black background—adds instant drama and mystery to the entire experience. Designer StormThorgerson ex- plained how the alluring image was created: “The prism design comes from three basic ingredients. One was the band’s light show. Another was a theme of the lyrics, which were ambition and greed, symbolized by the pyramid. And third was an answer to Rick Wright, who said he wanted something simple and bold.” Thorgerson brought 10 different cover images to the band for consider- ation, and each member immediately pointed to the prism design and said, “That’s the one.” English design firm Hipgnosis, D which worked on previous Floyd albums and went on to design noted album packages for Led Zeppelin, Genesis, Peter Gabriel, AC/DC, ELO, Styx, and many others, fashioned the similarly dramatic inner gatefold image featuring the wave tracings of a heartbeat rhythm—perhaps a subtle Syd Barrett reference?—which is faintly heard at the beginning of the album and as its last sound. For the first time, Waters’s lyrics were included with the album, reinforcing the band’s new course. Though he left five years before, Barrett’s presence permeates Dark Side . The bluesy, “Brain Damage” al- ludes to Barrett’s ravaged mental state, and it ends with a nod to Barrett by proclaiming, “And if the band you’re in starts playing different tunes / I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon.” The Dark Side of the Moon com- bines foreboding lyrical content with uplifting, ethereal musical accompa- niment that engages, hypnotizes, and stimulates. It’s brash and charismatic; much like Waters himself, a polarizing figure personally, but musically one who never fails to strike a chord and demand attention. “It’s driven by emo- tion. There’s nothing plastic. Nothing contrived. That’s what’s given it its longevity,” Waters has remarked about Dark Side . Gilmour added a more whimsical assessment: “I would have loved to be sat at home with headphones, hearing it for first time. I never had that expe- rience. It would have been nice.” James Turano is a freelance writer and a former entertainment editor, feature writer, and columnist for national and local magazines and newspapers. He has written official programs for eight Elton John tours since 2003 and is also a Chicago radio personality and host on WGN 720AM. RAVINIA.ORG • RAVINIA MAGAZINE 81