Pink Floyd’s ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ is one of the greatest albums (and my favorite) of all time. Cliché choice aside, I wanted to put in writing what it means to me.

Today I turn thirty (🎂). To celebrate, I will walk you through an album that I always come back to give a listen year after year. It’s my favorite piece of music, and this is my interpretation of it.

If you have not yet listened to it, I urge you to do so before reading! You can only listen to it for the first time once, so get comfortable, turn down the lights, put on a good pair of headphones, and focus all your attention on the sound… let it carry you… (YouTube or Spotify)

Now, back to the interpretation. While I hope it overlaps with the original intent, this is my own take on it; I like to appreciate art in isolation. I won’t mention the inspiration from the artists’ phobias, or the mental decline of their former bandmember¹. This will focus mostly on the lyrics, I won’t comment on the melody itself, which is something you must feel, but I will point out some motifs when they are relevant to the plot.

Without further ado…

Speak to Me #

The beginning of the album is a silent song that slowly fades into life. A faint heartbeat represents you in the womb. In the background, more motifs appear: ticking, mad ramblings and laughs, cash registers, helicopter engines, culminating in a scream that transitions into the next song.

All these are hints about later parts in the album that together with the smooth transition between tracks, give the illusion of one single contiguous song, much like life itself.

If it’s not the first time you listen, and you know the relation these soundbites have, you can view it as life predicting what is destined for you later; or as a sort of reincarnation, having flashes of your previous life (album listen) before you begin anew.

Breathe (In the Air) #

Your mother screams as you are given birth and everything turns to calm.

Breathe, breathe in the air.
Don’t be afraid to care.

As a newborn, your first instruction is to start breathing. Your parent welcomes you in the world, and wishes you to become a good person: Don’t be afraid to care is prompting you to not refrain from your feelings and humanity, to accept the emotion that comes naturally, despite external factors that might try to inhibit them.

Leave, but don’t leave me.
Look around, choose your own ground.

As you grow up, there will come a time when you will have to leave your parents house and make a home for yourself. It is expected and encouraged for you to make your own decisions and choose where and how you will live that life, but are asked that your physical absence is not paired with abandonment; go be independent, but remember your parents, and keep in touch.

Long you live and high you fly,
Smiles you’ll give and tears you’ll cry.

As a child, you are always kept in whimsy with promises of a fulfilling future: your life is long, the sky’s the limit. It invites optimism, while also acknowledging the sadness between them as a simple fact of life: it’s about the up and down.

And all you touch and all you see
Is all your life will ever be.

More wisdom is imparted, but you are too young to fully understand. In the grand scheme of things, life is unimportant, described as merely the sum of your senses. This incentivizes you be curious and seek out, since if you don’t, your life won’t be that exciting, or worse; what you will see will be projected by others, like in Plato’s cave².

Run, rabbit, run!
Dig that hole, forget the sun.

You are growing up, and need to learn to fend for yourself. Not fully mature, you are still a gentle, innocent creature, always under threat, represented by the bunny rabbit. The world is dangerous and uncaring. Forget about lying in the sunshine, your priority must be obtaining a means to sustain yourself.

When at last the work is done,
Don’t sit down, it’s time to dig another one.

One shortly realizes the work is never truly over. You finished middle school, don’t sit down, it’s time for high school, then university, then a job, or two, or three. Work is followed by more work; you are never really expected to stop. There is always one more hole that needs digging. I also like the use of it’s time, which is a subject touched on later.

Long you live and high you fly,
But only if you ride the tide.
Balanced on the biggest wave,
You race towards an early grave.

The message is repeated, this time with more honesty, since you are a bit older. Yes, your life has potential, but there are strings attached, instructions you seemingly must follow, even if you don’t fully understand them yet.

The veil of illusion is pulled further back. You weren’t meant to fly at all, just to ride the wave, the status quo. If you don’t hop on now you lose the opportunity to mount it, so you try to balance yourself, learn as you go. Everyone else was taught to do just the same, it becomes a rat-race of opportunity: who can reach the greatest height?

Once you are on the wave, you are part of the system, and you must actively work to keep yourself afloat. You are traveling quickly, but the destination is death and comes early either way. Even if you are not killed by your own recklessness, spending most of your life balancing on the wave means you aren’t left with enough time to actually live it, and death may seem too soon.

On the Run #

You are no longer coddled by a parental figure, you are now in the middle of early life, navigating through it on your own. The soundscape hints at an airport, a loud, crowded, anxiety-inducing place where you always rush.

Heart racing and beating with adrenaline, an eerie sound keeps you alert as you quickly pace between terminals. This unease and fear of the unknown describes a certain alienation, when you feel like you don’t belong.

Machinery takes you through the air, you hear maddening laughter, as if something is not right, followed by a crash, and silence. Even so, your feet don’t stop running, like the rabbit that needs to keep on going.

Time #

The stress you experienced feels like a nightmare quietly subsiding, abruptly interrupted by an orchestra of bells and alarm clocks. Your heart beats along with the metronome. It’s time you tackled… time.

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day,
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.

The brief moments of respite in your life are often the ones you find yourself introspecting in. Sometimes life just seems… boring. Rather than try to make it interesting, you choose to waste the time, wait for it to pass, procrastinate.

Kicking around on a piece of ground in your hometown,
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.

It’s not that the boredom is intentional, you came across it because you didn’t find a true purpose. What was all that running before building up towards? Sure, you have a life outside of this, hobbies, friends; but can’t really picture a clear goal to strive towards. A meaning to life. Do others have it? You wait, wandering aimlessly, hoping that if you are just patient, the answer will seek you instead.

Tired of lying in the sunshine, staying home to watch the rain.

After a while of getting no answer, you get tired of trying. Even if it’s a nice day out, where you could go and wander more (and maybe the answer might present itself), you are instead demoralized, preferring to isolate yourself to sulk and lament as consolation. There is beauty in the rain also. You’re like a poet dramatically staring out the window.

And you are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.

You have been told all your youth about how long life is, that there is always time, so you rationalize your waste of it. Working causes stress, a lack of purpose causes depression. In an attempt to not burn out and head towards that early grave, you conclude it’s wise to cut yourself some slack and relax for once, stop overthinking.

And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.

Oblivious to the fact, overindulgence in escapism takes over you and becomes habitual. Eventually, the same introspection that initiated your hunger for meaning leads you to another more menacing thought. You realize that your frivolous use of time, while allowing you to endure the weight of life, also hindered your progress through it, at least according to your expectations.

You suddenly feel like even if so much time has passed, your life has not moved by much. Comparing yourself with others (or your own ideals), you feel inferior. They might have more successful careers, more meaningful relationships, something that gives them the purpose and satisfaction you still lack.

It feels as if no one told you when to run, even though you literally were warned about it in your early life. Even so, you ignored the signs. The starting gun further cements the idea of the rat race. A musical interlude gives you time to process that realization.

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 results in a midlife crisis, and you feel the sudden urge to immediately fix your life. You’re on the run again, because you decided to catch up with where you think your place in the world ought to be. Being behind, you’re no longer just in a rat-race. Aware of your own mortality, it has also turned into a race against time.

Despite your sudden efforts, you soon realize you cannot outcompete it. The sun makes laps around you, day by day, almost taunting you; a nod to the indifference the world seems to have against you. The longer the race goes on for, the more tired you get, the more frail you become, and the harder you feel it is to continue trying.

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to naught, or half a page of scribbled lines.

The perception of time becomes shorter when you’re older, due to your minds’ relativistic perspective³. Even though you just reflected on how much precious time you’re wasting, you somehow still don’t find it in you to do stuff.

It’s not that you literally have no free time, but you no longer have the drive and energy to fill it. Your abandoned plans disappointingly hitting dead ends; ideas left as unfinished drafts instead of ever catching shape. Staying home to watch the rain has become a bigger part of you now.

Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way.

You’ve all but resigned from the race against the sun, again consumed by philosophic thoughts. Still striving for meaning, unsatisfied, it feels like you have a problem, you might even acknowledge it, but you don’t feel like seeking help about it anymore. Wanting for meaning sent you searching, searching left you depressed, fighting regret made you tired, so now your goal is simply to hang on, stoically.

Although in a sense, you no longer find yourself alone in this. You understand others also faced the same conundrums, and some ended in the same rut as you. A lot of English humor is centered around the self-deprecating, defeatist outlook on life. It’s an unhelpful, but comforting thought.

The time is gone, the song is over.
Thought I’ve something more to say…

In the end you are still without a purpose, but the problem of mortality persists. Without an answer to life, it can be summed up as “You live, then you die, and that’s it”. The lack of a satisfying conclusion feels disappointing.

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.

You are back home, and somehow even you, the listener, should find it familiar, because it is the same melody from “Breathe”. You spent quite a while being stressed, so again, you turn to relaxation to medicate yourself. This time however, you’re slightly more content. It does feel nice to have a home, a place to feel safe and forget about the world and its problems, philosophical or otherwise.

The time you were worried of wasting turns out to be the one thing comforting you; thus learning to accept the passage of time, but also enjoy the present before it does.

“Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.⁴”

Far away, across the field,
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spells.

Others have never went through what you did. They had religion in their lives, so answers were instilled on them. No introspection, no lack of purpose, and no doubt about the meaning of life; they were happy through the charms of the cult. An answer that is lost on the ears of the disillusioned.

Ironically though, this song is a softly spoken magic spell to you, the listener, who are currently meditating, searching for meaning through its expression.

The Great Gig in the Sky #

Following the philosophical realizations, you are still left without complete answers. This song puts in emotions what the previous failed to put in words.

The subject of death is quickly touched upon and dismissed in the background chatter. With the passage of time, the ending of life comes naturally, and you will witness death around you: the tears you’ll cry.

The musical screaming follows the stages of grief, starting out as a potent denial and anger towards absurdity, but ending in faint, tired, resigned acceptance, similar to when you stopped racing the sun.

Money #

Money! Get away…
You get a good job with more pay, and you’re okay.

While some grieve their problems, others would go to any extent to avoid them. For those who can afford it, money is the best form of escapism; it literally gets you away from your problems. When you don’t find meaning in life it’s easy to give in to the material.

Any shortcomings can be circumvented by having more money. Your only purpose is to get a job with more pay. Mind you, it doesn’t matter what the job is, they’re all meaningless; all you care for is the salary.

Money! It’s a gas…
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash.

Money is not something easy to come by, it escapes your grasp like a gas. It’s also toxic to inhale; it corrupts you, filling your mind with lust. It becomes your only focus, no half measures, greedily using both hands. I always image those money booths⁵ here.

New car, caviar, four-star daydream
Think I’ll buy me a football team!

As you get richer, the perceived worth of your money diminishes. You have nothing better to do with them, so you give into more and more frivolous consumerism. Through no ideas of your own, you adopt the stereotypical image of the rich elite you had before coming into wealth. Not quite there yet, but you dream big!

Money! Get back…
I’m alright, Jack, keep your hands off of my stack!

With an obsession to hoard comes an unwillingness to share, becoming greedy and overprotective of your wealth even if you spend it without care. The “commonfolk” should not ask for or expect help from you, this is your wave.

Money! It’s a hit…
Don’t give me that do goody good bullshit!

As someone who made off with lots of money, you recognize the evil that was required of you. Empathy and altruism are dismissed altogether, deemed poor men’s qualities. To you there’s no point in giving back the money you spent your humanity obtaining. Those who still believe in money as a means to bring about good come across as naive and preachy.

I’m in the high-fidelity first-class traveling set
And I think I need a Lear jet.

Your status further elevates you from the rank of ordinary men. Seeking preferential treatment, you distance yourself from society. Earlier, noises of traveling and airplanes were stand-ins for stress and anxiety, now gone thanks to luxury and overindulgence. A funky interlude lets you bask in the lavish lifestyle…

Money! It’s a crime…
Share it fairly, but don’t take a slice of my pie!
Money! So they say…
Is the root of all evil today.

You admit to money being a crime (of the “against humanity” variety) because of the way it is implemented, allowing such a huge imbalance. As a boss, you take a huge cut of the profits, and distribute the scraps to those below; as a wealthy citizen, you expect funds to be fairly distributed to public services, but are unwilling to raise your taxes.

The ask is “don’t take”, because you already know giving is not an option. You acknowledge money is used for and associated with evil, but you dismiss it as a funny anecdote. That’s their problem, the system no longer holds you back, you became its beneficiary. Good or bad, it works, so no point in discussing goody good bullshit. At least you’re self-aware.

But if you ask for a rise
It’s no surprise that they’re giving none away…
Away… Away… Away…
Away… Away… Away…

The rich like the preferential treatment and the power they have compared to the average person. Willingly helping others reach that status would only dilute their own worth. Restating that sharing is not an option, it makes it clear to anyone who would attempt to better their financial condition through honest work to stop being hopeful. That kind of wealth may only be achieved through corruption.

Us and Them #

The mania of luxury fades, the party subsides in the distance, and you are driven to a sad tune. This transition hints you’re about to see the ugly truth behind the flashy curtain, the true cost of greed and source of your lifestyle.

Us and them.
And after all, we’re only ordinary men.

You gain a new perspective, again amongst the commonfolk, and them being the rich we faded from. They hold the power, and there’s not much say you have in it.

The song is about conflict, the “us versus them” mentality, the tribalism that attempts to justify a pointless fight. Actually, them carries another meaning: the opposing side, also only ordinary men, also against their will.

Me and you
God only knows it’s not what we would choose to do.

If it was up to “everybody”, this would not be a thing. Nobody wants to fight for others, to kill innocents, or risk their lives in a war. But the choice is not up to “anyone”, as you are all unwilling participants in the system.

“Forward”, he cried from the rear
And the front rank died.
The general sat and the lines on the map
Moved from side to side.

The choice is up to the “leaders”, who unlike their historical counterparts, do not put themselves at the forefront of battle anymore. Decisions are made from safety and with no self-consequence, while actual lives get reduced to cannon fodder.

The orchestrators of war work in the abstract. To them, human lives are a number, a resource. They are spent in battle to shift the border, some lines on the map, only for a later enemy push to undo the progress previous platoons gave their lives to make. Moving from side to side proves the pointlessness of it all.

Black and blue…
And who knows which is which
And who is who?…

Fighting leaves many bruises, commonly described as black and blue, although their texture is rather intricate. The two colors are similar, and looking at a bruise, it’s hard to definitively say if a particular spot is closer to one or the other. Similarly, in the heat of a chaotic battle, it’s hard to separate friend and foe. On top of the already senseless loss, we must also add friendly fire.

Up and down…
And in the end,
It’s only round and round, and round…

Life is a series of ups and downs, the smiles and tears. War and conflict is sold as the downside, but often justified by the promise of creating a better tomorrow after salvaging what remains. In reality, this never holds, history repeats itself, humanity keeps going round and round in a circle. If you take a step back, you can see the full picture: up and down was just a sine wave tracing that circle⁶.

“Haven’t you heard it’s a battle of words?”
The poster bearer cried.
“Listen, son.” said the man with the gun,
“There’s room for you inside.”

Back home, people are protesting, urging that the answer is democracy and diplomacy, not bloodshed. Authority responds, warning the dissidents. The man with the gun might not want to, but it’s his role in the system to keep you in line: either you willingly join the system, or feel the force of an authoritarian answer to criticism. He pleads to you: Listen son, don’t make me do it.

Down and out
It can’t be helped
But there’s a lot of it about.

The soldiers are downed on the battlefield, and out of the world. The people back home are impoverished, down on their luck, and out on the street. You see it all around you and you don’t think of any way it will change.

With… Without…
And who’ll deny
It’s what the fighting’s all about?

At a geopolitical scale, you fight for land, natural resources, and trade routes; either because you want and don’t have, or others have, and you don’t want. The same applies to all conflict, even in our ordinary lives. Our entire society is constructed around who has and who doesn’t. Greed always breeds more conflict.

Out of the way!
It’s a busy day,
I’ve got things on my mind.
For want of the price
Of tea and a slice,
The old man died.

I have two interpretations for this stanza. The first is the return of the materialistic, uncharitable you from the previous song dismissing a homeless person. We are sometimes so preoccupied by the rat-race, thinking about us, that we don’t even consider them. Despite a modest ask for cheap food and drink, they starve to death, because they won’t get a slice of your pie.

The second is about the blissful ignorance and dissociation of everyday life compared to the harsh reality. You are out of the way of conflict, a relatively “average” person with a normal life in a developed country. The wars are out of sight and out of mind, and you take much for granted. You can stretch want of the price to mean wanting it to have a price, to be for sale, to become a commodity. Buying tea seems trivial today, but tea and war share some history⁷. The old man represents both sides: the fathers losing their lives in battle over the privilege of luxury goods, and the ones who fell defending their invaded homes.

Either way, the message is clear: there is too much divide between people, and not enough willingness to overcome it.

Any Colour You Like #

The last instrumental section, and the most psychedelic of the bunch. This interlude is about perspective, choice (or illusion thereof), and addresses the album art.

Every mind is unique, and looking through the right lens, you can get to any conclusion you want, similar to how the prism is able to deconstruct the plain white beam into every color of the visible spectrum. Picking any colour you like basically tells you that you are free to form any opinion, and choose any interpretation. It’s up to you how you perceive art.

It’s also beautifully paired with the music, which has lots of layers fading, overlapping, taking over one another. As if by synesthesia, you also pick any sound you like to focus on.

Brain Damage #

The lunatic is on the grass,
The lunatic is on the grass.
Remembering games and daisy chains and laughs…
Got to keep the loonies on the path.

This song is the only one to feature verses repeated back to back, perhaps deliberately, because it sounds like a crazy person muttering to themselves as they rock back and forth.

Your life in modern society has disconnected you from nature so much that touching grass triggers distant memories, or perhaps your childhood was the last time you felt carefree, and you dissociate in nostalgia to cope. It perhaps also is a slight jab at society’s stigma around recreational substances.

The system doesn’t like unpredictability, you are expected to follow the “right” path in life: don’t wander off on the grass, keep to the beaten road. Society feels it is its duty to keep us all on the same trajectory as everyone else.

The lunatic is in the hall.
The lunatics are in my hall.
The paper holds their folded faces to the floor,
And every day, the paperboy brings more.

The media obsesses over outliers from the status quo; some news is about real lunatics, others are vilified to suit an agenda. The system sensationalizes, fearmongers, and spreads propaganda in an intrusive manner. Even in your own home, you do not have privacy, are not spared by the news cycle. Being bombarded with insanity on a daily basis is enough to make you lose yours in time.

And if the dam breaks open many years to soon,
And if there is no room upon the hill,
And if your head explodes with dark forebodings too,
I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon.

Your mind was never designed to carry all the weight of the world. It piles on, until the dam can no longer hold the water. If you feel like going crazy because you predict only misery, I reassure you that you’re not alone in this. I have these thoughts too, and even though we did not meet or speak, we share a connection. All humans look up to see the same moon, but its back is effectively hidden; a safe place to meet, a construct to alleviate the loneliness of madness and the nothingness of death.

The lunatic is in my head.
The lunatic is in my head.

It is now a bit more obvious why the meeting place: you’re a lunatic → lunar → moon. Acknowledging the problem, nonetheless you still try to separate yourself from it. It is in your head, but you are something different entirely, and feel its presence, hear its deluded laughter.

You raise the blade,
You make the change,
You rearrange me ’til I’m sane.
You lock the door,
And throw away the key.
There’s someone in my head,
But it’s not me.

This outlines the problematic treatment of mental illness. Science does not fully understand how the mind works, so it cannot really cure you. All it can do is try to keep you on the path, to make it seem like you are not crazy from the outside.

Through invasive surgery like a lobotomy, or chemically bombarding your brain, it stops symptoms from showing, but doesn’t remove the qualia of your own subjective experience. You are still crazy, just cannot express it, trapped inside your own mind.

And if the cloud bursts thunder in your ear,
You shout and no one seems to hear.
And if the band you’re in starts playing different tunes
I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon.

The stormy cloud above your head has charged enough and is now violently bursting. No longer in a quiet desperation, you shout, but to the same effect. Those around you ignore you; they may have heard, but might as well not have judging from their lack of care. You feel disenfranchised, no longer identifying with the group you once belonged in. And that’s okay, I feel that too. Again, you are not alone, I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon.

Eclipse #

All that you touch
And all that you see,
All that you taste,
All you feel,
And all that you love
And all that you hate,
All you distrust,
All you save,
And all that you give
And all that you deal
And all that you buy
Beg, borrow, or steal,
And all you create
And all you destroy
And all that you do
And all that you say
And all that you eat
And everyone you meet
And all that you slight
And everyone you fight

In the beginning you were told that all you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be. Now, as you are approaching the end, it gets re-emphasized, your entire life flashing before your eyes in the final moments before your death⁸. Both the good and bad treated equally, taken together, as in the end their sum is you, and your impact on the world.

And all that is now
And all that is gone
And all that’s to come
And everything under the sun is in tune,
But the sun is eclipsed by the moon…

Regardless of your place in it, or what you chose to do, the totality of the human experience is neatly harmonized. Everything finally pieced together, seeming to make sense, finally you got your answer, but it is too late… You are unable to see any more of humanity’s light, it gets covered up, and you start to sink in eternal darkness.

There is no dark side of the moon, really. Matter of fact, it’s all dark.

In proper British fashion, it immediately undermines its own symbolism with great cynicism. Indeed, a dark side of the moon implies the moon has a light side, but it doesn’t, at least it is not of the moon. All the light you see is reflected from the sun. You can take it to mean that you should see the good in the bad, or that you shouldn’t bother at all, since thinking of it only leads to darkness.

Silence sets in, and the album ends like it began, just as symmetrical as life, with a faint heartbeat. It stops… You died.

Conclusion #

To me, this is a perfect album, and sums up the ideal aspects of my tastes in music. It manages to evoke emotion and deliver a powerful message to ponder on while enjoying an amazing auditory experience.

As much as I love it, it’s a bittersweet realization that this album is almost twice as old as me now, and it’s not looking like it’s going to be beat, especially not with where the industry is headed. I appreciate having had the opportunity to experience it.

🎶 Mother, do you think they’ll like the blog?…