I, too, had listened to Pink Floyd as a child, but with the indifference and ignorance that plagues today's youth, I hadn't gone any further.
I remember that autumn evening from my window, you could see the sun setting and the air was crisp: I decided in complete tranquility to lay down for an hour and relax in the company of music, and so far, everything was still normal; I was completely unaware that I was about to embark on a unique journey, perhaps never even dreamed of, which would open my eyes to the music (and not only) that matters.
Oh yes, because the first time you listen to “The Dark Side Of The Moon” you never forget, the mark it leaves is indelible, like the lingering echoes of a trip that presents visions even long afterward, so that “Ticking away…” can still engulf you with prisms and beams of light even after the millionth listen.
But, back in my room, the choice of CD was completely random: perhaps it was that cover with the triangle on a black background that magnetically took hold of me. Anyway, I inserted that disc, and since then... well, I can definitely say that since then my life has changed.
I was reborn like a phoenix and took flight.
I had just entered the “Pink Floyd” system, or rather, I had been captured by it.
I listened to the CD three times in a row, lyrics in hand, and from there, I would listen to it every day for I don't know how many months, meanwhile striving to obtain the entire discography to try to understand who Pink Floyd really were, these “evanescent embryos of cosmic fires to come, chromatic arabesques for the fresco of the universal sabbath,” as the well-known music historian Scaruffi calls them.

In hindsight, I have understood that with this album the artistic maturity of Pink Floyd had been realized, achieving a very fine polish of their sound, thanks also to the young but highly skilled sound engineer Alan Parsons, who had also worked with the Beatles on “Abbey Road” in '69.
“The Dark Side Of The Moon” was released by EMI on February 24, 1973. The creative mind of Roger Waters knows no bounds, and the realization of this apocalyptic concept album is largely due to him (it's hard for me to admit this as a “Gilmourian”).
The common thread is recognizable from the song titles: voice, breath, the race against time, music, money, illness, the end—the human life's path, made of fears and madness.
The velvety sound mantle that envelops the nine tracks is something alluring, also thanks to the sound effects inserted with surgical mastery, as is evident from the start of the album with the opening ballad “Speak to Me-Breathe in the Air”.
Mason’s gallop in “On the Run” introduces the most beautiful moments of the record: first, the bells of “Time” burst in to anticipate Gilmour’s resolute singing and overwhelming solo that can leave one breathless, then the sonic backdrop woven by Richard Wright accompanies Clare Torry’s superb vocal flight in “The Great Gig in the Sky”, inevitably recalling Gilmour’s dreamlike cry at the end of “A Saucerful of Secrets”.
Next comes the Waters-influenced “Money”, noteworthy if only for the most famous bass line in rock and for the riveting sax intervention by Dick Parry, although the piece, composed by Waters in just one day, suffers from repetitiveness and overall is the least successful on the album.
“Us and Them” and the apt continuation “Any Color You Like” instead highlight Wright’s perfect compositional balance, finding their place in a bidimensional space-time context, inseparable from the paranoia pervading them.
“Brain Damage”, loaded with references to Barrett, is instead proof of how a piece that repeats the same tempo can be (at the same time) touching, if of Floydian brand.
The concluding “Eclipse” appears as an outburst, hitting us in the face with the fleetingness of real moments and the substrate of difficulties to which our life is anchored, all pessimistically accentuated by the final comment: “There is no dark side of the moon, really; matter of fact, it’s all dark”; finally, the heartbeat, reconnecting to the initial track as in any respectable concept.

Summing up, “The Dark Side Of The Moon” is not the best album in the Pink Floyd discography, yet certainly the most compact and refined, to the point of redefining the artistic concept of “aesthetics.” Essential stages for the final definition of such an unmistakable sound were the previous albums “Ummagumma” and “Atom Heart Mother”, predominant demonstrations of inventiveness more than innovation, fruits of a truly well-cohesive band’s creativity, which provided appropriate bases for creating an album of such completeness.
At the beginning of the third millennium, “The Dark Side Of The Moon” enjoys astounding freshness and relevance, even though its release dates back 33 years, and it has all the credentials to be considered the greatest rock masterpiece, even if to call this album rock would be reductive, for with the innovations it brought to classical music, the futuristic visions contained within, the utterly perfect collage of music-sound effects-lyrics, for being a source of inspiration for an innumerable quantity of artists and, if you will, for the immense number of copies sold, it inevitably places itself among the major works of 20th-century art.


Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos

01   Speak to Me (01:08)

''{spoken} 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...very hard to explain why you're mad, even if you're not mad...

{the rest of this song is an instrumental}''

02   Breathe (02:48)

Breathe, breathe in the air.
Don't be afraid to care.
Leave but don't leave me.
Look around and choose your own ground.

Long you live and high you fly
And smiles you'll give and tears you'll cry
And all you touch and all you see
Is all your life will ever be.

Run, rabbit run.
Dig that hole, forget the sun,
And when at last the work is done
Don't sit down it's time to dig another one.

For long you live and high you fly
But only if you ride the tide
And balanced on the biggest wave
You race towards an early grave.

03   On the Run (03:50)

''{spoken} [female announcer, announcing flight departures at an airport, including 'Rome', 'Cairo', 'Naples']

Live for today, gone tomorrow, that's me (laughter)!

{the rest of this song is an instrumental}''

04   Time (06:49)

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 home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.

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.

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.

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.

05   The Great Gig in the Sky (04:44)

''{spoken} And I am not frightened of dying, any time will do, I don't mind. Why should I be frightened of dying? There's no reason for it, you've gotta go sometime.

I never said I was frightened of dying.

{the rest of this song is an instrumental}''

06   Money (06:22)

Money, get away.
Get a good job with more pay and you're okay.
Money, it's a gas.
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash.
New car, caviar, four star daydream,
Think I'll buy me a football team.

Money, get back.
I'm all right Jack keep your hands off of my stack.
Money, it's a hit.
But Don't give me that do goody good bullshit.
I'm in the high-fidelity first class traveling set
And I think I need a Lear jet.

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.
But if you ask for a raise it's no surprise that they're giving none away.

''{spoken} HuHuh! I was in the right!
Yes, absolutely in the right!
I certainly was in the right!
You was definitely in the right. That geezer was cruising for a bruising!
Yeah!
Why does anyone do anything?
I don't know, I was really drunk at the time!
I was just telling him, he couldn't get into number 2. He was asking why he wasn't coming up on freely, after I was yelling and screaming and telling him why he wasn't coming up on freely.
It came as a heavy blow, but we sorted the matter out.''

07   Us and Them (07:49)

Us, and them
and after all we're only ordinary men.
me, and you.
God only knows it's not what we would choose to do.

Forward he cried from the rear
and the front rank died.
and the general sat and the lines on the map
moved from side to side.

Black and blue
and who knows which is which and who is who.
up and down.
And in the end it's only round and round, and round.

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.

''{spoken} I mean, they're gunna kill ya, so like, if you give 'em a quick short, sharp, shock, they won't do it again. Dig it? I mean he got off light, 'cos I would've given him a thrashing - I only hit him once! It was only a difference of right and wrong, innit?...I mean good manners
don't cost nothing do they, eh?''

Down and out
It can't be helped but there's a lot of it about.
With, without.
And who'll deny it's what the fighting's all about?

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

08   Any Colour You Like (03:26)

Instrumental

09   Brain Damage (03:46)

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

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 paper boy brings more

And if the dam breaks open many years too 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

The lunatic is in my head
The lunatic is in my head
You raise the blade, you make the change
You re-arrange 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

And if the cloud bursts, thunder in your ear
You shout but 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

I cannot think of anything to say except, ha, ha, ha, I think it's marvelous!
Ha, ha, ha!

10   Eclipse (02:11)

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.
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.

''{spoken} There is no dark side of the moon really. Matter of fact it's all dark.''

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Other reviews

By claudio12

 THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON is one of the top 5 most important albums in rock history.

 An album that, more than an album, is undoubtedly a work of art in rock.


By AngeloLecce87

 Madness, suffocation, excitement, fear, relaxation, adrenaline, and pleasure blend almost imperceptibly in this thing called an "album".

 I gave this album 0 because 5 is too little.


By UcCaBaRuCcA

 It would be a crime to listen to the album in pieces.

 The texture of the music is rich in detail, and at the same time light, smooth, and it creates an environment, an atmosphere around you.


By Pepperism

 I take my mind to distant places. And I feel the madness, finally.

 Don’t tell me anymore that I am sane, the dark side of the moon changes everyone.


By AR (Anonima Recensori)

 An album is great when it belongs to Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd, or the Doors.

 Amidst soft and unsettling tones, the journey unfolds of The Dark Side Of The Moon, which still ranks among the best-selling albums, 33 years later.