“You press on God’s waiter your last dime as he hands you the bill”: Aqualung (Jethro Tull)

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Year: 1971

Genre: Progressive Rock

Preceded by: Benefit (1970)

Followed by: Thick as a Brick (1972)

Related to: not available yet

 

 

Jethro Tull’s Thick as a Brick is still considered one of the best progressive rock albums ever made. But Tull will somehow always remain a stranger in the midst of prog bands that delivered the bulk of this genre’s top rated albums during the seventies. First of all, the band certainly could not be classified within this genre from the start. The sound on their early works for example is more connected to the blues rock of Cream’s Disraeli Gears than to the pure psychedelic rock that got bands like Pink Floyd started. But eastern and classic music influences made their entrance on Stand Up (1969), a keyboard player was added to the line-up on Benefit (1970) and suddenly there was Aqualung, a record that was generally acclaimed by the era’s musical climate as Tull’s first concept album. Parents, keep your children inside!

The early days of Jethro Tull go back to Blackpool 1962, when the Scott Ian Anderson formed a band called The Blades with some other musicians. After combining performances with this group with a daytime job for five years, Anderson moved to London in the search for any success. This proved to be difficult, as his original band mates returned back north after just a couple of days. Anderson started to search for other musicians again and found Glenn Cornick on bass, Mick Abrahams on guitar and Clive Bunker on drums. Anderson himself traded his guitar for a flute and called the gang Jethro Tull, after the man who had redefined the practices of agriculture by giving us the horse-drawn hoe.

This new band released its debut album in 1968: This Was. You got to love the satirical title, as it already indicates that Anderson (still sharing the songwriting with Abrahams) was not planning to stick to the album’s pure blues rock sound. Jethro Tull would release one album per year for the next 12 years, with another 8 albums following till their last one in 2003. Such a steady rate would presume a very stable band, but Jethro Tull rather was a wobbling ship in turbulent waters with Ian Anderson as its one and only Captain and Martin Barre as his First Mate. Anderson would navigate this ship with continuously changing crew through raw blues rock and the dangerous prog cliffs before ending up playing folk in the woods.

His path was clear after Abrahams was replaced by Barre following the debut’s release. As the band’s sole songwriter, he now immediately started to change the course of the band on the following two albums mentioned above, with the distinctive flute sound becoming the band’s trademark. Their fourth album (with bass player Jeffrey Hammond joining Anderson’s ship, replacing Cornick) would definitely establish their fame as one of the world’s biggest rock acts and still is their best album, both lyrically and musically. Come aboard.

The album is opened by the title song, which is the main reason for some people to call it a progressive concept album. The song was inspired by a picture (taken by Andersons wife) of a homeless man, given the name Aqualung. The album cover gives this person a face and he does reappear in one other song here (‘Cross-Eyed Mary’) but he can’t be compared to deeply elaborated characters like Rael on Genesis’ Lamb for example. Musically the song (being one of the rare ones without Anderson’s flute) is kind of a short suite, with three different parts creating as much atmospheres. These stylistic changes might indeed point to a conversion to progressive rock although that feature can of course not be completely claimed by that genre. Or would you qualify Aqualung’s five dimensional brother ‘Aquarius’ also as such?

So Aqualung makes a cameo in the second song, called after schoolgirl hooker ‘Cross-Eyed Mary’. The flute immediately compensates its absence on the first track with a great intro, building towards a peak where Anderson’s voice kicks in. This voice sounds hoarse and perfectly matches Barre’s guitar and the pervert lyrics about the young Mary who kicks on satisfying older rich men, while the dirty Aqualung is peeping through the railings of the playground.

The two harder songs are followed by a sweet trio of acoustic songs. First there’s ‘Cheap Day Return’, a personal intermezzo from Anderson about a visit to his dad in the hospital (with the song called after his train ticket). Within only 83 seconds he totally changes the atmosphere with a very fragile voice, thereby creating the perfect intro for ‘Mother Goose’. This is my absolute favorite of the album, with Anderson walking over a fair, meeting bearded ladies and chicken-fanciers. Meanwhile the acoustic instrumentation (guitar and flute) completely melts with his voice, shaping some kind of Medieval atmosphere (this is by far the most ‘folk-ish’ track on the album). Another short song closes the triptych of Anderson’s personal stories, with ‘Wond’ring Aloud’ being a simple love song garnished with a nice string section. One more song to go then on side 1, announced by its famous laughter in the beginning: ‘Up to Me’. Although the lyrics don’t make much sense to me, it’s musically one of the best with all instruments joining forces (featuring a flute-riff) to chase Anderson’s state of mind.

I’m about to turn the record over when I notice the album’s cover featuring our spooky friend Aqualung. He’s lost out of sight for a couple of songs now, so I bury the possibility of this being a concept album. Subsequently the needle lands on side 2 and serves me an entire side with tracks treating the hypocrite aspect of religion, more precisely Christianity. It starts with ‘My God’, introduced by the acoustic guitar after which the piano and Andersons’ moaning voice create the atmosphere of a dark church where Anderson is priest, preaching about the opportunist use of the lord. After a while the soloing electric guitar takes over and the flute solo countering the Gregorian chants gives the album its progressive feeling again.

‘Hymn 43’ is very similar to this track lyrically, maybe the reason that this song didn’t require an intro, kicking off immediately. It’s a riff-based song with great piano contributions and Anderson singing more loudly now, deeply expressing his thoughts of disgust towards the church. It’s followed by another short acoustic bridge with added string section: ‘Slipstream’, telling a story about buying your access into heaven and preparing us for the ‘grande finale’ of the album.

This final starts with the classical piano intro of ‘Locomotive Breath’, probably the bands’ most famous song. It suddenly turns into a heavy guitar song, with the pounding drums adding to the created sound of a steaming train. As the title suggests this train represents life with the song’s protagonist trying to catch a breath in his rushing life. Of course all this is finished off by a flute solo. Aqualung is finally concluded by ‘Wind-Up’, another song that starts off very gentle before building towards a great climax including another one of those sweet guitar riffs by Barre. It’s a well-chosen closing song as it sounds like Anderson is analyzing the thoughts he shared on the other songs on side 2 and concludes by addressing the people that forced him to believe some ridiculous ideas during his youth: You had the whole damn thing all wrong.

Aqualung was never meant to be a concept album although it was claimed as such after its release, leading to an irritated Ian Anderson. As his response he gave prog its ultimate concept album the next year with Thick as a Brick (featuring Andersons’ former drummer, turning Tull back into The Blades ft. Martin Barre). Whether or not this was an embrace or rejection of the genre, the album became one of Tull’s best appreciated works.

Classifying Aqualung as prog is probably just the only solution to the impossibility of putting it in another determined genre. Besides, if you strengthen blues rock in such a way that it approaches hard rock and start mingling this with very melodic folk songs, you can’t be surprised that people suspect you of doing some progressive stuff out there. However, the synthesizers and excessive drum solos are kept away here, so for everybody out there not familiar with this band: don’t be fearful of the dreaded Jethro Tull.

Top Tracks:

1. Mother Goose
2. Up to Me
3. Aqualung

Prog Albums Explained: The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway (side 4)

Progressive rock, a genre to love or hate.  It originated in the late sixties thanks to heavy psychedelic rock influences and was pioneered by bands that wanted to go beyond the standard verse-chorus  based song structures.  As a result, often complex instrumental songs were bundled on concept albums with epic pretensions. It’s well possible that you once caught yourself asking what the hell one of these bands was trying to tell you while listening to one of their albums. The answers are provided here, in Prog Albums Explained. All you need  is the album, a comfortable couch and some good headphones.

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Year: 1974

Genre: Progressive Rock

Preceded by: Selling England by the Pound (1973)

Followed by: A Trick of the Tail (1976)

Related to: Pink Floyd – The Dark Side of the Moon

 

 

Side 4: (continued from Side 3)

Track 1: The Colony of Slippermen (The Arrrival – A Visit to the Doktor – Raven) + Track 2: Ravine

After an intro full of strange sounds, the propelling keys and drums kick off the closing side, starting with an absolute highlight. After escaping from the snakes, Rael runs into a bunch of mutilated entities called the Slippermen. They tell him that the same thing happened to them with the snakes and that Rael will end up the same way: Don’t be alarmed at what you see, you yourself are just the same as what you see in me. Amongst the creatures Rael recognizes once again his Brother John, who tells him that the life of the Slippermen is devoted to satisfying the never-ending hunger of the senses, which has been inherited from the Lamia.

So we’re getting more and more indications that the criminal activities of Rael have something to do with sexual misbehavior. Certainly when John tells Rael that they’ll have to go to Doktor Dyper to remove the source of the problem, castrating that is. After getting it done, they receive their testicles in a little tube. But the brothers don’t get the time to walk home safely, as a black raven flies by (represented by the haunting synths), stealing Rael’s tube and dropping it in the water below. Rael runs behind it while his brother fears this sign of bad luck, leaving his brother behind once more: Now can’t you see, where the raven flies there’s jeopardy. The track merges into Ravine, an instrumental piece representing the wind across the cliffs of the ravine.

Track 3: The Light Dies Down on Broadway

As the title already presumes, this track shows some similarities with the opening track of the album. But to the contrary of the rest of the album, the lyrics of this track would have been written by Banks and Rutherford and not by Gabriel. However, Rael is searching for his testicles when he suddenly sees a glimpse of reality, as if there was some kind of portal to NYC in one of the cliffs. He sees the streets he’s so familiar with and runs to the way out. But at that point he hears John, screaming for help while he’s drowning in the water below. Rael now has to choose between returning to reality or saving the brother that left him so many times… Hey John!

Track 4: Riding the Scree

So Rael has decided to go after his brother and during this track he’s running along the ravine, chased by the synths. But.. If I want John alive, I’ve got to ditch my fear – take a dive… Here I go!

Track 5: In the Rapids

So Rael’s in the water now, trying to grab his brother. Although the lyrics describe a fairly exciting scene, the track is sung in a very calm way. Rael succeeds to get John out of the water and tries to reanimate him. But then he notices something remarkableSomething’s changed, that’s not your face. It’s mine!

Track 6: “It”

So we arrived at the closing track now, just having discovered that John is actually Rael, in some kind of split personality. As the title of the last track already gives away, it was all the time about ‘it’. It is chicken, it is eggs, it is in between your legs. You should really read the lyrics of this last track yourself, to experience the brilliance of it. And like Peter Gabriel says on the very end of it: If you think it’s pretentious, you’ve been taken for a ride..

Prog Albums Explained: The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway (side 3)

Progressive rock, a genre to love or hate.  It originated in the late sixties thanks to heavy psychedelic rock influences and was pioneered by bands that wanted to go beyond the standard verse-chorus  based song structures.  As a result, often complex instrumental songs were bundled on concept albums with epic pretensions. It’s well possible that you once caught yourself asking what the hell one of these bands was trying to tell you while listening to one of their albums. The answers are provided here, in Prog Albums Explained. All you need  is the album, a comfortable couch and some good headphones.

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Year: 1974

Genre: Progressive Rock

Preceded by: Selling England by the Pound (1973)

Followed by: A Trick of the Tail (1976)

Related to: Pink Floyd – The Dark Side of the Moon

 

 

Side 3: (continued from Side 2)

Track 1: Lillywhite Lilith + Track 2: The Waiting Room

Another case of two songs merging into each other, with the second one being another instrumental. Rael is still in the middle of this chaos, when he suddenly hears a blind lady (Lilywhite Lilith) asking him to help her out of the crowd.  In return she will lead him out of this place. So Rael follows her but instead of escaping he’s left behind disillusioned in the darkness:  Then she sat me down on a cold stone, carved in jade. A bizarre noise is approaching now while he stays in ‘the waiting room’. Those sounds originate from unused compositions of the band from 1969, resembling the experimental parts from Pink Floyd’s Atom Heart Mother.

Track 3: Anyway

This seems to be some kind of stream-of-consciousness experience from Rael in which he’s confronted with his death. Death seems to come much faster than Rael expected  (Anyway, they say she comes on a pale horse, but I’m sure I hear a train) and when the piano-driven song is at its highest orchestrated point, Rael looks Death right into the eyes…

Track 4: The Supernatural Anaesthetist

Death is impersonated by the supernatural anaesthetist. He approaches Rael, but it appears that he didn’t come to claim his soul and as such he disappears again.  This is the reason there are few lyrics in this song, which is mainly driven by Hackett’s guitar playing, including a beautiful outro. However, the anaesthetist left a charming impression on Rael: he’s such a fine dancer.

Track 5: The Lamia (+Track 6: Silent Sorrow in Empty Boats)

This track is really reigned by Tony Banks’ keys. Rael is tired of having this schizophrenic flashes in the middle of the rubble, so when he suddenly smells a strange scent, he decides to follow it to see where it comes from. It leads him to a hole in the wall and he succeeds to crawl through it. Now he witnesses the strangest thing: a pool filled with snakes all having female heads and breasts. The entities are seducing him to join them in the pool. Has this something to do with Rael’s criminal record? However, Rael stands astonished doubting his sight, struck by beauty, gripped in fright. Rael enters the pool and the Lamia start to devour Rael’s body but they end up dying because of his poisonous blood! The track flows over to ‘Silent Sorrow in Empty Boats’, a very calm interlude with a zooming mellotron, a sinister warning of what’s to come on side 4…

-Continue to Side 4

Prog Albums Explained: The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway (side 2)

Progressive rock, a genre to love or hate.  It originated in the late sixties thanks to heavy psychedelic rock influences and was pioneered by bands that wanted to go beyond the standard verse-chorus  based song structures.  As a result, often complex instrumental songs were bundled on concept albums with epic pretensions. It’s well possible that you once caught yourself asking what the hell one of these bands was trying to tell you while listening to one of their albums. The answers are provided here, in Prog Albums Explained. All you need  is the album, a comfortable couch and some good headphones.

[singlepic id=30 w=320 h=240 float=left]

 

 

Year: 1974

Genre: Progressive Rock

Preceded by: Selling England by the Pound (1973)

Followed by: A Trick of the Tail (1976)

Related to: Pink Floyd – The Dark Side of the Moon

 

 

Side 2: (continued from Side 1)

Track 1: Back in N.Y.C. + Track 2: Hairless Heart

These tracks are also treated as one as the first song smoothly fades into the second instrumental one. As Rael has now seen something and some people he is familiar with, he’s thrown in into a flashback that takes him back to the streets of New York City. He’s contemplating the times he had there together with the gang. How he gained their respect by misbehaving in several ways:  I’m the pitcher in the chain gang, we don’t believe in pain. In this way, this song gives the listener a first glance at the distorted mind of Rael which was discussed earlier in the title track. The music is creating some panic at this point, before fading into the instrumental interlude. No time for romantic escape, when your fluffy heart is ready for rape.

Track 3: Counting Out Time

Despite this warning from the last track, everything is becoming much more brighter in this song where Rael has his first experiences with love. We are now confronted with the softer sides of his character in what’s probably the most accessible song on the whole album. It has a catchy melody with a lot of synths that will stay in your head for days after hearing it, but the lyrics are probably still way too odd to become a mainstream hit (Erogenous zones I love you. Without you, what would a poor boy do?). Perhaps we should be happy about that. In fact, this song is the prelude to the next one, as the album is now reaching its melodic peak. Move over Casanova.

Track 4: The Carpet Crawlers

We are now at another absolute highlight of the album, musically (this would be one of the melodies that Gabriel has written)  as well as lyrically. Rael witnesses a bunch of people that fail to reach the top of a spiral stair, where they can escape from their misery. While the dreamy keys and synths that are producing some harp-like sounds certainly add a great part to the atmosphere, it’s above all the great mix between Gabriel’s lead vocals and Collins’ backing vocals that portray the helplessness of the people so well. Mild mannered supermen are held in kryptonite.

Track 5: The Chamber of 32 Doors

As we learn (after a great guitar solo) in this song, Rael has succeeded to reach the top of the stairs. Pity for our hero, the escape from his misery is still far away as he now ended up in a huge room containing no less than 32 doors (Are you listening, Moody Blues?). The room is filled with a large crowd that are all pointing to different doors, as only one door leads out. Rael is becoming desperate and begs for someone to show the right door. I’d give you all of my dreams, if you’d help me find a door that doesn’t  lead me back again. Take me away.

 -Continue to Side 3

Prog Albums Explained: The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway (side 1)

Progressive rock, a genre to love or hate.  It originated in the late sixties thanks to heavy psychedelic rock influences and was pioneered by bands that wanted to go beyond the standard verse-chorus  based song structures.  As a result, often complex instrumental songs were bundled on concept albums with epic pretensions. It’s well possible that you once caught yourself asking what the hell one of these bands was trying to tell you while listening to one of their albums. The answers are provided here, in Prog Albums Explained. All you need  is the album, a comfortable couch and some good headphones.

[singlepic id=30 w=320 h=240 float=left]

 

 

Year: 1974

Genre: Progressive Rock

Preceded by: Selling England by the Pound (1973)

Followed by: A Trick of the Tail (1976)

Related to: Pink Floyd – The Dark Side of the Moon

 

 

Introduction:

Genesis was one of the true pioneers of prog rock during the seventies, together with bands like King Crimson, Yes and Pink Floyd. The band was founded in 1967 by Peter Gabriel, Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford and some others who would be gradually replaced during the following years. Gabriel started as a drummer in his first bands before becoming the lead singer and theatrical frontman of this new band. Tony Banks contributed with his elaborate keyboard arrangements to what would become the typical Genesis sound, while Rutherford became the fanatical bass player of the group. They were joined in 1970 by Steve Hackett and Phil Collins (after having drummed for George Harrison on his solo track ‘The Art of Dying’), replacing respectively the former guitarist and drummer of the band.

In 1974, the band was at the peak of their popular and critical success, having released their epic masterpiece Selling England by the Pound the year before. But something bigger had to follow, so Gabriel designed a great project, just like Paul McCartney had done before with Sgt. Pepper’s and Roger Waters would do five years later with The Wall. At the same time it was the last album of the group with Gabriel, who contributed almost all the lyrics to the album. Those lyrics tell the story of Rael, a delinquent from NYC who is plunged into some surrealistic underground world that derived from Gabriel’s dreaming brain. The other guys came up with the music, but it’s the mind-blowing symbiosis of this music with the lyrics that produced an album that could impossibly ever be outbidden, even if Gabriel would have stayed with the band. Off we go.

Side 1:

Track 1: The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway

A frantic and fast piano-intro launches us right into the album, after which Gabriel officially declares that the lamb lies down on Broadway. However, the title track doesn’t have the goal to clarify the role of this lamb, but to introduce us to Rael. Rael just comes out of the subway, where he sprayed some graffiti on the walls to keep up his reputation with his gang. Not the most outrageous violation of the law, but the ominous distorted bass throughout the song from Rutherford tells us there’s more behind this, but what? He’s forgotten what he did…Lord knows what have I done?

Track 2: Fly on a Windshield + Track 3: Broadway Melody of 1974

I treat those tracks as one as they really merge together perfectly. In a threatening quiet way, Gabriel announces the coming of the ‘wall of death’, which attacks Rael. Totally being in the magic air that’s always above Broadway, the reality dies right there for Rael when the dust settles on his skin and he’s being alienated from other people: They carry  on as if nothing was there. Rael is now captured inside this wall (represented by a bombastic wall of sound, an improvisational idea by Rutherford), where a stream of strange images reaches him as if it was one big psychedelic trip.

Track 4: Cuckoo Cocoon

From the chaos we return to serenity with this track, in which Rael wakes up again. Suddenly he’s captured in some cocoon, where he has never been before. But the panic from a few minutes ago is totally gone, as Rael is at ease on his new location. This is beautifully illustrated by the soft guitar sounds and the fairy-like voice of Gabriel, who proves once again what a splendid vocalist he is. And I feel so secure that I know this can’t be real, but I feel good.

Track 5: In the Cage

However, the serenity is just temporary, as this cocoon has suddenly transformed into a cave in this track. Rael is surrounded by cages formed by stalactites and stalagmites, which are capturing him also. Being caught in this cage, this is the first time that his Brother John appears. Rael cries for help, but John doesn’t seem a bit interested. The marvelous dynamic between the thrilling music (especially the manic keys from Banks and the tambourines from Collins) and Gabriels stressed voice (My headaches charge, my earaches roar. In the pain, get me out of this pain…) makes this song an absolute highlight on the album. Eventually, John leaves and Rael’s cage dissolves at that very moment…  Keep on turning. Keep on turning.

Track 6: The Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging

Being able to escape from his dissolved cage, Rael finds himself now in a building he seems to recognize from the real world. But how can you be sure that this is reality when you just came from such a surrealistic world? Well, Rael sees how persons are lined up in a Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging, ready to be used for the consumer society: Stamped, addressed, in odd fatality. That evens out their personality. With profit potential marked by sign, I can recognize some of the production line. Scenario’s like these are too cruel to be made up in some surrealistic dream, so this must be our common reality. As cited, Rael recognizes some people and he even sees his Brother John again, labeled as No. 9! Is this the final explanation for John Lennon’s riddle from 1968?

-Continue to Side 2

“Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way”: The Dark Side of the Moon (Pink Floyd)

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Year: 1973

Genre: Progressive Rock

Preceded by: Obscured by Clouds (1972)

Followed by: Wish You Were Here (1975)

Related to: Radiohead – OK Computer, Genesis – The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway

 

 

What makes The Dark Side of the Moon one of the most famous albums ever made in the whole world? Its high critical acclaim by like everybody writing about rock music?  Its huge commercial success, remaining in the charts for 741 (!!) weeks from 1973 to 1988? Its cover, which became one of the most iconic images in rock history? Or the fact that this album strikingly described the changing mood of that time, leaving the spirit of the sixties (which had died in Altamont) behind and facing the Vietnam war and Watergate? Whatever it is, with the release of this album in 1973 Pink Floyd became the biggest progressive rock band in the world.

Pink Floyd gradually came into existence after architecture students Roger Waters and Nick Mason started to play in some bands together. Later on they were joined by Richard Wright and art student Syd Barett. As a successful psychedelic band (releasing some hit singles and debut album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn), they formed the British antithesis of American acts like Jefferson Airplane and 13th Floor Elevators. However, Barett’s mind became a little too psychedelic for the rest of the band to deal with, so he was gradually replaced by David Gilmour. Subsequently, Pink Floyd started to evolve towards a progressive rock band with long, experimental tracks and philosophical lyrics on the albums Atom Heart Mother and Meddle. The band also became famous for it’s innovative album artwork and elaborate live gigs, so in fact there was only one thing missing which would define Pink Floyd as the biggest prog rock act in town: a concept album.

It was Roger Waters who came up with the idea of making an album about things that will drive people into insanity, inspired by the mental problems former band member Barrett suffered from. They came up with subjects like time, greed, war, rush, death,… and originally gave the album the title Dark Side of the Moon: A Piece for Assorted Lunatics. They released it as The Dark Side of the Moon and the impact of the album was enormous, as music critics quickly recognized the brilliance of it’s concept. But the album also became a huge commercial success, selling millions of copies, especially after ‘Money’ became a rare hit single for the band. The reason for this commercial success prolly is the fact that this album lacks some extended instrumental experiments that was typical for Floyd’s preceding (and following!) albums. That’s why it’s also the perfect starter for the uninitiated Floyd ones.

Each side of the orignal LP consists of a continuous piece of music, introduced and ended by a heartbeat, in that way reflecting the human life. It starts with the combined track ‘Speak to Me/Breathe’, stressing the primary elements of the life one lives. It contains samples from a lot of other tracks to follow on the album, like the clocks of ‘Time’ (which has a reprise of ‘Breathe’), the cash registers of ‘Money’ and the laughter of ‘Brain Damage’. Then we move on to the instrumental ‘On the Run’, with the synthesizers taking you to the rushy scene of an airport, pointing at the anxiety of flying.

At the beginning of track 3 you are completely shaken awake by the alarm clocks telling you it’s ‘Time’, followed by a fantastic instrumental intro of Mason’s drum solo and Waters’ bass picking, lasting for about two minutes. This track especially shows how beautiful  the voices of Richard Wright and David Gilmour (which are kinda similar), can be harmonised together. The lyrics tell you how time can get a grip on your existence when you underestimate its speed. It’s brilliantly followed by the return to solitude in the end of the song, with the reprise of ‘Breathe’. The logical next step is death, touchingly portrayed with ‘The Great Gig in the Sky’, closing side 1. Guest singer Clare Torry screams unintelligible lines, representing the ascending spirit of a death person. She received £30 for her contribution back then, but after some suing  in 2004 she succeeded to get some settlement concerning the royalties of the song.

Side 2 opens with the single ‘Money’, well-known for it’s recognizable intro (sounds of cash registers supported by a bass riff) and the legendary transition from sax solo to guitar solo. It became the biggest commercial success of the album, which is quite ironic  as it’s an accusation against greed and consumerism. It flows over into ‘Us and Them’, the longest track on the album and also containing some sax solos. The song is about conflict in all it’s possible forms, war as well as personal relationships.

What’s next is some form of medley like the one closing The BeatlesAbbey Road. It starts with another instrumental one, ‘Any Colour You Like’, which fades over into ‘Brain Damage’, one of my personal favorites. Roger Waters takes the lead vocals here, singing ‘and if the band you’re in starts playing different tunes’, pointing to former member Barett, who would sometimes just start playing another song in the middle of a performance with the band at the top of his mental problems. The climax of he album is the last song, ‘Eclipse’, with it’s loud melody telling us what we people all have in common.

What characterizes the album throughout all the tracks are the different voices that were  mixed into it. These are all extracts from interviews Roger Waters took with all kind of people who were present in the studios at the times of recording, ranging from studio staff to other artists recording in the Abbey Road studios. The laughter on ‘Brain Damage’ for example was contributed by road manager Peter Watts (father of Naomi). Paul McCartney was also interviewed, but his voice was never used as his answers were considered as ‘trying too hard to be funny’. Lol. Enjoy this  absolute ‘must have heard before you die’.

Top Tracks:

1. Time
2. Brain Damage
3. The Great Gig in the Sky