The Dark Side of the Moon: The Making of the Pink Floyd Masterpiece [Hardcover]

 

 

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Needless to say, John Harris's "The Dark Side of the Moon" is primarily about the making of that historic album. While much exists in print and on DVD about the subject, no one has quite nailed it as comprehensively as Harris. This book could quite well end up actually defining the subject itself but also distinguishing itself as the very best book written about Pink Floyd in general. I have certainly not read a better one. Nicholas Schaffner's "A Saucerful of Secrets", a very detailed account of the Floyd career, up the point of its publication ( 1991 ) probably runs a very close second.

What really makes Harris' book so compelling and satisfying a read is its focus on the 'humanity' of the members of Pink Floyd. You get a very real, very three dimensional portrait of each of the 5 members who comprised the band from it's inception to its retirement. Much of the focus is on Roger Waters and David Gilmour. There is a much briefer treatment of Richard Wright and Nick Mason, which for me, was the book's only very slight disappointment. However, what IS written about Pink Floyd's keyboardist and percussionist, no matter how brief, is still quite revelatory. And of course the legendary Syd Barrett receives the grand treatment. It would be hard for anyone writing about Pink Floyd to not do so. In all five cases you get a very deeply human portrait of the members of one of the most successful and critically acclaimed bands of all time - warts and all.

Not only is this pleasing to serious fans of the band, for who didn't wonder at some point just WHO these guys were, so anonymous was their public image and stage presence, it is also completely expedient to a real, in-depth understanding of HOW "The Dark Side of the Moon" came to be. Harris starts right at the beginning of the story, with the earliest history of the formation of the band in the late 60's. His portraits of each of the young lads is realistic and refreshingly natural. "Gods" as they appeared on stage and on record, Pink Floyd were also VERY human, with all the confusions, wonderings, battles and creative urges common to their generation. So what you end up clearly understanding is that the members of Pink Floyd are and were, some of the most normal and quite unexceptional people possible, with the exception of post 1967 Syd Barrett. No one else has covered in quite so much detail and profound insight, the culture, psychology and interpersonal dynamics of these 5 people that organically and understandably evolved to bear full fruition, finally, in their 1973 masterpiece. For as universal as "Dark Side" is, it is also a very personal portrait of the thoughts and creativity of Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Richard Wright, Nick Mason, as well as Syd Barrett ( always significant in absentia ). For, as you fully appreciate as the book moves on, "The Dark Side of the Moon" is every bit about Pink Floyd AS PEOPLE as it is about their grandly "everyman" themes of war, money, death, madness, alienation, love and human values. Their lives and their art are inextricably entangled.

It is also important to remember that "The Dark Side of the Moon" was not just the work of the 4 Pink Floyd band members. "Dark Side" was a surprise when it appeared in March of '73 for on it the band had created a 'picture' so vast and expansive in it's themes, sonic picture, musical styles and incredible detailing that necessity lead to their 'opening up' and weaving in the talents of many other people. Female backup singers, three of them, one solo singer, a sax player, two major engineers and an uncredited roster of local, anonymous speaking voices all joined in to create, expand and realize the panoramic vision of the concept. "The Dark Side of the Moon" was far bigger and grander than anything Pink Floyd had ever done and they were talented enough to know that this 'expansion' would lead to the ultimate fulfillment of their ambitions, musically and professionally. For devotees who had been "with" the band since the outset, it was quite disorienting and thrilling at the same time. You sat bolt upright. You KNEW something big, something timeless, had just been created. Harris' scrupulous coverage of all these people, as well, and their contributions helps the reader to see just how much "The Dark Side of the Moon" was something bigger and beyond the sum of all it's creators. It was indeed, a 'quantum jump' to a whole new level.

There are surprise details that I've never come across before that made this book a page turner. One VERY significant revelation was that Clare Torry, THE voice on Richard Wright's "The Great Gig in the Sky", who lifted the standard very high for female singers with her-raising, extraordinary performance on that song, sued the band many years later for joint authorship of the song. She felt, and rightly so, that her contribution, totally created by her, added the entire melodic content and structure to the song. The courts gave it to her. Now the song is credited to "Wright/Torry". Following that tack, one might also offer up for discussion the authorship of "Money". All the main riffs and basic elements of the song were Waters', but Harris also documents that it was Gilmour's musical input that took the song from its bluesy, laid back demo version into the incendiary, searing Rock incarnation that we know today. And certainly, Waters did not compose Gilmour's two incredible solos on the song, which are some of best on record. Waters/Gilmour might be closer to the truth. Technical secrets too, make their way into public knowledge in this book. You find out how things were done, what they used to achieve it ( some of which seems totally archaic today ) and you come to appreciate the enormous technical prowess that is revealed here as well.

The musical evolution of Pink Floyd here is also given a very astute observation. Coming to understand how 1971's "Meddle", can be seen as the DIRECT precursor to "Dark Side" is gratifying and fascinating. Waters has often stated that his themes of humanity's need for empathy and mutual respect first arose on "Meddle". Specifically, the song that most dealt with that theme, outside of the masterpiece "Fearless", was the grand epic, "Echoes". "Strangers passing in the street, by chance two separate glances meet, and I am you and what I see is me" is often quoted by Waters when talking about the main themes of both Pink Floyd and his solo work. For him that pith was the seed that grew to create "Echoes", "Dark Side", "Wish You Were Here, "The Wall", much of "The Final Cut and on into his solo work. Musically "Meddle" was the all-important bridge that spanned the first successfully 'NON-Barrett' experimentation of "Atom Heart Mother" and the final crystallization that became "The Dark Side of the Moon". It is completely germain, then, to a real understanding and appreciation of "Dark Side" that their pre-existing catalogue, especially "Meddle", was all one long 'motion towards' the final, full realization of the entirety of Pink Floyd's artistry and ambition with that album.

So as much as "The Dark Side of the Moon" was a shock to long time fans of the band, a shock to the band themselves in terms of it's record-breaking success, a SEEMINGLY isolated incidence of creative fulfilment, and an unprecedented thrusting forward of an obscure, cultish, art rock band of high creative cache into unprecedented, global superstardom, Harris clearly and masterfully shows us that "Dark Side" is the culmination of ALL that went before it. It is the fulcrum and central centrifugal point around which the Floyd career spun. It might be interesting for Harris to do a "part 2" if you will, an examination of how "The Dark Side of the Moon" and all that went with it, profoundly affected the rest of the Pink Floyd career. And while that effect forever placed them in the "high-fidelity, first class travelling set" and secured their work in the anals of 20th century musical history, "The Dark Side of the Moon's" olympian success forever changed the lives and careers of the members of the band, some of it with a very high price.

A highly recommended, thoroughly readable, beautifully insightful and well written book. One of, if not the best, of the books on Pink Floyd out there.

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