March 1st, 2023, marked 50 years since the release of arguably one of the best albums ever made and also one of the most commercially successful albums of all time: Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon”. This album has become a staple in my regular music consumption because of its psychedelic but indescribable sound.

I came across the album sometime last year when I was scrolling through YouTube and found the music video for “Time”. It is my favourite song on the album, and I couldn’t describe then how I felt about the song, and I can’t now. All I recall feeling after hearing it initially was the urge to listen to it repeatedly. There was something in the song’s lyrics that captivated me or perhaps, it was a far more superficial reason being that I just thought it sounded really good.

Furthermore, Ben Bateman of Varsity Newspaper says, “among the inspiration for the song, according to multiple interviews with Roger Waters was the realisation that they were no longer waiting for anything in life, and that they have been using up their time ever since being born.” I think what the song expresses about genuine feelings of boredom towards life, contrasting with the anxiety that comes with fears of dying, without truly living is a relatable feeling. With each waking day you sometimes feel as time goes, experiences go and your life with it. The song may say “you are young, and life is long and there is time to kill today,” seemingly reminding its listeners that although they may feel like they’ve wasted time living aimlessly, it’s imperative to remember that it is nice to “kill” time doing what one loves or even doing nothing at all. But I think the song makes a bigger statement about not wasting time and living your life now before “the sun” fades behind you and you find you’re “one day closer to death.”

The main theme of the iconic concept album may revolve around the pressures and struggles of an existence as a musician, nevertheless, ideas of mania, expiration and wealth are still explored. However, I think it’s their exploration of wealth in the song “Money” that truly transfixes me. Not only does the song put visuals in my mind of an elaborate opening shot of an incredibly wealthy family basking in their opulence, in a film, but it makes me want to dance and share in the “hit” that money provides.

To me, what makes the song great is David Gilmour’s howling guitar lead, what Rolling Stone describe to be the “sound collage loop made up of ringing cash registers and rattling coins” and the line of the song that sticks with me most: “Money, so they say, is the root of all evil today”.

To close, I’ll steal some lines from “Brain damage” that illustrate more eloquently than I can how I truly feel about this album, “I can't think of anything to say, I think it's marvellous.”