Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon is one of the most important concept albums in music history. Dark Side is the eight studio album from the British rock band released on March 1, 1973. The album focuses on the themes of greed, time, and death.
The theme of greed is seen on the track “Money”. The song talks about the lengths that people will go for money and how they believe that all of their desires can be found through money. We see how people can be hypocrites when they say that they think money should be donated to charity or that money should be given to help others and not live a materialistic lifestyle through the words “Money, it’s a crime. Share it fairly, but don’t take a slice of my pie.” The group members have seen the music industry inside out and have seen how money is basically the driving force of the music industry.
The theme of time comes from the song “Time,” but is present throughout the entirety of the album. “Time” is about how time can quickly slip by without any realization until it’s too late.
“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.”
This lyric describes the constant struggle it is to keep up with time, and although it might seem like you’ve finally caught up with it, it takes over you again only to keep you chasing it. The band found themselves in a sort of rhythm releasing album after album and having to constantly jump through the hoops to make it work, that they forgot that time was passing them by.
The theme of death comes from the second to last song off the album, “Brain Damage.” It is on this song that we hear the title of the album sung in the lines “And if the band you’re in starts playing different tunes. I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon.” The dark side of the moon is a metaphor for death or the destruction of all positive emotions. If the band you’re in “starts playing different tunes,” you might begin to think that the good times are gone and that something you once knew so well is changing, dying. The members of Pink Floyd saw a previous bandmate of theirs slowly slip away as he turned to the dark side of the moon.
The Dark Side of the Moon is the fourth best-selling album of all time and will be cemented in history forever.