DVD - The Dark Side Of The Moon Bonus Material Brain Damage RW: There's a tendency within most societies to try to force everybody into a particular regimen and to stop people walking on the grass. It's something about, I suppose, about that particular lyric, it's something about the idea of producing grass and then not letting anybody enjoy it. You know, let's make a beautiful lawn and then not let anybody walk on it, or play on it, or kick a ball about on it, or do anything on it. And in a way it's the idea of actually the desire to walk on the grass being mad - it's something wrong about that. And I... and the piece of grass that I had in my mind, you see, it's a... there's a big square lump of grass between King's College Chapel and the river Cam in Cambridge, which - I don't know why - but that's actually the bit of grass I was thinking about when I was writing that thing; which is a very "Keep off!" bit. (Brain Damage played by Waters) The choruses of the song are about saying to the audience... I know, this all feels a bit whacky from time to time, and it does sound, it does to me. I have trouble making sense of all this. We all make mistakes, we're all human. You can't expect to be perfect, or behave perfectly, or whatever, but... if through your own... if through your efforts - if you like, your own internal efforts - you can give the empathetic side of your nature a better chance in its battle against the devil within you /*or over you*/ - then so be it. And that is a struggle that we can all engage in every day of our lives. Money RW: I made up the rhythm tape in a shed at the bottom of the garden. My wife then was a potter, and she had a pottery studio at the bottom of the garden, I had a little music studio next to it. And she had a big metal mixing bowl for mixing up clay. And so I went: oh I know how to make the rhythm for this. And I had a Revox A77, I only had two-track machines at the time. And so I got a microphone out and put it by the mixing bowl and threw a handful of coins in it - right, that's one /*notice*/, - and tossed some paper - right, that's another one. And I searched around for a sound of a cash register or something... So it's in 7/8? - ok, so I cut up seven pieces of tape of those sound effects exactly the same length, and spliced them together and stuck in the Revox going round the mike stand, the whole bit like that, and pressed the button, and that was it. AP: We actually made the loop onto a four-track tape which meant that the seven different sounds could actually walk around the room. Although it's not perfect because it's a /*7 and about or 8 and about*/, so it doesn't make you quite around the room on the 8-feet which isn't there. But you could probably say that this was one of the first times that a band ever played to a loop. I can't think even /*...*/ any instance of this. They were here in /*that*/ headphones, they just counted that off and played in sync with this. And then like on the record I faded it out once the band had started playing. DG: We start off with the bass guitar - that is... And then double-track it with this guitar - which is like this. And then we're bringing the tremolo guitar - that one, let's take that one on the mix. And then there's two more that are doing sort of off-beat things - that's this one and this one. And they sort of filter across with Rick's keyboards - that are here. Let's bring all this /*stuff in*/. AP: So this is going to be the vocal without any processing on it at all. And then I can add in a /*delay*/ to spring that to life a little bit more. And then some reverb which will give us some space. Here comes the guitar solo. DG: Played them and learned and double-tracked - as precisely as one can do it - on left and right for the first of these three sort of guitar solos. AP: Two performances double-tracked. And all the effects again there David was generating himself. RW: And this sounds like me. AP: This is when I cut it right now. It goes absolutely to nothing as /*...*/ it is no delays, no reverb - just virgin sounds. CT: I mean, their idea of right coming down to where it's dry, I mean, that was already there on the rough mix that I had of the stuff. First, I just wanted to build it up for /*make stuff*/ bigger. Another was by tracking it and by /*using sort of*/ more echo. AP: This is where the echo comes back in again. DG: So this is the third one that goes into the double-tracked one, which is this one on its own. And then it's - by the means of trickery - ADT'd, you get... sort of it. It's the same one and that's sort of very slightly delayed. And this is 'cause this got - that note, /*as well as*/ two others - it's too high for my Stratocasters, so I used that Lewis guitar, I'll show you. RW: As we know, money is a real addiction for most of us. That was one of the things for me personally about Dark Side Of The Moon when it finally became successful was at that point: I had to decide really whether there really was a socialist or not. Because if you've suddenly got a few quid, you've got to decide if you can hang on to it, whether you put it in the bank or whatever you do with it - it will be invested by somebody, so you have to decide whether to become a capitalist or not. Us And Them RWr: All that was basically the same as in doing Zabriskie Point. Why I liked it was because it's all on the pedal D, so all accords actually... 'Cause it could have gone... I mean, that's basically the same chords, but instead of being...well, that was a D to a B-minor, and then an A, and then... But I just liked it, just sort of rolling along. So all these chords relate to the D. I love that chord, I don't know why, I just... But it wouldn't work if I'd go up to an A. But that's what music is all about. So that was that, and then I think though that was the sequence that came to the studio, and then we wanted a chorus. And I just wrote the 3 chords which is: "cried from the rear...". That was written in the studio. Of the songs that Roger and I have written together, I would say, that for me is my favourite. Waters' World View RW: My world view is very similar now: we are the products, I think, of our /*...*/. My theory is that after you hit five or six years old, not a lot changes fundamentally. And the pain that we experience, or the joy or the love or the whatever, the experiences that we have as young children, I think, stay with us forever. And they are... they provide us with the rational shapes /*...*/ lives. I simply think that's true of me, and I have the same feelings now. And in a way that's why I couldn't still realize... I've been listening to Dark Side Of The Moon recently simply because James Guthrie - he's been mixing, making a 5.1 mix of it - and so I've had to go and listen to it and say what I think. And one thing I thought the first time I sat there in the chair and all the stuff was going around me, was how those fundamental issues of whether or not the human race is capable of being humane are still right now /*faces*/ 30 years later. Now that within... in the perspective of history /*what am I saying*/, what a fucking stupid thing to say... Of course they are, it's only 30 years, it's like a phhzzt... it's a nanosecond, it's a nothing, it's a relatively... this little bit of history that we live in. We tend to... we make a lot of it because we're here and we're watching, and it means a lot to us because we're alive at the moment. But we won't be in a few years' time. And since we'll continue /*with*/ the fundamental question that's facing us all is whether or not we're capable of dealing with the whole question of us and them, I think, that's my personal... and I... But that's something that I always had... I had that bit when I was a teenager, when I was the chairman of the YCND in Cambridge when I was 15 years old or whatever. I think it's basically... if you've been given, I think, the gift of having that perspective - you don't lose it. And I suspect it's quite hard - if you are fundamentally inclined to be a member of the Ku Klux Klan - to shrug that off in later years as well; I think it's likely that you go on wanting to lynch people - forever. You know, I - maybe not, maybe I shouldn't say that, maybe there is an optimistic side of me that thinks that... feels that not just individuals but hierarchies, authorities - are capable of rehabilitation. Wouldn't it be wonderful to think that G.W.Bush was capable of transcending his background and becoming a person who could understand broader and more fundamental issues of human contact than that kind of sheriff thing that he's got going for him. Which is all that Dark Side Of The Moon is about. Breathe (Gilmour playing Breathe) Time RW: When I went back and listened to it a few years ago when I was going on the road and I was trying to decide what songs to play off it. And things like the introduction of Time - my brain kept saying: now it's gonna... oh, it goes round again... ok, now it's gonna change... oh no, it... and it's... it's interminable, you know, it just seems the rototom bit, it seems to go on forever and ever and ever. And it's great, I like it, you know, but it's a... there was a... what would have seemed 20 years later like a bravery in allowing stuff just to sit there and sort of /*vamp for*/ what seems like hour after hour and just to allow it to, you know, have /*its own ...*/ to not to feel that you've got to change or keep people's interest or suddenly have some different kind of information going on... And it was good... Waters On Rock'n'Roll RW: Everybody who goes into rock-n-roll wants to make a mark of some kind as a demonstration of rebellion, or because they can't think of any other way to make a lot of money, or because they want to pull girls, or whatever. There's no purity in the motivation for rock-n-roll. However, those people that are successful in it, normally have - /*and that last a bit*/ - normally have some other axe to grind, which is in some way fundamentally connected to the experience of many others, otherwise we wouldn't buy their records. We... I wouldn't go and buy Neil Young's records unless I felt a fundamental attachment to his preoccupations with love and life and liberty and so and so forth. And the same way with any of my other heroes: Lennon or Dylan or whoever. However, I don't think any of us in rock-n-roll are solely motivated by the noble desire to share our wisdom with the rest of mankind. I think we'd do something else if that was the primary motivation. Chris Thomas AP: Chris Thomas obviously was a well-known producer even then, even in the early 70s. The band felt they needed a fresh /*...*/, which was probably justifiable, I thought. Chris and I, I think, worked pretty well together. CT: Suddenly somebody who wasn't an engineer was sort of coming in, and say: "now, can we compress the guitar on this, and can we compress that, and more echo on that", and /*all there's to it*/. And I think, to this day Alan... if you actually say it like: "is there anything /*or one thing*/ is..." you know... "is there anything you're unhappy about on the record?" It's always like: "well, I didn't want compression...", "I don't like the compression on it..." AP: We occasionally disagreed on compression and a number of issues like that, but essentially I think he helped the process along, helped make it into a better record. CT: You know, a lot of work had gone into it up to that point. It was a question of finishing the record off. It wasn't one of these ones: "well I would fix it in a mix", unlike those loads and loads of stuff to sort out - it wasn't that at all. It'd been very... it'd been carefully planned. NM: Chris was an inspired choice, because having made the album we really did get a /*bolt*/ down into the mixing. RW: Maybe Dave and I were beginning to argue about things. Well, I'm not sure, that may not be true. DG: He came in for just the mix sessions and helped to find a compromise between the way Roger saw it and the way I saw it. RWr: Dave, Roger, me and Nick - all had different ideas about how to mix, whether it's how loud the voice-overs are, whether... how much reverb be on the drums, and levels of vocals. There were violent disagreements, but we couldn't agree. CT: That's a perfectly valid thing to argue about; that's got nothing to do with any argument if one person wants it one way, one person wants it another way. I mean, obviously again, /*...much*/ that's the reason why they wanted somebody else to come in to sort of shine a light onto, you know, what's gonna be the best way. RW: I think we've just run out of energy, you know. And I remember going to listen to the mix after he'd done a mix, and it was usually if it's not... I don't... it was kind of unlike I would have mixed it - much softer and more kind of homogenous. But I think he did a great job. Gilmour's Guitars-Breathe DG: For me, I mean, several guitar parts layered on top of each other: a basic rhythm part and some stuff on the pedal steel. (Gilmour playing the basic part) DG: That would be the sort of basic guitar part done with the whole band playing, and then layering all of other instruments. And at least two tracks on the pedal steel, I think. The first part basically is just that one... And after this there is one added on, that is... Gilmour's Guitars-The Great Gig In The Sky There's the basically the same part on - at the beginning anyway - on The Great Gig In The Sky, which... Gilmour's Guitars-Us And Them (Gilmour playing Us And Them) Gerry Has The Last Word There is no dark side in the Moon really. Matter of fact, it's all dark. The only thing that makes it look alight is the Sun.