The Dark Side of the Rainbow

I just discovered these lyrics below in the song The Trial on The Wall by PF. I have rarely listened to that album - it's bleak and ugly-but someone quoted this chorus.

I am infatuated with the Dark Side of the Rainbow mashup of DSM with the Wizard of Oz. We fans want to know how that resonance happened. Accidentally, no doubt. Part of the human cultural consciousness.

Here is the earliest connection I am aware of that Roger Waters was thinking about and quoting from WoO, written around 1977. He repeats "over the rainbow" twice.

Note also the connotation here of "over the rainbow" to "crazy / insane". The idea that Dorothy was having a mental breakdown / was crazy (like Syd Barrett and Pink and maybe Roger) is the theme that links all of this.

"Bassist Roger Waters conceived The Wall during Pink Floyd's 1977 In the Flesh tour, modelling the character of Pink after himself and Pink Floyd's former songwriter / founder Syd Barrett."

So: Dorothy = Roger Waters = Pink = Syd

The rainbow here literally goes "over" the wall!

From: The Trial on The Wall Crazy Over the rainbow, I am crazy Bars in the window There must have been a door there in the wall When I came in Crazy, over the rainbow, he is crazy.

Whoever the crazy or the genius who had plenty of time on his hands, patience and grace to ever come up with this idea, deserves to get an award for simply putting together two of the greatest artistic icons of the 20th century: the movie "The Wizard of Oz" (1939) and Pink Floyd's album "The Dark Side of the Moon" (1973). The rumor concerning the band's music being a perfect match to Victor Fleming's picture started to spread in the late 1990's in music forums - Floyd's members always denied such conception, unthinkable and unpractical to be executed in the 1970's. Somehow, the marriage between both medias is like made in heaven and seems completely relevant, taking both works into a different and unimaginable new level.

Under the microscope, the movie and the music reflects on the many aspects of life like conflict, struggle, greed, the need for something. If you already know the movie, then you'll just watch this as if watching a classic from the silent era, with no dialogs and with the only voices heard being of David Gilmour, Richard Wright, Gerry O'Driscoll, Henry McCullough and Clare Torry accompanied by the wonderful instruments of the fore-mentioned guys, Nick Mason and Roger Waters. Dorothy Gale's colorful journey to the magnificent Oz is about to become a little darker...

Instead of deeply exploring what I gathered with the junction, I leave those to you and just describe some of the great moments this union has to share. My favorite segment was definitely "The Great Gig in the Sky" played with a great sense of timing during the tornado that takes Dorothy and Toto to Oz. It was perfection, couldn't resist to tear up a bit. Can't leave behind the yellow brick road which pops in exactly when Dorothy walks on it for the first time, and the track played? "Money". The colors mentioned in "Us and Them" fit exactly with some of the ones featured during the exchange between Dorothy and the Wicked Witch of the West. The outstanding "Brain Damage" with its remarkable opening line "The lunatic is on the grass" has Ray Bolger's Scarecrow doing funny things and falling on the ground, not necessarily on the grass. It closes with Tin Man's appearance to the sound of "Eclipse" cause the album is just 43 minutes long. It's really incredible that such music and lyrics, in a way, seem to hold together with this classical film.

Somehow the innocence is lost, we feel as if watching a grown up Dorothy facing the life obstacles in a strange land. Timeless experiences that while brought together feel even more powerful than they ever were. Bless the person whoever thought of this idea. 10/10