clairedelune said:
SonicKoala said:
clairedelune said:
SonicKoala said:
clairedelune said:
I'm probably gonna get slammed for this, but I always thought Money was really out of place on dark side of the moon. It's good for radio playability, but it doesn't have the depth of the other songs, and the topic isn't consistent, and the tone isn't consistent... I don't mind the song itself but it doesn't fit.
I actually felt that Money was crucial to the concept of "Dark Side of the Moon" - it's an album about life, and the numerous things which affect it - Time (from "Time", obvioiusly), death ("The Great gig in the sky"), the concept of have and have not ("Us and Them"), Insanity (Brain Damage), and yet, at the centre of all this, the thing which our entire lives revolve around - is money. Ever notice how "Money" is in the dead centre of the album? I'm sorry, but it fits perfectly.
Yeah, I can see what you are getting at, but I look at the album more on an individual level and as an album on the process of losing your mind and becoming insane (Dark Side of the Moon is not the most subtle title). I feel like it was just put on the album because it is easy to play on the radio, since you don't even have to listen to the whole song to get what it is about. I find that usually, and on every other song on the album, Pink Floyd has a lot more depth to their songs and they are more complex than that.
Well, it's not suppose to be looked at on an individual level, the band came together before the writing of the album and chose the concept they wanted to address. That being said, musically, Money is a complex song, but since I have a feeling you're referencing the message, sure, the meaning of Money is pretty straightforward, but that doesn't mean it's out of place. That's nice that you "feel" it was "just" put on the album due to its mainstream appeal, but that's blatantly inaccurate. Floyd were trying to convey a particular theme with "Dark Side", and every single bit of music they put on that album contributes to that theme. Just because "Money" happened to become hugely successful doesn't mean it's any less significant. And please, the whole idea of Money is captured in the last verse - "Money/so they say/is the root of all evil today/"; You do have to listen to the whole song to get the idea.
Yes, it's a good thing you are here to tell us how to interpret music, because after all there are ways you are and are not supposed to look at it. If you couldn't get the idea of that line through hearing the other verses then you weren't paying attention. That is not an original quote by them either, so choosing that line to show how it is necessary to the main idea of the song is a little odd, seeing as it's just them quoting a saying...
Yes, I agree, it is a good thing I'm here to tell others how to interpret music, thank you for acknowledging that. Secondly, I know that it's not an original quote by them, but that line still summarises the central idea of the song, which is why I used it.... I don't see how that's odd in anyway whatsoever. Finally, you are free to interpret music anyway you want, but claiming that "Money" is a song put on "Dark Side" purely for commercial reasons is not interpretation, it's a complete falsehood - Pink Floyd were never a band that wrote songs simply so they could be released as singles; their music always had a purpose and contributed to their LPs as a whole, just as "Money" has a crucial purpose on "Dark Side of the Moon". You may not like it as much as the others, and that's fine (it's not my favourite either), but don't suggest that it was the obligatory single Floyd were required to have on the album.
Finally, I'd just like to point out two things - for one, the first sentence in the above paragraph is intentionally arrogant (fighting sarcasm with sarcasm is fun), and second, you even acknowledged in your original post that you were "probably gonna get slammed for this". I'm not trying to make this personal or anything, it's just I'm an enormous Floyd fan, and the suggestion that they would include a song simply so it would get played on the radio is blasphemy - with someone like Roger Waters in the band, that could just never happen. Yes, Dark Side brought Floyd into the mainstream, but I see that as a testament to their amazing ability as songwriters, not as an indication of their compliance to the demands of the mainstream. Hell, I'd be willing to accept that notion if it weren't for the fact that "Money" just fits so damn well with the rest of the album.
