In a 2003 interview to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon, bassist and songwriter, Roger Waters (who was about to turn 30 when the album was released) explained:
“I suddenly realized then, that year, that life was already happening. I think it’s because my mother was so obsessed with education and the idea that childhood and adolescence and… well, everything… was about preparing for a life that was going to start later. And I suddenly realized that life wasn’t going to start later–that it starts at ‘dot’ and that it happens all the time, and that at any point you can grasp the reigns and start guiding your own destiny. And that was a big revelation to me. I mean, it came as quite a shock!”
[You can hear Waters speak some of the above quote in this ambient music mix (cued up).]
LYRICS:
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.
Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.
So 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.
Every year is getting shorter; never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I’d something more to say.
Home
Home again
I like to be here
When I can
When I come home
Cold and tired
It’s good to warm my bones
Beside the fire
Far away
Across the field
Tolling on the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spell
Songwriters: DAVID GILMOUR, NICHOLAS MASON, ROGER WATERS, RICK WRIGHT
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