News

Sunday Herald writer learns what stoned 15-year-olds already know: The Dark Side of the Moon doesn’t line-up with the Wizard of Oz

11:16 a.m. · September 22, 2008 · by Andrew Winistorfer

To honor the passing of Pink Floyd keyboardist Rick Wright, Scotland’s Sunday Herald’s Arts editor Graeme Virtue did what stoned American teenagers have been doing since the advent of home video—he tried to sync up The Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd’s magnum opus, with The Wizard of Oz. The results: the two don’t line-up.

My first trip to Oz is a little disorientating. The woozy swirl of Floyd's music doesn't seem to jigsaw with the garish-looking, slapstick action at all. During the hammering, proto-electronica of Breathe, Dorothy is still moping around in Kansas. When the twister hits, the ebb and flow of The Great Gig In The Sky (which is awesome, as it turns out) is supposed to mirror her experience of the storm, but I remain sceptical.

 

The first time it gels is when Dorothy steps out into Oz, just as Money kicks in. If you imagine the yellow brick road is made of unusually scrunchy gravel, her footsteps seem soundtracked by that famously percussive, till ringin', paper-tearin' beat. And as the 40-minute album ends for the first time, fading away to eerie heartbeats, Dorothy has her head pressed up against the Tin Man's cardiac-deficient chest. Coinkydink? I think not!

Virtue’s conclusion is pretty predictable, considering everyone I knew who would tell me they got it to work were typically the people entranced with their own hands during Chemistry class. (In all fairness, one guy said he saw Spyro the Dragon on the back of his hand once, and I’d be pretty stoked about that too.) But it’s still a strange way to put a cap on Wright’s life—trying out an experiment for an article that teenagers in wood-paneled basements in America try nearly every day.

But it is Britain after all, and teens there are more prone to trying to line-up Back in Black with Predator. (That one actually works for real. I swear.) [Sunday Herald via LHB]