As writers, we don't simply create our works without a deeper purpose. Just as anyone else, we have something to say. The only difference is we use our craft to speak our thoughts, not only to ourselves but to our readers or listeners. While there are some songs out in the world that may have less depth and or seriousness to them, there are those out there that, like many of the readings we see in class, that are pulling the audience to a place where they begin to think about what is being said and even on their own lives. The author has their opinion on the subject, but they are trying to get their audience to see their line of thinking and come to terms with what the author says. The song I decided to share with you all is trying to present an opinion, a thought of the writer, and yet does it in a simplistic straightforward manner, while holding onto a slight poetic form or feel. While it is a much older song, we are going to look at Pink Floyd's "Time" off of their Dark Side of the Moon album, which may lead you to deeper thinking on your own life.
"Time" Pink Floyd
Ticking away the moments
That make up a dull day
Fritter and waste the hours
In an off-hand 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
And you run and you run
To catch up with the sun
But it's sinking
Racing around
To come up behind 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
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYiahoYfPGk
First off, when we listen to the beginning of the song, we hear a massive collection of clocks ticking and alarms going off, which plays along to the title of "Time". We are immediately given the sensation of the first couple of lines, "ticking away the moments that make up a dull day". Though with this large amount of ticking clocks, it gives the impression, of not only the time of one day or moment, but the time spent over an entire lifetime. Pink Floyd was trying to explain our mentality of wasting days away and almost having this belief when we are young that we are immortal and will live forever.
In our younger years we think we are in destructable and time is taking so long to pass. We put things off because we believe we are promised yesterday, as it states "You are young and life is long, and there is time to kill today". We have a habit of wasting hours away waiting for something to happen in our lives, instead of living. It isn't until we start to age and we see that "every year is getting shorter" and we're getting older, that we begin to realize how quickly time has wasted and passed us, when we believed it would last forever. As the song states, we start trying to catch up with time, but there is a realization that we cannot slow down time or catch up with it. Everyday is another day lost and we're "one day closer to death", until finally it's our last day. The song is trying to get the listener to realize how precious time really is. How quickly it can pass us by, and the years can easily pass without us realizing it, so that we can make a change to live our lives before it's too late.
Pink Floyd uses interesting techniques throughout this song, one of the main ones of course being the ticking clocks at the beginning of the song, however, there are also interesting visuals being used in the song. One visual we pick up on is that of a race.
"No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun, and you run and you run, to catch up to the sun, but it's sinking. Racing around, to come up behind you again."
Here, the sun is being personified, as we are in a race to fight the sun, a symbol of time. We are given the scene of a runner, starting a race who was too distracted to hear the gun start, while time has already been running. There is an attempt to catch up with the sun, but we find that as fast as we run, we can't beat time, let alone catch up with it, as it'll continually pass us on this race for life. We later get that reminder of a race with the comment "shorter of breath".
Even towards the end of the song, we see how even the author, while writing this piece, or feeling the effects of time catching up with them as he states, "the time is gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say". We feel that the author still has so much more to say on the subject, but because of time, because their song is over, they've lost that ability to time and cannot get it back.
As we can see in Pink Floyd's song, our writing does not have to be surfacing or even happy. There can be a seriousness to it, and we can use our craft to spread awareness to our audience. In the case of Pink Floyd, they used imagery and sound to create a line of thinking for their audience, techniques that we may be wanting to experiment with. However we decide to achieve it, there is power in our words and through what we write, we can make a strong statement that may even move other people to react.
-Adri
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