Download link via kingblind. I think they have reversed the tracks. Swastika Girls is #1 and the other, slightly longer one is #2. That would make sense if No Pussyfooting was only played backwards, wouldn't it? I don't know N.P. but this is quite nice actually.

A way to continue this blog could be to just respond to comments of people on something I wrote here in the past three years. I like that idea somehow but it would probably cost me the last readers I have. Blogging hasn't really worked out as I originally intended. It did change my life but not in the way I had hoped for. Maybe I am more the secret diary guy.

The famous untitled cover picturing a light beam hitting a prism and being dispersed into a spectrum, many beams in the different colours of the rainbow. One of the more astonishing experiments in physics showing that white light is a mixture of different frequencies which can be visualised as the spectral colours.

I listened to this album for the first time in 1975, I guess, probably in November. Chez my best friend. In his room under the roof with the oversized drawing of Che Guevara's face on the wall. He was the handsome good-looking guy the girls liked. I was the outsider who was into chess and other stuff girls were not interested at all in. It was dark in his room when he put the record on. I didn't know about concept albums or anything but the music really hit me. It wasn't like anything I had heard and liked before like Abba, the Bee Gees, the Sweet etc. There was something universal about it. Until a couple of years ago I had never thought about DSotM as having different songs. It was just one song with different parts segueing seamlessly into another. I didn't understand what this album was about but I felt that it was something special, something bigger than life.

The cry which starts Speak to Me Breathe. A song which can make you forget everything bad about this world. The tenderness, the love, Dave Gilmour's guitar. When they started their Live8 performance this year with this song I could hardly hold back my tears. This was the better part of my youth, fuck.

The dooming atmosphere of the beginning of Time preshadowing goth. Turning into something quite funky, with those background girls vocals, I usually hate but which make sense to me here. As they are only used as an element, they are just an extra flavour which give the song some extra life.

The Great Gig in the Sky has more of this kind of women's singing. It's soulish stuff, it's great.

The sound of cash registers bring us back to profanity. Money. Considering that this is supposed to be the second best selling album of all-time (see Wikipedia) there is a lot of ex-post irony hanging around here. Played to death, but still an amazing song. The saxophone is reaching for some incredible heights. That tremolo! And the guitar as well. Like Santana but better. I can't imagine a cover of this which could convince me.

Us Against Them. Apparently the longest track. The saxophone again. Fitting perfectly. Isn't this song about a fight? So calm and sovereign.

A prog-rock piece follows. Okay in the course of things.

And then we have Brain Damage. That must refer to Syd Barrett. He didn't make it to the stardom of Pink Floyd. But he is looming there, in the background. How to cope with losing the main band member. Pink Floyd and Joy Division. Two of the most important bands in rock music.

Further Reading

• Wikipedia
• Songmeanings: Pink Floyd

This was the concluding post of the the series 40 years, 40 albums.

Very often other people can put it into words so much better than me, so there we go:

From an ILM thread on iPod wars:

Unfortunately all players seem to be out of stock right now...

my fave of all tracks which have yet been posted of the peel box is the b-side of aquarius, it's called chinook, a dark monster of fuzzy electro beats. the internet is a wonderful thing, you ask an innocuous question and you get 154 songs john peel loved. thanks to cristian and everyone else who is participating. it's still going. will we have all singles in the end? i guess so. i love you all.

Blo.gs has disabled searching for a while, Helma doesn't like the xml. Therefore a direct link here for In League With Paton. A very well written music blog with recent posts on the latest John Cale, some Animal Collective, a new film from Mike Leigh and so on. Very British as we like it around here.

Die Zugvogelhaftigkeit nimmt ab. (Vorhin im Interview mit einem Vogelforscher in Bayern 2 im Zündfunk, glaube ich. Hat mit der Klimaerwärmung zu tun)

Ein Harzer mit Knoblauch, das erdet gewaltig. (hotel mama)

Baltimore Psychobilly (via Machtdose), a great radio station on one of my favourite sub-genres of rock. The humus for bands like The Cramps, Pere Ubu, Gun Club, Dead Kennedys, Nirvana and The White Stripes. Goth must originate around here, too. But the psycho part can also be interpreted as psychedelic. Psychedelic punk with strong blues roots could be a good description.