“Time” Analysis

Link to original song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwYX52BP2Sk
Link to solo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ki1PlbzTdCg&feature=youtu.be

The Dark Side of the Moon: One of the most successful and influential albums in music history by the progressive rock band Pink Floyd. Featured on the album is a famous song by the group: Time. An extensive intro section followed by a blues, synth driven verse leads into the guitar solo which is then followed by another verse is the unique outlook to the song. Besides the excellent musicianship the song contains, another particularly interesting aspect about the song is its extremely deep, existential lyrics.

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 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

While actually playing the solo to this song myself (see link if you’re so inclined), I realized there are some extremely philosophical ideas at play here, whether or not Roger Waters (the bass player and main lyricist for Floyd) realized it, in relation to some of the theories discussed in the class.

The first idea that came to mind was the story of the traveller. Tolstoy creates a horribly pessimistic metaphor for life in that a traveller has fallen in a pit in which he is hanging on by a small branch. At the bottom of the pit lies a huge dragon awaiting his tasty meal to fall. The branch’s roots are also being nibbled away by two mice of white and black fur. There is also honey dripping from the branch the traveller can reach and get. The symbolism is this: the dragon is representing death, the mice the passing of time (night and day), and the honey is merely the few short pleasures which can distract us from death itself. “Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day” and “fritter and waste the hours in an off hand way” seem to play right in line with a sad view of life such as the one Tolstoy describes. A view that humans just waste time in silent agony awaiting the death that is most certainly coming to us all-a view in which every day just brings us “one day closer to death.”

A second idea the song relates to is Nagel’s concept of absurdity. Nagel defines our lives to be absurd because there is a distinct discrepancy between our claim to significance and what the universe actually tells us. Or in other terms, we go about our lives thinking it is significant but because you can zoom out far away in reference to the universe, this means we are but a pointless speck on a small planet who really has no meaning whatsoever. This idea is present in Time. One of Floyd’s most famous lyrics ever is “Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way” and this relates directly to an absurd life. It hints at the feeling that many people may have, whether conscious about it or not, that we are all just grasping for meaning. We try and find some way to cope with the desperate feeling of meaninglessness by just trying to fool ourselves that we are meaningful or just accepting that we are indeed lacking meaning in the universal scale. This is too what Camus thought. He thought that either we would commit suicide (either literally or philosophically-ie religion) or we would have to accept that the universe is silent and continue to search for a meaning to life. I do believe these fears are what the lyrics to time are playing at. Our fear of death and meaninglessness and that we simply don’t have enough time to find a way over it: “Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time…”

Despite these incredibly deep and depressing lyrics (but also just plain incredible), there is still hope to be had! The only hint at some of the more pessimistic theories about the meaning of life. If you wish to end on a positive note, do some further research on the work of Susan Wolfe and her description on successful projects or Todd May’s work on narrative values. They give great ideas on we, humans on earth, despite our insignificance to the universe and the universe’s silence, can still live very good (yes, objectively and subjectively) and meaningful lives!