A classic song featuring on Pink Floyd‘s The Dark Side of the Moon was initially written for a “cult movie”.
An “arrangement for the verses” used by Roger Waters and the band on the album was originally intended for a Michelangelo Antonioni movie which released in the early 1970s. Though the song was never used for the film, Waters found alternate, and arguably better use, for the song. In an interview with Uncut Magazine, keyboardist Richard Wright confirmed the track was originally not going to feature on The Dark Side of the Moon as it had been reserved for use in the 1970 film, Zabriskie Point. Though Antonioni originally “loved” the song, he soured on it and rejected its use in the film. Waters was left with a “melancholy chord” and little use for it, until Waters turned it into one of The Dark Side of the Moon’s most recognisable songs.
Wright said: “The arrangement for the verses came from a piece I’d done for Zabriskie Point [director Michelangelo Antonioni’s cult movie of 1970]. It was called The Violence Sequence, and it was written for the scene where the students were being beaten up by the police on campus.
“I started off trying all this violent music. Then, one evening, I started playing this melancholy chord sequence. It was interesting to put something really quite sweet behind the violence. It makes it more real. Antonioni loved it, then he didn’t like it and it wasn’t used. So when we came to write Us And Them, I still had this piece in my head.
“Then we needed a middle-eight. I came up with the chords for that. It’s very flowing and sweet if you look at the verse, then there’s the contrast, this big, harder chorus. With the lyrics about the war and the general sitting back – it worked so well.”
Us and Them would become a defining song for Pink Floyd and features on their 1973 release. Wright has said it became one of his “favourite tracks” and says it is the peak of his and Waters’ writing collaborations.
He added: “Funnily enough, it’s one of my favourite tracks. It’s a great example of the music and the lyrics combining to create emotion. It’s probably the best song Roger and I have written together.”
Waters would go on to say he regretted offering songwriting credits to his Pink Floyd bandmates for The Dark Side of the Moon. He told Uncut Magazine: “This album is my baby. In terms of what the records were about, they were my ideas and I wrote them. Dave, particularly, but Rick as well, had major, important contributions.
“I’ve regretted it rather a lot since, but I’m over that now. I went through many years when I really regretted having given away half the writing credits, particularly [Nick Mason’s solo credit for] Speak To Me. I gave it to him. Nobody else had anything to do with it at all.”
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I’m sick of Roger’s complete obsession with himself and his bitterness towards his band mates. Why poison yourself Mr. Waters?
I agree. You look at the band Rush where they agreed from the beginning they would always share credit regardless because everyone in the band puts their heart and soul into it.
The Beatles, too. Lennon-McCartney, even on Yesterday, which was all Paul.
Breaks my heart with the controversy Roger Waters brings with some of his statements & supports. Pink Floyd I believe was one of the greatest bands of all time & the conflict between members is heartbreaking to say the least.
Agreed.
Roger’s comments over the years have left a shadow on the achievements of Pink Floyd as a whole.
Nothing he’s done since Pink Floyd even compares.
He does his thing musicaly,what we heard from Floyd was a collective project. I think Roger waters has brought out some excellent albums himself,Radio Chaos etc are excellent,I also like delicate sound of thunder and tolling bell etc too from Floyd after waters too,to be fair I do rate radio Chaos over anything else he or they have done though,but not to a great extent.
He is also an individual and everyone is entitled to his opinion,we also supposedly enjoy free speech and hes not exactly being racist or discriminatory just critical and reflective. If he is asked a question should he hold back his opinion and be false to keep everyone smiling? Talk about his music and stay out of his personal past and then he has no reason to make people upset about what he tells them.
I’ve increasingly disliked Waters since Wish You Were Here.
He just took over the band over time. The music became good again after he was out of the band.
There’s someone in Roger’s head and it’s all him.🎼🎼🎸🎷.
Good one.
The Waters Home for Colonial Wasters of rhyme and hymn
Bitter and angry music 🎵 🎶 can be beautiful if you’re not actually hanging on to the lyrical content but looking for something edgy, that will keep you alert enough to drive.
I can’t help but want to take a shower 🚿 when I hear Young Lust.
used to think it d be cool to be one of the back up Singers in a Roger Waters.
Somehow Waters completely ignores the tremendous synergy they all had. Here’s a completely free lyric to a song that will never be written, “The whole is greater than the sum of the individual parts.”
Roger who?
Waters likely wrote most of the lyrics but clearly the melodies of these songs were written by the others. Does waters think that he wrote all the beautiful keyboard and organ melodies that Wright came up with? Rick Wright wrote the most beautiful part of brain damage but got no credit.
If Roger was so great, where are his solo hits after he left the band? All inside his ego-inflated head. I was such a fan of the group I bought his first solo effort after he left. It was the worst thing I’ve ever heard.
Gilmour on the other hand had by far the best solo albums. All of them were quite amazing. I mean, Waters put a naked hitchhiker on one of his and it still sucked.
Radio KAOS was a great album. They kept playing Sunset Strip on the radio and I didn’t really like it, but once I listened to the whole album. It’s a story, a radio station broadcast on the eve of nuclear annihilation. Very strong message and great songs. You should take a listen to it.
I too bought his first album after they split. The only song I liked was ‘What God Wants’. Everything else I did not care for. I kept with Pink Floyd after and have immensely enjoyed everything since. Even David Gilmours’ solo stuff still had his great guitar playing.
Roger was so depressing.The Final Cut was the Worst Pink Floyd album ever.His solo albums were not as good as any Pink Floyd album.i had every album Dave Gilmour released and the Guitar sounds like Pink Floyd because that and the keyboards of Rick Wright made the Band Sound Better Nick Masons Drumming also.But the Bass player Who sang didn’t make the music on his own. So it became better without him.
All of our opinions mean very little. What matters are the facts. And it’s impossible to really know what actually happened. It’s all he said and he said. I just enjoy the music and shut all this noise out of my head.
I bought dark side the day it came out, my mother hid it from me .had to buy another and another and another…..during that time period most of the rock albums were brilliant….the seventies recorded the best rock ever herd, something about that time in our history.
While he’s probably not the nicest guy in rock history, you have to acknowledge the lyrical genius. Most people with that brilliance are self centred. They have to be to create that stuff
Huge fan of the Waters era as well as the Gilmour / Mason period. Different but both brilliant