Finding the fine line between commercial and creatively satisfying is, ultimately, the goal of an artist. To profit from the work but to be proud of it is a rarity. Some are living with the latter as their goal, and credit to them for pursuing that gift of unique sound despite the financial constraint. Others, those who top the charts more frequently than others, are in it for the money. They have taken a literal meaning from the famous The Mothers of Invention album and are set to pursue an indifferent cultural course. Leonard Cohen, in his poetry collection Book of Longing, suggested that love and money are opposites, though for some, it is the same thing. A beautiful poem, a guide for many. Few will have the long-lasting talents needed to bring those two poles together. Pink Floyd does. They showed as much on Us and Them. A challenging song, a masterclass of progressive rock, but also a commercial success.
That’s the blur The Dark Side of the Moon found. It’s what keeps the album perfect, or thereabouts. Remaster after remaster comes not because there is a need to flog a dead horse but because it remains a constantly marketable piece of work. A moment of perfection, from cover to creativity in the studio. Every part of it highlights just how hard the always-online world, the immediate access to music, makes legacy now. No band or artist will have one as enduring and acclaimed as this. There are those pop stars who find themselves without the creativity to keep themselves in the history books, but bring about enough releases to maintain financial success. We are far beyond both being possible. Be happy with your lot or thrilled with nothing. Separate Us and Them from the rest of The Dark Side of the Moon and it still works brilliantly. An instrumental masterclass, a mood-setting slice of perfection from a band that has seen their best works adapted into modern times.
Such is the case for Us and Them. It’s a song dependent on the paranoia Roger Waters wrote with but also on the hopefulness brought on by David Gilmour’s lead vocals. Now, the song sounds like a desperate attempt at uniting opposing forces against a common enemy. The “ordinary men” at the core of Us and Them are all of us, though heads are turned for all the wrong reasons. Where is the line drawn at what we can do to affect change? Us and Them questions that, and the ugly truth is very few will do much. That’s the gruesome point which was relevant in the mid-1970s and remains, decades on, as the honest, brutal line from one of the band’s best songs. There’s a desperation within Us and Them that remains because the times have not changed.
If they have, then they have changed for the worse. Us and Them has some utterly beautiful instrumentals within, and they soften the blow of harsh words. A saxophone introduction that’ll blow you off your feet, a vocal tenderness from Gilmour which would appear again on Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I – V). Accepting the ordinary is what makes us special. It’s that conflict of ideas which Us and Them highlights best of all. We are special because we are similar, and what defines the people around us is their actions outside of that. Pink Floyd nailed it. There are few artists out there who can say they captured those broad strokes of life so clearly as The Dark Side of the Moon does. It’s deserving of praise from those wearing merch with holes in the neckline, who swear by the sanctity of life found in the album. It’s true, we have got to give the obsessives that. Us and Them is still a defining moment for the band, for prog rock, and for actively progressive music.
