Time (Pink Floyd song)

"Time"
Song
A-side	"Us and Them"

"Time" is the fourth track from British progressive rock band Pink Floyd's 1973 album, The Dark Side of the Moon, and the only song on the album credited to all four members of the band. It is noted for its long introductory passage of clocks chiming and alarms ringing, recorded as a stereo test by Alan Parsons, not specifically for the album.

The song is a memento mori describing the phenomenon in which time seems to pass more quickly as one ages, often leading to despair in old age over missed opportunities of the past.

Composition

Each clock was recorded separately in an antiques store. This is followed by an eerie two-minute passage dominated by Nick Mason's rototoms and backgrounded by a ticking sound created by Roger Waters strumming on his bass. With David Gilmour singing lead on the verses and with Richard Wright singing lead on the bridges and with various female singers providing backup vocals, the lyrics of the song deal with Roger Waters's realization that life was not about preparing yourself for what happens next, but about grabbing control of your own destiny (he attributes his earlier ignorance of this to his mother's obsession with education). A guitar solo from Gilmour provides the refrain over the same chord progressions as the verse and chorus. A reprise of the album's opener "Breathe" brings the song to a close, before it segues into "The Great Gig in the Sky". When the tom drums were recorded, there were only 3 available so the band had to tune the drum after each hit to get the right pitch and then mix the hit into the song.

Immediately after the guitar solo, the lines

So 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 your older Shorter of breath and one day closer to death"

are an allusion to Chapter 1 Verse 5 of the Biblical work Ecclesiastes, which states "The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose." This continues the memento mori theme of the song.

The song is the second longest on the album, after "Us and Them", and is renowned for Gilmour's guitar solo after the first verse, which is often considered to be one of his best. [1] Template:Multi-listen start Template:Multi-listen item Template:Multi-listen end

Personnel

• Roger Waters - Fender Precision Bass
• David Gilmour - Guitars, vocals
• Nick Mason - rototoms and drums
• Rick Wright - keyboards, vocals

Pop culture

• The song's opening is used at the end of the trailers for the second series of Life on Mars.
• The song's opening was used as the main menu music for the video game Destruction Derby 2.
• This song was another successful single on the album, reaching #101 on the Billboard charts.
• The Beastie Boys sampled "Time" for their song "Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun", which appeared on their album Paul's Boutique.
• The Killers covered this song multiple times during their Hot Fuss tour after having their song On Top segue into it.
• The song was used on a few occasions in the Cantonese language re-release of Bruce Lee's first adult starring role, The Big Boss
• The Prodigy sampled the alarm bell for their tracks "Claustrophobic Sting" and "Wake Up Call"
• After the clocks finish ringing, this song's tempo is exactly 120 beats per minute, meaning each beat is one half-second of real time.
• Original lyrics to the first bridge were "lying supine in the sunshine" and despite the finalised lyrics being published and released in 1973, Wright continued to sing the earlier version as late as 1975.
• The website DigitalDreamDoor.com named Time the second greatest lyrical performance of all time, just behind Bob Dylan's Desolation Row. [2]
• On February 3-11, 1995 the opening sequence of time was played as a wakeup call for the crew of space mission STS-69.

Alternative and Live versions

• A live version of the song can be heard on the P*U*L*S*E concert DVD and CD.
• Another live version was played on the Delicate Sound of Thunder CD and concert video. It does not include the "Breathe (Reprise)" section at the end.
• On the Roger Waters solo In the Flesh: Live tour DVD and CD, a version sung by him is played.

Cover Versions

• This song was covered on the Echoes of Pink tribute album in 2002 by Melissa Quade.

• A cover version of Time by Kelsey Wood (who was 14 years old upon its release) appears on the 2003 Pink Floyd tribute album A Fair Forgery of Pink Floyd