Roger Waters releases new version of ‘The Dark Side Of The Moon’

One of the founders and key songwriters of Pink Floyd, Roger Waters, has released a new version of the album “The Dark Side of the Moon,” which is one of the most commercially successful discs in the history of recording. The 2023 version is called “The Dark Side Of The Moon Redux”, which roughly translates to “the return of “The Dark Side Of The Moon””. The album turned out to be controversial, and the context in which the new release found itself overshadowed its musical characteristics, he believes Igor Gavrilov.

Roger Waters decided to release his version of “The Dark Side of the Moon” on the 50th anniversary of the original record. In the spring, David Gilmour and Nick Mason released a box set with the remastered original recording, and Waters, who shares irreconcilable differences with his former colleagues, announced a new interpretation of the classic material. He explained the decision to re-record the album with a desire to restore justice. The musician on “The Dark Side Of The Moon” owns all the lyrics, but the musical layer is only half, as stated in the official release data. Waters now insists that this is practically his solo album, and he dreamed of recording it the way he imagined it, without the influence of his colleagues. In comments that appeared around the release of The Dark Side Of The Moon Redux, Waters notes that the original album was written from the point of view of an old man who had lived his life, but it was created by young people. And now it’s interesting to talk about the same thing, but in the shoes of an 80-year-old man.

The old man, like many of his peers, turned out to be talkative. He filled the first track, “Speak To Me,” with lyrics, although the original, written by drummer Nick Mason, was an instrumental composition. “The memories of a man in old age are the actions of a man in the prime of his life. You shuffle in the darkness of a hospital room and talk to yourself until you die,” Waters does not sing, but talks to himself at the very beginning of the new album.

To the song “Breathe” he adds lines from the song “Free Four” (Pink Floyd album “Obscured By Clouds”, 1972), calling himself “the son of a dead man,” that is, reminding the listener of perhaps the main trigger of all his work – the death of his father to the Second World War. Another initially instrumental piece, “On The Run,” was overgrown with poetry, and the inventive synthesizer part, which, like the entire album, became a reference point for Pink Floyd followers for many years, found itself in the shadow of melodic declamation. The author also subjected the stunning, even now sounding revolutionary arrangement of the song “Time” to “cancellation” and added his own poems to it. In the song “The Great Gig In The Sky,” memorable primarily for Claire Torrey’s vocalization, a whole conversational period appeared instead – correspondence with the American poet Donald Hall, who was dying of cancer. Finally, in the song “Money,” a Pink Floyd fan will not find the “one-armed bandit” sample familiar from childhood.

Nick Mason managed to praise his ex-colleague. The drummer, who successfully tours with a program of early Pink Floyd songs, is generally much more peaceful than his comrades from the band’s golden days. However, not all fans of the group share his assessment. Roger Waters did not reproduce the usual solos of guitarist David Gilmour and keyboardist Richard Wright on the album, although at concerts his band plays songs from “The Dark Side of the Moon” close to the original. Listeners who grew up listening to the classic version of the album missed many parts. And if you imagine the album “…Redux” in a neophyte’s headphones, he will hear “the complaints of an 80-year-old man,” and a rather tired one at that.

A negative backdrop for the release was the Hamas invasion of Israel, which occurred literally the next morning after the album’s release. Waters has been a long-standing supporter of Palestine; almost none of his concerts are complete without his final anti-Israeli speech, for which he always wears a keffiyeh around his neck.

Concerts and presentations of “…Redux” were scheduled for October 8 and 9. The venue was the London Palladium concert hall, owned by composer Andrew Lloyd Webber. The public organization CAA (Campaign Against Antisemitism) called on Waters and Webber to cancel the concerts. She even equipped cars with digital billboards so that they drove around London and campaigned against the musician’s performances. In addition, shortly before the release of “…Redux,” David Gilmour posted links to the CAA-produced film “The Dark Side of Roger Waters” on his social networks. In this film, such important figures in the history of Pink Floyd as saxophonist Norbert Stachel and producer Bob Ezrin speak out on the topic of Waters’ anti-Semitism. Despite the fact that the re-recorded album itself contains no political statements, it is impossible to perceive it outside the context of the current international situation.

Despite the protests, the concerts at the Palladium took place. Roger Waters performed in a pink jacket, clearly hinting at who the real pink is in this world. The musician decided not to raise political topics at the premieres, but the audience still left the hall. Waters designed the program in such a way that playing music did not begin immediately: for an hour he read chapters from his unpublished biography, and, for example, the story of a duckling named Donald who appeared in his family took 20 minutes. The concert was also preceded by a film about the recording of “…Redux”, which spoke in detail about each song. And only then the album was played in its entirety. Those who stayed until the end thanked Roger Waters with a standing ovation. No matter what, it’s a classic.