The Dark Side of the Rainbow

The Dark Side of the Moon, the album by Pink Floyd, is one of the greatest records ever from the classic rock period (or any other period, for that matter). It spent almost 750 weeks on the Billboard charts, and when I was in college it could be heard in dorm rooms almost any night. The wall in the student lounge in my high school was painted with the distinctive prism/rainbow art from the album cover (which has no doubt been painted over many times by now). The album was the band's meditation on madness, prompted by the institutionalization of their former mate, Syd Barrett.

I had only owned the record on vinyl, but yesterday I picked up a CD version so I could conduct an experiment I had heard about--synchronizing the album with the film The Wizard of Oz. Supposedly there were all sorts of mind-blowing coincidences between the music and the images, which were first reported in the 1990s and there are any number of Web sites that chronicle all the freaky match-ups of sound and image. This is called The Dark Side of the Rainbow (also The Dark Side of Oz or The Wizard of Floyd).

Here's the way to do it: put in your Pink Floyd CD and hit play and then immediately pause. Start the Wizard of Oz DVD and when the MGM lion has roared a third time, start the CD. Then wait for the magic to come.

The effect was underwhelming to say the least. Oh sure there are some coincidental neat-o tricks, most of which have to do with timing: when the chimes of "Time" ring, we get our first glimpse of Elmira Gulch. When the cash register sounds of "Money" start (which was the beginning of side two in the vinyl days) is the moment when Dorothy opens the door and enters Munchkinland, which of course means that the film has changed to color.

There are also some nifty coincidences concerning lyrics: when Dorothy is balancing on the fence rail next to the pig sty, we hear "balanced on the biggest wave." When she runs away from home, we hear "No one told you when to run," and when Professor Marvel looks into his crystal ball to convince Dorothy to return home, we hear "Home, home again." I also liked that when the Wicked Witch makes her first appearance we hear the intonation of the word "Black," and then "who knows which is which and who is who." When Glinda's bubble disappears, we hear "Out." The album ends with the sound of a heartbeat, which is precisely when Dorothy is banging on the Tin Man's chest to prove he has no heart.

Supposedly there are a lot more of these, but those would be stretching it even further than I have. If you leave the album on repeat and have it go through a second or third playing you don't get much.

Anyone suggesting that Pink Floyd did this on purpose is crazy, and is suffering from what psychologists call apophenia, which is finding random patterns in meaningless data. It's sort of like all the "Paul is dead" clues in Beatles' lyrics and album art--one is starting with a result and then looking for trails to that conclusion, which is backward thinking. There is plenty about the experiment which doesn't lead credence to any intent on Pink Floyd's part: the electronic music of "On the Run" plays during Dorothy singing "Over the Rainbow," which doesn't jibe at all, and "Money" plays during the Munchkinland sequence. I don't know of anyone who suggests that the excesses of capitalism, which is what the song is about, has anything to do with Munchkins. Some have cited the line "Got to keep the loonies on the path" playing during Dorothy and the Scarecrow heading down the Yellow Brick Road, but these two aren't loonies in any way, shape or form.

But I didn't find the experiment a waste of time. There are some juxtapositions that are unexpectedly moving, mainly the "The Great Gig in the Sky" playing during the twister sequence. Watching Dorothy struggle to get back home and then try to get into the storm cellar while Clare Torry's soaring vocals are in the background is heady stuff.

In the final analysis, I think if you take any record and play it against any movie, you'll get similar results, and these will only be exaggerated by imbibing mind-altering substances. If I had more time I'd try Aqualung, or better yet, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.