An Experience Of Life On 'The Dark Side Of The Moon'

Alex DeLarge best put it about his favorite music- 

'Oh, it was gorgeousness and gorgeousity made flesh. It was like a bird of rarest-spun heaven metal or like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense now. As I slooshied, I knew such lovely pictures!'

When it comes to lovely pictures and gorgeousity, however, few can rival Pink Floyd. The London-born lineup was founded in the wee end of the freewheeling sixties by crazy diamond Syd Barrett, was commanded in the turbulent 70s by the de facto genius Roger Waters and was then left for the musically gifted but a tad-too-low-key David Gilmour to handle. And while they might have leaped from style to style- from Barrett's freaked-out visions to Waters' blazing philosophical and social commentary to Gilmour's self-indulgent nostalgia for the past, nearly everyone could agree on the band's indisputed ability to churn out music that enlightened, entertained and felt as gloriously out of the world as DeLarge would want it. 

And there is a lot of clamour among the Floyd fans, regarding which particular song or album was their finest hour. There are many, who will laud the psychedelic work of the late 60s; there are many, who (like me) absolutely adore the challenging and provocative concept albums of Waters in the 70s and there are also many, who will defend the post-heyday band and their ramblings in the 80s and 90s, mostly because of Gilmour and his guitar.

And yet, everyone will agree upon 'The Dark Side Of The Moon'- that seminal 1973 album that not only proved Floyd as the new-found pioneers and masters of progressive rock but also cemented their credentials which were being held in doubt. Indeed, intriguing but inadequate works like 'Atom Heart Mother' and 'Ummagumma' had lovers of girls named Emily and space trips to the Sun wondering if they had lost their mojo. 'Meddle' - with its soft-spoken, sunlit elegance, was a sort of comeback but not quite as sensational as the journey to the alternate universe that the band presented.

And yet, despite its rich wealth of extraordinary music, it is not really my favorite Floyd album. I have a weak spot for 'Animals'- for its roaring politics- and I can listen to the whole of 'Wish You Were Here' and 'Meddle' without a hiccup. I like 'The Division Bell' too, even as it lacks the lyrical intensity of these other works but my absolute favorite will always be 'The Wall'- a magnificent magnum opus of rock, theatrical drama, agonizing pain and scorching storytelling all blended into one massive masterpiece. That is an album that I can never tire of- clearly the whole of Pink Floyd at their monumental best- churning out Waters' incredible plot of a rockstar going berserk with the demons inside him as he builds a wall from the rest of humanity. Gorgeous, gorgeous stuff.

And yet, 'The Dark Side Of The Moon' is absolutely wonderful simply because it is about one of the simplest ideas that all their albums have ever addressed- life. It is about birth and death, about hope and despair, about the allure of wealth and the 

inevitability of time, about choice and destiny. And listening to it is about experiencing all that life has to throw up.

'Speak To Me' might sound like the words that you would whisper to your newborn child as it makes its first arrival into a world beyond its comprehension. Floyd present us with a suitably thrilling sound collage that introduces the album and its themes to us. The way it segues into 'Breathe' is jaw-dropping mastery- Gilmour's lap-steel pedal guitar strums out a rich, wistful and melancholic sound that serves as an ironic backdrop to the words that float out of his voice like puffs of cold breath. 'Long you live and high you fly but only if you ride the tide', he sings, promising a plethora of bliss to the newborn but also hinting cautiously at reality. Richard Wright's synthesizer and Waters' downbeat bass add to the languid atmosphere.

What follows this calm moment of reflection is sheer frenzy. 'On The Run', living up to its title, amps up the tempo and the four band members, now armed with synthesizer effects, organs and tape effects, hurl out to us an instrumental surge of adrenalin. The song captures the crazy, nearly suicidal fervour of catching up with time and it ends, devastatingly, with a twist that will leave you reeling. Listen to it yourself and discover it.

'Time' recovers the balance but Waters' unforgettably powerful lyrics hammer hard the sheer futility of time wasted for once and for all. Gilmour sings Waters' words with true gusto but it is his guitar that really delivers the punch- a trademark solo, bursting with sadness and pain, bridges his verses beautifully and the song signs off, by morphing elegantly into the 'Breathe (Reprise)'. The lyrics now are of surrender and homecoming instead of new life and beginnings. 

What follows next is one song from the album that makes time stop. Richard Wright's tinkling, even menacing, piano is first heard along with mutterings on death and being afraid of the same. And once we hear Nick Mason's drum beats, we are taken to a completely new level- I am of course talking about 'The Great Gig In The Sky'.

Clare Torry's roaring, sensuous, heart-wrenching cries of agony and ecstasy are superbly backed up by Mason's loopy drumming, Wright's beautiful keys and, in a masterstroke, Waters and Gilmour's guitars lending a backdrop of soul-stirring devastation. The song lasts a little less than 5 minutes but every second of it aches with a throbbing core of spectacular sorrow. Simply unforgettable.

The latter half of the album kicks off with the grand and glitzy 'Money'- possibly the only song in the album that makes you tap your feet even as you wince at the cynicism of the words. Money, according to Waters, can be everything- from something as transient as gas to a crime that is the root of all evil today. And yet, as Gilmour's pitch-perfect, snazzy voice reminds us, we all need it. Dick Parry shows up in the middle with a classy sax solo that takes us back firmly to the groovy seventies and Waters' bass and tape effects are meshed with Gilmour's guitars to create a truly trippy and deliriously drunk rock song.

'Us And Them' brings back the introspective core of the album and while it lasts for almost a whopping 8 minutes, all of it is beautifully judged and brilliantly performed. In an album bursting with mind-numbing experimentation, it is this song- sung soulfully by Gilmour and Wright- that makes for its beating heart of pain. Essentially a song about war, everyday conflict and the fragility of life, it is also sensational and profoundly poetic in its emotions.

Waters does not have any credit on the stunning 'Any Colour You Like', an instrumental passage written and composed by the other three Floyd members with its name taken from a classic Henry Ford quote. It is surprising since this number, along with the rest of the 'Moon' catalogue, boasts of some of the finest bass that he has played. Sure, Gilmour, Wright and Mason do their job well enough but it is his background bass that gives the whole song its real pulse. Its makers intended it to be a reflection of the ironic lack of choice in the real world. 

What begins so well must also end well and so it is up to Waters to bring up the rear with two brilliantly edited songs. The first 'Brain Damage' is an everlasting classic and clearly further vindication of Waters' spectacular songwriting. His voice is smooth yet sneering, as he complains of 'lunatics' on newspapers and in his memory. But in the stunning, operatic choruses, he becomes thoughtful, now extending a hand of hope to those who are on 'the dark side of the moon'. The song's emotionally naked sound also addresses its themes of insanity and hope, both of which stemmed from their fallen comrade Syd Barrett.

It all fits magically into 'Eclipse'- Waters' penultimate lament on how everyday life is tinged with darkness. The lyrics are relentless, the drums and guitars are spectacular and the song ends with a shattering conclusion that serves as a spectacular climax to an already seminal album. 

A Clockwork Orange- 45 Years Of Real Horrorshow Cinema

Disclaimer: Not all of this review is in plain English. 

It had to be David Bowie, of course.

Not only did the late and great rocking-and-rolling Englishman borrow the mascara and the wild eyes from Alex DeLarge for his glam-rock avatars; he also borrowed the weird, Russian-inflected slang of Alex and his droogs for one of his last songs as well. Yes, that is Nadsat, Anthony Burgess’ fabulously twisted language of the young that you can hear in ‘Girl Loves Me’- the sneering singer lacing his menacing mutterings with a heady surge of unhinged absurdity.

It is done like a true maestro, real horrorshow.  Or to come to the point, as deliciously good as having the great Stanley Kubrick take a shot at Ludwig Van Beethoven, no less.

‘A Clockwork Orange’ is one hell of a ride. It might be easily called as one of the most disturbing films ever made. Indeed, even today, more than 45 years after it first shocked and scalded viewers alive with its blistering nihilism, the violence, sex and anti-social anarchy, even presented as sheer satirical farce, hits hard indeed. And yet, if you can just take it all and gulp it, preferably with some milk-plus, you may even end up loving it really. 

Chances are, however, that you will want to hate Alex DeLarge with all your heart. 

You will despise him as a vicious, ruthless psychopath. You will fear his unrelenting stare, you will be sick at the sight of bloody eyeballs on his cuffs. You will be repulsed at the way he lets loose his cane at an old vagrant and the way he will change forever the meaning of ‘Singin In The Rain’ in the most disturbing way ever. You will be revolted by Alex DeLarge; you will hope the worst fate for him.

And Kubrick, that uncannily gifted director who has a penchant for making even the most challenging novels instant masterpieces, takes you inside his bizarre and brutal world in the film’s chaotic, almost off-the-wall first hour. We are shocked and shaken by his exploits but already, we can root for him, despite all our loathing for his deeds. Already, we can see beneath that the showboating swagger and the intense stare there is only a bratty, spoiled boy who wants to have his own way. And that is not asking a lot in the strange, cold and alienating near-future London that he lives in- a world where trust is as rare as sympathy.

And then, everything changes. Charged of a murder of a woman, Alex now becomes the film’s sufferer- a subject of humiliation and violence that is more upsetting than whatever he did in his milk-plus-fuelled craze. Smartly enough, Kubrick treats Alex’ exploits with almost cold-blooded indifference- we gaze at the horrors, terrified but not yet sympathetic towards his victims. Or let’s admit it- we are even thrilled, perversely in a sick way. Yes, that is exactly the kind of yarbles that it takes to make us feel for an utter psychopath.

Nah, it is when ‘A Clockwork Orange’ shows us how a criminal can be turned into something worse by unforgiving millicents and a callously manipulative state that the director aims the real tolchocks to our senses. And boy does it then rock and roll.

In a suicidal and utterly sincere bid for redemption and acceptance, Alex opts for being ‘cured’ by the still-experimental Ludovico Technique, masterminded by the sly-smiling Minister (Alexander Sharp). And what ensues destroys something- or rather, everything- inside him. To be revolted and disgusted at the sheer sight of violence and rape is bad enough for him. To be rendered totally incapable of choice and dignity is even worse. And even all these things are not even half as bad as being repulsed at the sound of old Ludwig Van. 

Kubrick has always been called by his harshest critics as something of a cold, distanced thinker. ‘A Clockwork Orange’, with its anarchic ride of emotions and conflicted feelings, might serve as a solid defence for him. This is indeed a violent form of sinny, even irresponsible. There is no moral justification for Alex’ actions and yet, we are asked the inevitable question- is the cure for a problem worse than it? Does Alex really deserve the fate that he goes through? And is it enough to cure a criminal or should a whole social system be put through the grinder too?

A tough question, indeed but the director, faithfully sticking to Burgess’ magnificent novel, poses them bravely and even delivers the unexpected answers. To be honest, there are significant differences between the source and the film. Burgess’ book focused on Alex’ droogs Dim and Georgie, and the world around the characters. The newly arrived social and political order of futuristic Britain, hinting at a possible dictatorship, is vital to the book’s proceedings. All of this is treated ambiguously and intriguingly by Kubrick, who also foregoes the symbolic meaning of the title. But the director more than compensates with bringing his typically cynical view of law enforcement, family and friendship, government bureaucracy and the loss of freedom of expression and personal choice. And he creates, in DeLarge, one of cinema’s most enduring and influential anti-heroes.

Malcolm McDowell lunges into the role of Alex, creating a rippling character so full of convincing bravado that it is hard not to fear him, hate him and, in the end, even like him. His performance propels the film into a whirlpool of utterly breakneck chaos. He nails the wild-eyed, crazy look perfectly, inspiring a whole slew of other versions (most notably, Heath Ledger’s The Joker) but it is when the wicked-witted actor turns Alex into a creature desperate for sympathy that his performance becomes truly memorable. Be it the Cockney accent or those blue eyes, both vivid and sad- it is one spectacular performance.

As the film’s melancholic, almost elegiac, second half unfolds, we have our feelings tossed and turned but the anarchy remains intact and the film still roars with a fury, orchestrated to the swelling tunes of classical opera. And like all Kubrick classics, ‘A Clockwork Orange’ hammers our senses with a sublime form of poetic chaos. Kubrick and fellow lensman John Alcott shoot the proceedings with long-zoom, low-angle detachment and slow-motion style but plunge themselves in the midst of the gromky frenzy of debauchery and bloodlust, the camera jumping, leaping and hurling at us with an unabashed fury. Meanwhile, Bill Butler’s slapdash editing cuts away from what could have been a fatal tolchock to trippy imagery, and from the stillness of a prison library to the violence and lust that pops up from pages of sacred scripture. 

Irreverence and misogyny is all over ‘A Clockwork Orange’- from naked mannequins in the Korovo Milk Bar to Alex tinkering with a phallic statue in his ill-fated last job. There are no appy polly logies from Kubrick and his team.

 And yet, this is also the film in which a hitherto stiff and stern prison guard watched, open-mouthed, at an almost nude woman while Alex, supposedly the criminal of the film, raises a glass of his favourite drink to a woman who happens to sing one of his favourite songs. This is also a story rooted in an actual world and not a wholly fictional one. Those glitzy record stores might not look real but you can always spot a copy of ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ on display. 

How much of a legend is this film? Denying its immense influence would be an utter crime; it would be better for anyone to snuff it. You can feel its trademark, wide-eyed, long-zoom visual style in subsequent accomplishments like ‘Brazil’, ‘Trainspotting’, ‘Punch-Drunk Love’ and more. You can feel its radical, ribald sex and violence influencing a whole new generation of provocative, vellocet-fuelled cinema and music (Danny Boyle called the film’s psychedelic final scene- of Alex cavorting with a girl wearing nothing but black gloves- as an indelible impression on his imagination). 

And despite it all, you can always come back to ‘A Clockwork Orange’ to viddy a real achievement of mind-bending, shocking and confronting cinema delivered by a true master of the format. As Alex would insist, ‘Viddy well, little brother. Viddy well.’

PS: To find out the meanings of the Nadsat words, please watch the film immediately.