The Pink Floyd song Roger Waters believes “stands the test of time”
No other rock album captured a moment in time quite like The Dark Side of the Moon. By dwelling on life’s essentials, David Gilmour and Roger Waters took Pink Floyd into new territories, making a complete experience that eclipses almost anything else in their discography. Through the benefit of hindsight, though, a handful of songs tended to work a lot better than others.
Throughout the recording process, the band intended to make tracks that dealt with universal emotions. Having lost their bandmate Syd Barrett to his fragile mental state, Waters had the idea of sculpting songs about the nature of man, from the dread of entering life on ‘Breathe’ to the incessant greed of ‘Money’.
When talking about getting the tracks down on tape, Waters remembered having a soft spot for the track ‘Us and Them’ upon revisiting the album. Taken from an instrumental fragment that pianist Richard Wright had been working with for a soundtrack, Waters’s lyrics quickly turned into a dissection of man’s relationship with each other, culminating in graphic imagery of war amid a gospel-style chorus.
While Waters had difficulty revisiting his songs, he singled out ‘Us and Them’ as something special, remarking in the 2003 documentary The Dark Side of the Moon, “I haven’t listened to the piece from start to finish in, I think, 20 years. It was fascinating to see how well it holds together. ‘Us and Them’ probably stands the test of time as well, if not better than any of the other songs on the record”.
Although Waters had an appreciation for the tune, Wright was initially cold until hearing a newly mixed version of the song, recalling, “I’ve always had a problem with ‘Us and Them’. While I like the song, I don’t quite like the way it was done. Now to me, it sounds wonderful. I’m sure that’s true for Dave and true for Roger as well”.
While the band would eventually be catapulted to superstardom off the record’s momentum, Waters was not as enthused with playing to stadiums-worth of people. With fans not appreciating the lavish sets they were pulling off every night, Waters would use the following Floyd albums as a dissection of what it means to be a celebrity.
Across albums like Wish You Were Here, Waters laments the loss of Barrett from the group while also criticising the industry that put him in the position of a rock star. Seeing how much empathy was put into ‘Us and Them’, a track like ‘Welcome to the Machine’ is the inverse, as man becomes cold and calculated while showing the latest rock star how the industry is run.
While Waters would eventually realise that he didn’t need Pink Floyd anymore, Dark Side of the Moon would remain a cornerstone in rock music, paving the way for more exciting prog rock. Regardless of what Waters has said about the album in recent years or his desire to remake the entire thing from the ground up, there’s a human spirit behind ‘Us and Them’ that can never be reproduced.
