Rick Wright died today. Certainly the moment of his career that leaped out in my mind–and one of my favorite Pink Floyd moments of all–is this song from The Dark Side of the Moon. I’ve often thought that his piano work on this song is the most overlooked potential sample of all time. Its combination of gentleness and relentlessness, the sense that you’re quietly being pushed toward something potentially terrible or at the very least transformative, is haunting and difficult to shake. Of course it is in fact slowly propelling you toward Clare Torry’s tear-down-the-sky vocals, as chill-inducing a representation of man’s fear of mortality as rock music is likely to produce; but then it’s still there as the vocals slowly fades into a quiet, more contemplative mode, each chord reminding you that movement toward that final destination is inevitable, you can put it off for now, the moment has passed, but don’t worry, it’ll be right over here, waiting, it has all the time in the world.
If you have to be a member of one of the greatest bands ever, and you have to die, you could do a lot worse in terms of leaving behind work to be remembered by, and to remind people why your work mattered in the first place, than to have this song in your repertoire, that’s for goddamn sure.
Yeah.
I wish I had more to add than “me too” but you said it perfectly.
That’s some mighty good memorial writing, Sean. Thanks.
Thank you both. That’s just a song (and an album) I connect with more deeply, and in some ways more uncomfortably, as time passes, and I really appreciate the people who made it.