Rock and roll is full of myths. You may have heard some of them: Paul McCartney died in a car accident in 1966, Jim Morrison and Elvis are still alive… and many others.
This time we would like to refer to one of those great myths: the relationship between Pink Floyd’s masterpiece The Dark Side Of The Moon and the movie The Wizard Of Oz, directed by Victor Fleming.
Recorded in 1973, the former is arguably the best album by Pink Floyd, and one of the best in rock and roll history. A collection of nine sonic and ethereal songs about mundane, everyday details, masterly interpreted by Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Rick Wright, Nick Mason and guest musicians.
The latter was filmed many years before Floyd’s album, in 1939, and is also a classic. Judy Garland plays Dorothy, the young girl who is transported to a magical land called Oz, where she meets new friends: the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardyl Lion. Together, they follow a yellow brick road to Emerald City, where Dorothy would find the Wizard of Oz, someone who can help her to return to her home in Kansas.
Although the legend of The Dark Side of Oz (or The Dark Side of the Rainbow) is very famous among Pink Floyd fans, its origin is not clear. It refers to the act of watching the film and listening to the record at the same time. This weird theory became so popular that, in July 2000, the cable channel TCM (Turner Classic Movies) aired a version of Oz with the Dark Side album as an alternate soundtrack.
Apparently, there is an interplay between the film and the album, and many fans have collected different moments in which this interplay is noticeable. For example, the chimes in the song “Time” begin at the appearance of one of the characters, the witch Almira Gulch, on her bicycle, and the chimes stop when she dismounts. You can find a complete and synchronized list of The Dark Side of Oz moments in http://members.cox.net/stegokitty/dsotr_pages/printable.htm
Is this true? Well, for the creators of the The Dark Side Of The Moon, it is just a fantasy. Roger Waters, the mastermind behind the concept of the album, has denied many times the influence of the movie in the songs and said that it is only a coincidence, while his fellow bandmates agree with him.
Anyway, the idea of a combination between The Dark Side Of The Moon and The Wizard Of Oz sounded very attractive to us. That’s why we decided to create this original T-shirt. Hope you like it!
