TIME (Mason, Waters, Wright, Gilmour)
[Gilmour]
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way
[Wright]
Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long, and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find, ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun
[Gilmour]
And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death
[Wright]
Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time has gone the song is over, thought I'd something more to say
Beginning with an effects loop of various clocks ticking and chiming, opens the next song ‘Time.’ The next “pressure” that Waters explores is that of time; the theme being that the clock is ticking for all of us. Also added into the mix in the background is the sound of a heartbeat, implying that even our own heartbeat, that which keeps us alive, is also ticking against us, counting down until we die. The lyrics in this song are relatively straightforward, but still powerful and thought provoking.
The beginning section of the song is very repetitive, so repetitive that one
loses track of how many times it has played, and the listener is caught off
guard by the beginning of the first verse. The first downbeat of the verse even
comes in slightly too soon, so the listener suddenly feels like they've fallen
behind. This is symbolic of the notion that Waters mentions later in the song of
suddenly realizing that your life has already begun.
The first verse is about wasting time. It’s funny how when we are bored we wish time would go by faster, but there are other times when we are enjoying ourselves or in a rush and wish it would go slower. “Life is too short” many say, with so much to touch and see (as we have been instructed in ‘Breathe’) how can we ever complain of boredom? We should spend all of our time pursuing a full life, not wasting a moment of it. But then of course comes the question, what isn’t a waste of time? There is no right or wrong answer. It must be decided for oneself, certainly not “waiting for someone or something to show you the way.”
The first one continues the theme of the first verse. Roger discusses how when you are young and death isn’t even on the horizon, you seem to have all the time in the world. Roger stated in an interview "The year that we made that record was the year that I had a sudden revelation personally - which was that this was it. I had the strangest feeling growing up - and I know a lot of people share this - that childhood and adolescence and one's early adult life are preparing for something that's going to happen later. I suddenly thought at 29, Hang on, it's happening, it has been right from the beginning, and there isn't suddenly a line when the training stops and life starts. 'No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.”
The “starting gun” is another allusion to life as a race, to run, like “Run, rabbit, run” and even the title of “On the Run.” The song continues after the realization that one has “missed the starting gun” and fallen behind. “And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking” This line not only shows the futility of trying to outrun time, but also does so in describing the sun, which is a measure of time itself. Then after failing to catch up with the sun, it rises again in the east. The sun is relatively the same, as a day to the sun is nothing compared to its lifetime (on the order of billions of years), whereas lost day to us is (relatively of course) more significant. At the same time however, the sun is aging and becoming “closer to death” (although it may be billions of years away).
Every day we become “one day closer to death.” This, like the first chorus in ‘Breathe’ is a seemingly negative outlook on life. It is of course a fact, and depends on how it is interpreted. If one chooses to they may become depressed by the fact that each day brings them a step closer to their demise, but like in first chorus of ‘Breathe’ I believe Roger is implying that we need to make the most of the time we have, not “kick around” sulking about it; our time is too precious.
The last chorus continues this theme, describing unfinished actions, things that
were meant to get back to but never will for lack of time. Then Roger complains
that the song itself is over, and he thought he “had something more to say.”
This echoes the sentiment that is commonly felt at the end of one’s life, that
maybe more should have been done. One point I'd like to make is that the line
'Every year is getting shorter,' is true in multiple ways. What Waters is really
saying, is that as we grow older life seems to go by faster and each subsequent
year seems shorter. In an astronomical sense however, every year is getting
shorter, if only by a ten thousandth of a second or so. This is based on the
Earth's orbit slowly spiraling into the sun.
BREATHE (Reprise) (Waters, Gilmour, Wright)
[Gilmour]
Home, home again
I like to be here when I can
When I come home cold and tired
It's good to warm my bones beside the fire
Far away across the field
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spells.
Waters: "The decision to place ‘Breathe’ (Reprise) after ‘Time’ arose during the process of working the piece up live before we started recording." This song was referred to as ‘Home Again’ during the recordings; it was simply the third verse of ‘Breathe’, detached for structural/emotional reasons.
This song seems to be descriptive of late life, the narrator coming home “cold and tired” and resting by the fire. In contrast to the message in the first chorus of ‘Breathe’ which was to touch, see and do everything you can in life, this verse seems to be more in tune with the “ride the tide” philosophy of taking it easy, enjoying the simple pleasure of just being home. Most people tend to be more towards the first philosophy earlier in life, and then tend towards the second later, which is illustrated in this song.
It makes sense to place this song after ‘Time’ on the album, which concerns the encroaching of old age. The chorus of this song transitions to the topic of death, the next “pressure” explored in ‘The Great Gig in the Sky’. “The tolling of the iron bells” refers to funeral bells, an allusion to the poem by John Donne, “For whom the Bell Tolls.” The bells are heard “far away across the fields” by the “faithful” who fall to their knees in prayer. Hearing the bells far away implies that these people are receiving hints at death throughout their life, perhaps people they know dying, reminding them of their own mortality. Out of this fear of death the people look to religion for comfort, being soothed by the “softly spoken magic spells.” This phrase seems to be a mockery of religion, implying that exists only to help people “cope with the harsh realities described in ‘Time’ and ‘Breathe’” as one Floyd fan put. Many people believe, and Waters seems to agree, that religion came into existence to explain that which couldn’t be explained at the time, to ease people’s fear of it. This is quite a controversial issue of course, upon which much could be written, so let’s move on.
Forward to ‘The Great Gig in the Sky’>>
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