My Top 1000 Songs #612: Brain Damage/Eclipse

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

Do kids today still go through the obligatory Dark Side Of The Moon phase? Certainly for those of us growing up on Pink Floyd in the 70s and 80s, there came the moment when you were introduced to the monumental right of passage: locked in your room, headphones on, playing the 1973 LP from end-to-end with the lyric sheet splayed across your knees, moving only to flip the vinyl over after the post-orgasmic fade of "Great Gig In The Sky."

And it all crescendoed with the closing medley, the trippy instrumental headphone workout of "Any Colour You Like" wrapping up and segueing into "Brain Damage," Roger Waters warning forebodingly that the lunatic is coming ever closer. If you're a teenage kid still listening to pop radio, the leap from the silly love songs playing on your radio to "Brain Damage," those maniacal giggles and David Gilmour's haunting slide guitar riffs and that looming lunatic--first on your grass, then in your hall, and finally right there in your head--made for a pretty major awakening. And then it pivots to the rousing yet cynical anthem of "Eclipse," all paths leading you to impeding darkness and chaos.

Does it work in 2024? Dunno. But I always like to listen to it like I'm 13 again, and it never fails to bring back that feeling of discovery and awe.

Live 1974:

The Gilmour-Floyd version, live 1994:

Reggae version from the Easy Star All-Stars: