Breathe (Pink Floyd Song)
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| The Dark Side of the Moon | ||
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| Album by Pink Floyd | ||
| Released | March 2, 1973 | |
| Recorded | Abbey Road June 1972-January 1973 |
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| Genre | Progressive rock Electronic music Musique concrète Song cycle |
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| Length | 43:00 | |
| Label | Harvest (UK) Capitol (US) |
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| Producer(s) | Pink Floyd | |
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| Tracks | ||
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"Breathe"[1] is the second track[2] from British progressive rock band Pink Floyd's 1973 album, The Dark Side of the Moon.
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[edit] Composition
The song is slow-paced and rich in texture, deploying David Gilmour's skilled multitrack performances of slide guitar and lead vocals in gentle, warm timbres. On the original DSOTM album, it is a single track that is preceded by Speak To Me. The song is considered to be a representation of birth, with a relief from labor. Its lyrics, composed by Roger Waters, beseech the listener to pause in their seemingly-endless labours and take notice of more meaningful pursuits in life. Approximately three minutes in length, it is the first song on the album with lyrics and is preceded by wordless screaming at the end of "Speak to Me." Since this song segues directly into "Breathe" via the use of a sustained backwards piano chord, they are usually played together on the radio and the two songs are conjoined on some CD versions of the album.
The D 7th sharped 9th was inspired by Miles Davis' Kind Of Blue. Keyboardist Richard Wright had worked out the chord and wanted to find a way to get it back to Eminor so he changed it to a D 7th flatted 9th.
[edit] Alternative and Live versions
- The P*U*L*S*E CD and DVD features a live version of the song with a run time of 2:33.
- The song was played at the Live 8 concert and features on the DVD. For that performance Breathe and Breathe reprise were combined to form a medley. Although Pink Floyd themselves had never done this before, Sea of Green had previously covered the song in this manner on their 2001 album Time to Fly.
- The solo Roger Waters DVD and CD, In the Flesh: Live, features a version of the song sung by Doyle Bramhall and Jon Carin.
- Roger Waters originally recorded a song called Breathe for Music from "The Body", a soundtrack album which he recorded with Ron Geesin. Although the two are largely different in lyrics, chords and subject matter, this version can be seen as an early version of the song. Although the song is still available through a CD release of the album, it often appears on Pink Floyd bootlegs, most notably on A Tree Full Of Secrets.
[edit] Personnel
- David Gilmour - Guitar, Slide guitar and Vocals
- Roger Waters - Bass and Tape effects
- Richard Wright - Organ, Keyboards and Backing vocals
- Nick Mason - Drums and Percussion
