Forty Years of the Dark Side: Why Pink Floyd's Music Endures 

'Why have these albums endured? Even the members of Pink Floyd couldn't agree amongst themselves'

Pink Floyd fans tend not to take a casual interest in the band's music; they display a deep connection with the themes raised in the work. Forty years on we are obliged to ask: What is it about their music that endures?

This year commemorates the 40th anniversary of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon, an album that marked the emergence of a band in its prime. Breaking every record, the album stayed in the charts until 1988, by which time the band had released two more albums that were to become definitive pieces of rock history.

Far from fading away, much of Pink Floyd's work from this period has grown in popularity over the last 40 years, as new generations are drawn to the band's enigmatic history and their unusual conceptual approach to making albums.

A closer examination of their most successful period finds that lurking behind the band's obsession with madness lies a child-like readiness to show emotional vulnerability.

Transcending value

Pink Floyd are difficult to categorise. They produced music for roughly 30 years, with changing lineups, approaches and attitudes. It would therefore be a mistake to try isolate the "one" element that makes them so widely adored.

Every fan has an opinion on what defines the band. Apart from the themes they explored lyrically – of which there were many – they were also renowned for their impressive light shows and striking visuals, their unmistakable album covers (such as Dark Side's immortal prism of light), their meandering guitar solos, their flying pigs, and their overly dramatic in-fighting, break-ups, departures and reunions.

Some critics even argue that the "real" Pink Floyd was the original 1965 lineup, and everything after that was hackneyed and uninteresting. You can never please all of the fans all of the time.

However, it would not be unfair to say that the vast majority of fans would point to three Pink Floyd albums as the real masterpieces of the band's catalogue: Dark Side of the Moon (1973), Wish You Were Here(1975) and The Wall (1979).

Why have these albums endured? Even the members of Pink Floyd couldn't agree amongst themselves. David Gilmour, the self-proclaimed "voice and guitar" of the band, is responsible for some of rock's most beautiful and haunting melodies, and understandably seeks a balance between aesthetics and lyrical meaning. To many of their fans, the "Pink Floyd sound" is all that matters.

But the major tussle within the band involved accommodating the very clear objectives of lyricist Roger Waters. In an argument documented in the 1972 film Pink Floyd: Live in Pompeii, Waters tells Gilmour that "the only thing that is important is whether [the piece] moves you or not". For Waters, this emotion comes from writing earnest, heart-felt lyrics. The music is merely the vehicle for the emotion.

The existentialist philosopher Albert Camus said: "A guilty conscience needs to confess. A work of art is a confession." There's a strong argument to be made that Waters' own confession of existential angst is what has given Pink Floyd its timeless appeal.

From the Dark Side to behind The Wall

Most fans are aware that the story of the band itself is closely intertwined with mental illness, most notably with that of the original front man, Roger "Syd" Barrett.

Barrett's descent into madness – for many years a great mystery – has come to be well-documented in recent years (see the documentary Pink Floyd and the Syd Barrett Story as well as Nick Mason's band biography Inside Pink Floyd), but for the band members themselves it was a mysterious and deeply distressing event that took years to process.

The band began to use their music as a catharsis for the trauma, starting with Dark Side, the iconoclastic concept album that deals with all the things in life that drive you mad: the passing of time, travel, death, money, war, and so on.

Since we are all susceptible to the vicissitudes of life, Dark Side is not intended to frighten you off with talk of lunacy. In fact, towards the end of the album we are assured that all the good people of the world are in fact mad, and they've already made the journey to "the dark side of the moon". Once the penny drops, we are told that everything is ultimately on the dark side. Perhaps, we might ponder, anyone who fails to see this is the real lunatic.

In fact, a failure to acknowledge life's traumas is the kind of madness that runs deep in the Pink Floyd catalogue. Waters' preoccupation is with British reserve and so-called "stiff upperlipness" in the face of emotional strife; willful ignorance of negative states of mind. In "Time" we hear that "Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way," a stagnant, emotionally barren outlook that only leads to depression – and then madness.

Another striking reference is found in "Brain Damage", which describes a certain "lunatic" who "is on the grass." This refers to those pristine Oxbridge lawns on which nobody is allowed to walk, and the idea that anyone wishing to enjoy the grass by walking, sitting or lying on it is stepping outside the boundary of acceptable behaviour. They are "lunatics" – as is anyone who dares to have any fun or express themselves.

This theme was explored more thoroughly in The Wall, which can be seen as an examination of the more personal experiences that can lead to a stunting of emotional capacity.

For example, the band's only ever single, "Another Brick in The Wall Part 2", is a protest about school teachers who perpetuate these attitudes of repression through derision and "dark sarcasm in the classroom". "Mother" is a song about an overprotective parent who refuses to expose her child to the possibility of harsh experiences.

Akin to Camus' The Outsider, The Wall album is an exercise in existentialism, portraying the soulless psychological state of a man (called Pink) who has allowed such experiences to pile on top of one another, building the proverbial "wall" that blocks out any emotional engagement with the world.

Pink – who's character in part comprises a combination of Waters and Barrett's biographies – is driven so mad from alienation that he ends up a psychotic, imagining painful conversations with his loved ones who "punish" him by ensuring his emotional wall is torn down.

Gilmour has since criticised The Wall, saying it "lacks soul". But perhaps that is precisely the point. As with The Outsider, the album leaves you with a cold understanding of a curious form of madness.

The Crazy Diamond

The classic album cover of Wish You Were Here shows two businessmen shaking hands. One of the men is on fire, and the scene represents the fear of "getting burnt" if one reveals one's emotions – consistent with Waters' idea of madness as exemplified in Dark Side and The Wall. However, as universal as this lunacy might be, Wish You Were Here is most definitely about the very special madness of Syd Barrett.

Barrett's starting point was the offbeat and bizarre, but his idiosyncratic personality started to fragment as the band became more famous in the late 1960's. Pressure to write and perform, a penchant for hallucinatory drugs, and a probable predisposition to schizophrenia led Barrett swiftly away from being a functioning band member and into the depths of his mind.

His behavior became more and more erratic, from standing on stage detuning his guitar mid-performance to rehearsing songs that changed with each recital. Barrett eventually lost his place in the band, and gradually lost touch with his circle of friends. After he disturbingly showed up to a Wish You Were Here recording session in 1975, he was never to speak to any Pink Floyd member again. He died in 2006.

Barrett's rapid demise was difficult to comprehend, and Wish You Were Here was the ultimate catharsis for the band. The album is a document of grief for their absent friend – not because he had passed on but because he had become a "target for faraway laughter". Barrett, the "crazy diamond", had "reached for the secret too soon".

This album, oft cited as the band members' favourite, has a different appeal to that of Dark Side and The Wall. Its madness is not a unifying force or something that reflects failings we might perceive in ourselves. Instead, the madness is lamented, and the album is a heartfelt postcard to a lost inspiration – a legend, a martyr, to use the words in "Shine On You Crazy Diamond".

Tear Down the Wall

So what, then, in Camus' terms, is the "guilty confession" that these three albums reveal? Although madness may be the central theme, the confession is in fact far more wholesome, almost child like. These albums confess to the existence of feelings, of weaknesses and of the need for love and connection in the face of fear and alienation.

Forty years on, the clue to Pink Floyd's enduring magic has always lain in the opening lines of The Dark Side of the Moon – a proclamation of intent to disregard repression and enjoy life, even if it means exposing your vulnerabilities:

"Breathe. Breathe in the air... Don't be afraid to care."

Waters himself called the lyrics "simplistic" and "puerile". But perhaps some youthful exuberance has always been the answer to a world filled with madness.