Roger Waters’ The Dark Side of the Moon Redux: Are We Looking at it the Wrong Way?

When I first heard that Roger Waters was making a new version of The Dark Side Of The Moon, I, like many people, assumed the worst. But my opinion changed when I heard some preview tracks on the web — they weren’t perfect, but they weren’t awful either. So, I was prepared to approach the new recording with open ears.

Well, I’ve sat with the whole album for a few weeks now, and I wonder if we’ve all missed the point of the project.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Like all Roger Waters albums, the production of The Dark Side of the Moon Redux is excellent. I can’t fault the way it sounds. And the arrangements are respectful of the original but different enough to be interesting and even revealing, if sometimes a bit monotonous. Redux certainly lacks the energy of the original.

Roger has also added some additional elements to the piece, with additional spoken word sections for On The Run, The Great Gig In The Sky, Money, and Any Colour You Like. Most of them work, with the cringe-worthy changes to Money being the only exception.

But my biggest issue with Redux was Roger’s vocals. He can’t sing any more, and his spoken word version of the entire album felt a bit tedious after a while. They pale in comparison to the original vocals by Dave Gilmour and Richard Wright. And it made me wonder if there was a great album lurking behind his less-than-stellar vocals.

In Another Universe

As I listened to the album, I couldn’t help but fantasise about a different version of Redux where, rather than speaking the vocals, Roger got a bunch of guest artists to sing on the album. Imagine an album where Kate Bush sang on Breathe, and Damon Albarn sang on Time. And Adele could have screamed her way through The Great Gig In The Sky, followed by Peter Gabriel taking the lead on Money. Chris Martin could have sung on Us & Them, leaving Roger to finish the album on Brain Damage and Eclipse. Redux might have been a great album in that alternate universe instead of just being good.

But maybe I was looking at this all wrong. Perhaps I was missing something about Redux that, in hindsight, should have been obvious. Something Roger has been telling us about the album from the very beginning.

The Deeds of a Man in His Prime

Redux opens with Roger reciting the lyrics from a song called Free Four, originally written and recorded for Pink Floyd’s 1972 album, Obscured By Clouds, a record made during the middle of the Dark Side Of The Moon sessions.

The memories of a man in his old age
Are the deeds of a man in his prime

And in a press release for Redux, Roger said that he wanted “to consider what the wisdom of an 80-year-old could bring to a reimagined version”.

Therefore, as a work, The Dark Side Of The Moon Redux is similar to Krapp’s Last Tape, a 1958 one-act play by Samuel Beckett. In the play, a 69-year-old Krapp listens to and comments on a tape recording he made when he was 39 that itself comments on an older recording he made in his twenties.

So, in some ways, The Dark Side Of The Moon Redux is Roger Waters’ Last Tape. An 80-year-old man revisiting the deeds of a man in his prime and adding more context to his original ideas and thoughts with the addition of further spoken-word sections in place of the instrumental sections of the original Dark Side Of The Moon.

I Had Been Looking at Redux in the Wrong Way

This is why I was wrong about using different singers on Redux. If Roger had gone down that path, he would have simply been creating a new version of The Dark Side Of The Moon, and all the critics would have been correct about him trying to steal Pink Floyd’s legacy as his own.

But The Dark Side Of The Moon Redux with Roger’s 80-year-old spoken word vocals is a different beast altogether. Its primary focus isn’t the original 1973 album — it’s about the 80-year-old Roger himself. The music isn’t meant to be a replacement for the original. Instead, it’s an echo of the deeds of the young man playing beneath the thoughts of the older man. And if you approach Redux with that in mind, it’s actually a great recording and totally legitimate.

But his version of Money still sucks. That was a mistake, pure and simple.