Pink Floyd's “Brain Damage/Eclipse” released on Dark Side of the Moon

Brain Damage/Eclipse Pink Floyd

Writer(s): Roger Waters (see lyrics here) Released: March 1, 1973 (album cuts) First Charted: -- Peak: 1 CL, 3 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 6.8 video, 98.37 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon is considered one of the most important albums of all time. The group’s eighth studio album is one of the top 5 best-selling albums ever and has spent more time on the Billboard album chart (18+ years) than any album in history. Dave’s Music Database ranks it #2 all time, only behind the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s. The album’s two closing songs, “Brain Damage” and “Eclipse,” were never released as singles but have received significant airplay on album rock stations, paired together as one track. They come closest to being the album’s “title cut” in that “Brain Damage” was nearly titled “The Dark Side of the Moon” and, at one time, the album was tentatively going to be called Eclipse: A Piece for Assorted Lunatics. SP The British blues rock band Medicine Head released an album in 1972 called Dark Side of the Moon so Pink Floyd considered the new title. However, when Medicine Head’s album went nowhere, Pink Floyd went back to the original title. SP In the case of “Brain Damage,” the band’s bassist and songwriter Roger Waters hated that Pink Floyd’s band was considered “space rock.” He said their music “was never about anything but inner space” SP and that “Brain Damage” was “more about a metaphorical line between sanity and insanity than an actual celestial body.” SP The song opens with the lyric “the lunatic is on the grass” and “manic ramblings in the background.” CA The line is clearly inspired by the group’s founding guitarist and songwriter Syd Barrett, “rock’s most celebrated acid casualty.” SM After the group’s first album, David Gilmour joined the group to supplement Barrett as he was slipping further away due to mental problems exasperated by drug use. Barrett was featured in a limited capacity on the group’s second album before Gilmour became his permanent replacement. The “superb ‘Eclipse” CA “sounds like the end of a film, the end of an opera or stage show. It fades out to mirror the sound of a heart beat, the same kind of sound that opened the album.” AD Hence, Pink Floyd conclude their “dark symphony…it's clear that the entire world has gone mad and there may be no hope for anyone.” RV Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Pink Floyd CA ClassicAlbums.co.uk AD Adrian Denning SM Stuart Maconie, BBC2’s “Critical List” RV The Review “100 Greatest Albums of All Time” by Clarke Speicher (October – November 2001; Vol. 128: numbers 12-23). SP Spin.com (3/24/2023). “Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon: Track By Track” by Al Shipley Related Links: First posted 3/30/2023.