Breathe (Pink Floyd song)

The song “Breathe” was written by Roger Waters long before starting work on The Dark Side of the Moon in 1970 for a joint soundtrack for The Body with Ron Gisin . In 1972, the song was completely rewritten. For the poems of the song “Breathe”, a few modified by Roger Waters in accordance with the concept of the album The Dark Side of the Moon , David Gilmore and Richard Wright wrote new music. According to the plan of the Pink Floyd musicians, the lyrics should reflect “the beginning of life in social terms” ^{[7] [8] [9]} .

Later, Roger Waters criticized the lyrics of the song. In particular, in an interview before the start of his tour he noted that in the albums The Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall “in addition to the novelty of the music itself,” there may be “simplicity of ideas that attracts a growing generation in their attempt to figure out what’s happening, though, “here I have to criticize myself - for example,“ Breathe, breathe in the air / Don't be afraid to care “- it's just ... uh ... where's the toilet? And yet I think that in all this there is something very sincere that attracts people ” ^[10] .

According to one of the song’s authors, Richard Wright , he borrowed a chord from the beginning of the vocal part from Miles Davis from his 1959 work Kind of Blue ^[11] . According to Nick Mason , “Breathe” is an experiment on using the same melody for two songs, as a fragment from “Breathe” appears as a reprise after the song “Time” ^[12] .

According to Andy Mabbett, editor of magazine and author of a number of Pink Floyd books, two variations of the song’s title, “Breathe” and “Breathe In the Air,” probably appeared to distinguish the song from The Dark A longer title, Side of the Moon , from Roger Waters' Breathe from the soundtrack to The Body . Andy Mabbett also notes that the first line of the second verse “Run, rabbit, run” is the name of the 1939 song Run Rabbit Run , performed in The Little Dog Laughed show performed by ^[13] .

In the recording on the original album, the song “ Speak to Me ” smoothly turns into the song “Breathe”, with both tracks being indicated and indexed separately. In a number of subsequent editions of The Dark Side of the Moon, these two tracks, although indicated separately, are sometimes indexed as a single number ^[13] .

The song “Breathe” took 15th place on Uncut’s list of “30 Greatest Pink Floyd Songs”, based on surveys by David Gilmore, Nick Mason, their friends, musicians and most famous fans ^[14] .

The song “Breathe” was performed in the 1970s at Pink Floyd concerts only as part of The Dark Side of the Moon Suite (by 1975, before the festival in Nebworth , this suite was performed by the group 385 times) ^[15] . Roger Waters performed “Breathe” separately at several concerts of his 1987 solo tour ^13] , later in 1999–2002 this song was one of the concert numbers of his concert tour In the Flesh. Also, “Breathe” along with the rest of The Dark Side of the Moon was performed during the Pink Floyd tour of 1994 ( ) and during the Roger Waters tour of 2006-2008 , . In 2005, “Breathe” together with the reprise (“Breathe Reprise”) was performed at the Live 8 concert, at which the group temporarily reunited 24 years after the breakup of its classical composition. The Live 8 performance, which included Breathe, was released on DVD.

The song "Breathe" in various versions and in various musical styles was performed and recorded by a number of artists:

• the orchestrated version, arranged by Jes Coleman , was recorded in 1995 by the London Philharmonic Orchestra on the album Us and Them: Symphonic Pink Floyd ^{[16] [17]} ;
• a version of Breathe performed by vocalist from the McAuley Schenker Group and guitarist from the band Steely Dan was recorded on the Pink Floyd An All Star Lineup Performing the Songs of Pink Floyd tribute album ;
• Breathe and Breathe Reprise covers were recorded by on ;
• a version of “Breathe” was recorded by Hognose, a metal band , on their ¡El Sombrero album ! ;
• a cover version of "Breathe" was recorded by The Shins and included in the 2007 compilation ;
• a cover version of “Breathe” was included by in their performance at the Glastonbury Festival in 2003 ^[18] and was also performed by in 2010 ^[19] ; a cover version of “Breathe” was recorded by Flaming Lips with in 2009 on ^{[ 20]} ;
• a version of the song “Breathe” was recorded by Capital Cities using Tupac Shakur ’s samples from the rap song, etc.

• David Gilmore - guitar, vocals, music;
• Roger Waters - bass, lyrics;
• Richard Wright - keyboards, music;
• Nick Mason - drums.

Comments

Sources

1. Povey, Glenn. Echoes: The Complete History of Pink Floyd . - Chesham: Mind Head Publishing, 2007 .-- 368 p. - ISBN 978-0-9554624-0-5 .
2. Mabbett, Andy. The Complete Guide to Music Pink Floyd = The Complete Guide to the Music of Pink Floyd. - M .: “Eurasian Region”, “Lokid”, 1997. - 190 p. - ISBN 5-86217-026-X .
3. Mason, Nick . Along and across: A personal history of Pink Floyd = Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd. - 3rd ed., Rev. - SPb. : Amphora , 2009. - 468 p. - ISBN 978-5-367-00721-3 .
4. Poluyakhtov I., Galin A. Pink Floyd. Book of Songs (1967-1994). - M. , 2003 .-- T. I. - 288 p. - ISBN 5-87109-061-3 .
5. Fielder, Hugh. Destroying the Great Wall // Classic Rock . - 2002. - No. 11 . - S. 48-63 .
6. . Saucer full of miracles. Odyssey Pink Floyd = Saucerful of Secrets. The Pink Floyd Odyssey. - M .: Publishing house of Sergey Kozlov, 1998 .-- 365 p. - ISBN 5-901013-01-8 .

• Pink-Floyd.ru (neopr.) . - Discography. The Dark Side Of The Moon. (Retrieved August 4, 2015)
• Pink-Floyd.ru (neopr.) . - Discography. The Dark Side Of The Moon. Breathe in the air (lyrics). (Retrieved August 4, 2015)