“Time” by Pink Floyd

"Time" comes from The Dark Side of the Moon, the Pink Floyd album that landed on 24 March 1973, and it finds the band at its most panoramic and its most anxious. Roger Waters wrote the words; David Gilmour and Richard Wright wrote the music, and the two of them share the lead vocal, Gilmour rough-edged and pressing, Wright gentler and more rueful, like a restless mind arguing with itself.

The playing is all texture and tension. Nick Mason works his rototoms into a tumbling, echoing roll, Waters keeps the bass steady and grave, and Wright paints the backdrop with synthesizer, Farfisa organ and Wurlitzer electric piano, while Gilmour's electric guitar cuts through with a howling, sustained bite. Lesley Duncan, Barry St. John, Liza Strike and Doris Troy pile in on backing vocals and turn the choruses into gospel-sized swells.

Pink Floyd produced it themselves. Alan Parsons engineered, Peter James assisted, and Chris Thomas mixed, and the result is progressive rock with a soul singer's gut punch: heady, huge and still somehow personal.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.