I discovered Pink Floyd in 1975/76. I was 11 or 12 years old. I bought and listened to “Dark Side of the Moon” after hearing my brother Charlie describe some of the songs. I remember listening to the album and being completely enthralled with the music & lyrics. One song in particular resonated with me: Time.

Time – Pink Floyd

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
Fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
And you are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it’s sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you’re older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I’d something more to say

Odd thing, at that young age I was blown away by this song. The music is very powerful and the lead in is quite dramatic. The real kicker is the lyrics; they just reached out and grabbed me. There I was, a young boy, getting the concept at how precious a commodity time really was and that we should not squander it. It was a very subtle and profound introduction to the concept of time as our most precious of currencies. You can also earn another dollar, but an hour spent is gone forever. I would like to think that the genesis for my gratitude of time is that song. I can look back through the years and recall how it made me stop and think. It was at that point that I really started paying attention to music. For the most part, top 40 songs did not call to me much. Pink Floyd had some big shoes to fill and started me on a path of heightened musical appreciation. All from a song that touched a little boy’s heart and made him reflect differently on the commodity of time.

Thank you Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Nick Mason, & Richard Wright. Hours and hours of enjoyment as well as provocative lyrics and compelling music.

Long you live and high you fly
And smiles you’ll give and tears you’ll cry
And all you touch and all you see
Is all your life will ever be. ~ Pink Floyd