A Floydian analysis of 'The Wizard of Oz'

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A Floydian analysis of 'The Wizard of Oz'


Call it Dark Side of the Rainbow. Classic rockers are buzzing about the
amazingly weird connections that leap off the screen when you play Pink
Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" as the soundtrack to "The Wizard of Oz."

It sounds wacky, but there really is a bizarre synchronization
there. The lyrics and music join in cosmic synch with the action,
forming dozens upon dozens of startling coincidences the kind that make
you go "Oh wow, man" even if you haven't been near a bong in 20 years.

Consider these examples: Floyd sings "the lunatic is on the grass" just
as the Scarecrow begins his floppy jig near a green lawn. The line "got
to keep the loonies on the path" comes just before Dorothy and the
Scarecrow start traipsing down the Yellow Brick Road.

When deejay George Taylor Morris at WZLX-FM in Boston first mentioned
the phenom on the air six weeks ago, he touched off a frenzy.

"The phones just blew off the wall. It started on a Friday, and that
first weekend you couldn't get a copy of 'TheWizard of Oz' anywhere in
Boston," he said. "People were staying home to check it out."

It's fun, he said, because everyone knows the movie,and the album which
spent a record-busting 59 straight weeks on the Billboard charts can be
found in practically every record collection.

Dave Herman at WNEW-FM in New York mentioned the buzz a few weeks
ago. The response more than 2,000 letters was the biggest ever in the
deejay's 25-year on-air career.

"It has been just unbelievable," said WNEW program director Mark
Chernoff. "I've never seen anything like this. "

The station plans to show the movie using the album as soundtrack at a
small private screening tomorrow.

Rock fans always have loved to speculate about hidden messages in their
favorite albums. But seeking connections between the beloved 939
classic kid flick and the legendary 973 acid-rock album pushes the
envelope of the music conspiracy genre.

Nobody from the publicity-shy band would comment, but Morris asked
keyboardist Richard Wright about it on the air last month. He looked
flummoxed and said he'd never heard of any intentional connections
between the movie and the album.

But the fans aren't convinced it's just a cosmic coincidence.

"I'm a musician myself and I know how hard it is just to write music,
let alone music choreographed to action," said drummer Alex Harm, of
Lowell, Mass.,who put up one of the two Internet web pages devoted to
the synchroneities. "To make it match up so well, you'd have to plan
it."

Morris is convinced that ex-frontman Roger Waters planned the whole
thing without letting his fellow band members in on the secret.

"It's too close. It's just too close. Look at the song titles. Look at
the cover. There's something going on there," Morris said.

Here's how it works. You start the album at the exact moment when the
MGM lion finishes its third and last roar. It might take a few times to
get everything lined up just right.

Then, just sit back and watch. It'll blow your mind, man.

During "Breathe," Dorothy teeters along a fence to the lyric: "balanced
on the biggest wave."

The Wicked Witch, in human form, first appears on her bike at the same
moment a burst of alarm bells sounds on the album.

During "Time," Dorothy breaks into a trot to the line: "no one told you
when to run."

When Dorothy leaves the fortuneteller to go back to her farm, the album
is playing: "home, home again."

Glinda, the cloyingly saccharine Good Witch of the North, appears in her
bubble just as the band sings: "Don't give me that do goody goody
bull---t."

A few minutes later, the Good Witch confronts the Wicked Witch as the
band sings, "And who knows which is which" (or is that "witch is
witch"?).

The song "Brain Damage" starts about the same time as the Scarecrow
launches into "If I Only Had a Brain."

But it's not just the weird lyrical coincidences. Songs end when scenes
switch, and even the Munchkins' dancing is perfectly choreographed to
the song "Us and Them."

The phenomenon is at its most startling during the tornado scene, when
the wordless singing in "The Great Gig in the Sky" swells and recedes in
strikingly perfect time with the movie.

When Dorothy opens the door into Oz, the movie switches to rich color
and and that exact moment the album starts in with the tinkling cash
register sound effects from "Money."

Anyone who has ever nursed a hangover watching MTV with the sound off
and the radio on can tell you how quick the brain is to turn music into
a soundtrack for pictures. But this is uncanny.

The real fanatics will point out that side one of the vinyl album is the
exact length of the black-and-white portion of the movie. And then
there's that iconic album cover, with its prism and rainbow echoing the
movie's famous black-and-white-into-color switch not to mention Judy
Garland's classic first song.

The real clincher, though, the moment where even the most skeptical of
cynics has to utter a small "whoa!," comes at the end of the album,
which tails off with the insistent sound of a beating heart.

What's happening on screen? Yep, you guessed it: Dorothy's got her ear
to the Tin Man's chest, listening for a heartbeat.

Maybe it's just a string of coincidences. Maybe the mind is just playing
some really cool tricks. Maybe some people just have waaaay too much
time on their hands.

Or maybe, as Pink Floyd sings to close out the album, everything under
the sun really is in tune.


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