Recurrent themes in mass-oriented entertainment

[Corsaire]

In the past, I have hinted about recurrent themes in mass-oriented entertainment. This is a complex subject that can only be understood and appreciated when analysed with an opened mind. It can certainly be the cause of some distress when one tries to comprehend the extent and the meaning of it all. Consequently, if you do not like topics that differ from the usual mundane information being fed to the masses, I would suggest visiting some other thread.

In previous discussions on AAm forums, I have tried to show (Tinker Bell “alter” in JPVA, for example) that there is an occult world below the surface or what we call our “reality”. Trying to link this topic to Alizée is not an easy task when discussions happen to be on an Alizée fan forum because, understandably, the vast majority of her fans are emotionally involved. Here I will try to present the some information that is not linked to Alizée (well, it is, but not directly) to see how it is received and if there is any interest.

Popular entertainment infuses recurrent themes and symbols into the masses using different means, but mostly, it is hidden in plain sight. Indeed, for most people, this mass manipulation goes undetected, but for the initiated, it is pretty obvious. Again, this is a complex subject and for now, I would just like to show interesting connections to two movies that have used such fundamental recurrent themes and symbols; The Wizard of Oz (1939) and Alice in Wonderland (1951).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizard_of_Oz_(1939_film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_i...and_(1951_film)

What follows can be watched and enjoyed for its aesthetical and/or artistic value only. For those who have more inquiring minds, you might want to analyse the phenomenon further and decide for yourself if there are real strong meaningful connections or just a series of random coincidences.


The Dark Side of Oz (or The Dark Side of the Rainbow)

This is the relatively well known “synchronicity” between TWOO and Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon. Yes, you have read this right; it seems there is a link between the two mass phenomena. Many believe (as I do myself) that TDSOTM is an “alternative” soundtrack to the children’s classic; basically, if one starts TDSOTM at a specific moment at the beginning of TWOZ, one can find what are usually referred to as “synchronicities”. Here, I would like to point out that although many do claim that you can loop the album through the movie and find very good “synchronicities” throughout, I do not agree, at least, I do not believe that you can find the same level of harmonization that can be experienced during the first playing of the album. So, in this particular case, I only refer to the first 43 min of TWOZ (one complete playing of TDSOTM).

For those who do not know the album well, I suggest watching The Dark Side of Oz with printed lyrics. Here is some information you might want to read beforehand (a lot more information can easily be found on the Web):

http://www.turnmeondeadman.com/index...d=17&Itemid=25

The movie:

http://vodpod.com/watch/1060736-dark...z&c=weaselfuzz


Alice on the Wall

This is less commonly known. It the “synchronicity” between AIW and Pink Floyd’s The Wall. There is less information available concerning this one. Again, if you are not familiar with The Wall, you might want to watch this with printed lyrics. One interesting fact here is that "Comfortably Numb" is not present.

The movie:

http://vodpod.com/watch/654024-alice...z&c=weaselfuzz

It is important to watch those “syncs” while one is relaxed and one allows himself/herself to get into it. One should just start the movies and sit back as skipping through it will likely kill most of the effect. For the one who enjoy these, you can download both movies (The Dark Side of Oz can also be purchased) in DVD-video format, already pre-synchronized. To watch/listen to these on a half-decent home theatre makes all the difference.

There are more “synchronicities” to be enjoyed, but for now, let see how people feel about these. If anyone is interested to discuss this further we can go into more in depth analysis.

“Somewhere over the rainbow...”
For those who are not old enough to remember the original TDSOTM album jacket, one could point out that, just as in TWOO movie; we begin with black and white before entering a world of colors (white light being dispersed into a “rainbow” on the jacket front) to return to black and white at the end (jacket back). What happens in the middle is “over the rainbow” (inside the jacket - 1 and 2), which is one of the most pervasive meme in mass-oriented entertainment.

[Azhiri]

I love this thread. I don't know if I've ever said it here but Pink Floyd is my favorite band and The Wall is my favorite album; I first discovered them when I was nine, I remember hearing my great uncle playing his Dark Side of the Moon vinyl in the living room and thinking it was the most amazing music I'd ever heard. He went out and bought me the album, along with The Wall, and my first CD player so I could listen whenever I wanted. So many memories.

Anyways, I also remember, when I was reading about the band on the internet, finding an article about the Dark Side of the Rainbow and trying it out. I always thought it was one of those rare, fantastic coincidences, but some moments make me think twice, like when The Great Gig in the Sky is perfectly coordinated to the tornado scene (on a sidenote, is it just me or does listening to the song with the movie make the music even more hard-hitting?).

The themes in The Dark Side of the Moon are dark; mental instability, time passing, etc. The themes of The Wizard of Oz are, at face value, more light-hearted and optimistic, like growing up and finding everything you really needed right in front of you, or even within yourself. One could find some more interesting underlying themes (some sexual, as in FanDeAlifee's case) in The Wizard of Oz. I once read an article somewhere that the story was meant to be an allegory to populism*, and I've heard people claim it to be about drugs, the gold standard, and mental illness. With this in mind I suppose it's in the eye of the beholder whether the match-up was intentional.

I also hadn't heard of the "Alice on The Wall" concept! I'll have to see about that sometime. Thanks for mentioning it.


*Here is the article: http://www.amphigory.com/oz.htm

[lefty12357]

I love "The Wall" and "Dark Side of the Moon" as well. I have tried matching "The Wizard of Oz" up with TDSOTM out of curiosity and have seen these “synchronicities”, and it does seem rather eerie to me. But the skeptic in me also noticed there was a lot of time where nothing synchronizes.

Looking into it further, the drummor of Pink Floyd, Nick Mason, has said that the album had nothing to do with TWOZ. The engineer on the project, Alan Parsons, said no one in the band ever mentioned TWOZ during the recording, and the rooms they worked in at Abby Road Studios lacked the facilities to watch or synch anything to film. Furthermore, the songs on the album were recorded out of order and during 2 separate sessions. Therefore, I have to conclude that this is all a very interesting coincidence.

I remember listening to one of my favorite albums with some friends one day. We had the TV on with the sound turned off. They were showing a documentary on egg production and processing, and the "synchronicities" were uncanny. One also must consider the human brain's ability to recognize patterns and "synchronicities", even if they are not real or not intended. Either way, I find music can sometimes be enhanced by watching video along with it, even if the video doesn't seem like it would have any connection at first to the music. And of course sometimes it just doesn't work.

If nothing else, experimenting with playing music along with seemingly unrelated video can be quite entertaining, and when you happen upon a number of "synchronicities", it can be really interesting.

[Chuck]

Like Lefty said, some friends and I were once watching "Shock Corridor" while listening to "Starless and Bible Black" (Crimson) and amazed at how well that synchronized, too. After that, I seem to recall we were amazed by refrigerators, fingernails, and Doritos, in succession. I guess I'm sayin that you can put all kinds of odd things together and get amazed by the results. Like take my kids, f'r'instance.......

[pepelepew]

Pink Floyd is one of my all time favorite bands. It is amazing all of the sinchronizing, but I have never heard any credible statements from anyone in production or members of Pink Floyd make any references to AIW or TWOOZ. I personnally would like to delve into this subject and if you have any more evidence than what you have presented Corsaire, I would like to see it. Very interesting subject.

[Corsaire]

Originally Posted by Azhiri

I love this thread. I don't know if I've ever said it here but Pink Floyd is my favorite band and The Wall is my favorite album; I first discovered them when I was nine, I remember hearing my great uncle playing his Dark Side of the Moon vinyl in the living room and thinking it was the most amazing music I'd ever heard. He went out and bought me the album, along with The Wall, and my first CD player so I could listen whenever I wanted. So many memories.

Anyways, I also remember, when I was reading about the band on the internet, finding an article about the Dark Side of the Rainbow and trying it out. I always thought it was one of those rare, fantastic coincidences, but some moments make me think twice, like when The Great Gig in the Sky is perfectly coordinated to the tornado scene (on a sidenote, is it just me or does listening to the song with the movie make the music even more hard-hitting?).

The themes in The Dark Side of the Moon are dark; mental instability, time passing, etc. The themes of The Wizard of Oz are, at face value, more light-hearted and optimistic, like growing up and finding everything you really needed right in front of you, or even within yourself. One could find some more interesting underlying themes (some sexual, as in FanDeAlifee's case) in The Wizard of Oz. I once read an article somewhere that the story was meant to be an allegory to populism*, and I've heard people claim it to be about drugs, the gold standard, and mental illness. With this in mind I suppose it's in the eye of the beholder whether the match-up was intentional.

I also hadn't heard of the "Alice on The Wall" concept! I'll have to see about that sometime. Thanks for mentioning it.


*Here is the article: http://www.amphigory.com/oz.htm

Yes, I remember you did mention PF and/or The Wall in some thread a few months ago and I thought you could be one to possibly be interested by this topic.

The tornado scene on “The Great Gig in the Sky” is probably my favourite moment of T DSOO. There are plenty of very intense moments where the movie and the music are in perfect symbiosis:

- When Dorothy falls of the fence
- The entrance of Miss Gulch on her bicycle to the chimes of “Time”
- Dorothy’s reaction when she understands that Toto will be taken away
- Toto’s escape and return
- The tornado scene
- The entrance in the world of Oz on “Money”
(By the way, this is where you would have had to switch sides on the original vinyl!)
- The military march at the end of “Money”
- The little ballerinas on “Us and Them”
- The “Black” witch entrance on “Black, black, black...”
(“And who knows which is which” or maybe “which is witch”?)
- Dorothy starting her long journey at the beginning of the yellow brick road... to the lyrics “Out of the way, it’s a busy day”
- The whole encounter with the Scarecrow
(“Brain Damage” playing while he sings “If I Only Had a Brain”)
- The heartbeats as Dorothy listens to the Tin Man chest

As for TWOO itself (the work of L.F. Baum), I have also read about many of its possible meanings, but myself, I have mainly analysed the meaning of the TWOO movie in the context of mass manipulation and “mind control”; the connections there are more than convincing. I will get into that later on if people are interested.

Edit:

Originally Posted by lefty12357

...
Looking into it further, the drummor of Pink Floyd, Nick Mason, has said that the album had nothing to do with TWOZ. The engineer on the project, Alan Parsons, said no one in the band ever mentioned TWOZ during the recording, and the rooms they worked in at Abby Road Studios lacked the facilities to watch or synch anything to film. Furthermore, the songs on the album were recorded out of order and during 2 separate sessions. Therefore, I have to conclude that this is all a very interesting coincidence.
...

Well, I have studied this particular phenomenon for years and I must say that I am not convinced the least by what the people officially involved have said about it. Most telling, I think that Alan Parsons’ (audio engineer) best argument is basically a “straw man” argument (pun intended – ref: Scarecrow in TWOO ) when he refers to the impossibility of playing the movie at Abbey Road Studios. I, for one, do not claim that PF smoked a giant joint and started recording at Abbey Road Studios in one single session while watching TWOO. I believe there is a simpler way to accomplish such “synchronizations”. All one needs to do is watch the movie with a stopwatch and record the time at which key transitions moments are appearing. You then match the music to the key moments while at the studio. You can even use all kinds of sound bits and effects to help with the matching; it is easier to add or remove sound effects (rather then temper with the songs themselves) to adjust the timing to perfection. You can write new songs and you can even use songs that have been already written and modify the texture and feel so it fits the concept... Maybe it isn’t as simple as I describe, but to actually imply it would have been impossible because one could not play the movie at Abbey Road Studios or one did not have means to basically create a movie soundtrack in 1973 is just unconvincing to me.

Here are other reasons why I think it is likely that it was intentional:

- The matching works on many levels: emotions, rhythm, action, themes, songs titles... “The Great Gig In the Sky” during the tornado, “Brain Damage” while the Scarecrow sings “If I Only Had a Brain”.
- TDSOTM jacket (see the OP)
- The fact that other music by PF does match other movies to perfection. Beside what has been presented so far, “Echoes” (from the album Meddle) matches the last chapter of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey to such perfection that it would be hard to believe it was not done on purpose. And here, it is noteworthy that Roger Waters and Kubrick did have a few tumultuous collaborative issues through the years.
- For the most part, TDSOTM (just like The Wall) is a continuous “soundtrack” where a song ends where the next one starts. This is a quite an uncommon way to present popular music and it could indicate intent to make the content match some other content.
- Alan Parsons has built his career based on occult symbolism.

Here is 2001 with Echoes:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=2d6_1303698770

And there are more “synchronicities”...

How about Eraserhead matched to The Wall?
<Content could be disturbing to some people>
Edit: Part 2 seems to now be missing.
(In this case the whole album is played, so, contrary to AIW, “Comfortably Numb” does appear.)

David Lynch, the director of Eraserhead, is known to be fond of Alice in Wonderland. So, The Wall matches with AIW and with Eraserhead, a movie from a director who happens to like reusing AIW symbolisms... And both these movies were released before the album. This is quite disturbing in itself.

Furthermore, you have mentioned in another thread that you like the Robert Zemeckis movie “Contact” (based on Carl Sagan’s book). What about a scene from “Contact” also matching with “Echoes” to perfection:

Ohhh no! I just realized that it has been removed from YouTube:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...&aqi=&aql=&oq=
This is sad because it was one of the best syncs I have seen.

Oh, well...

There also seems to be a thread going through all these “syncs”. In all cases, a protagonist seems to venture to unknown territories: alternate reality, dream-like worlds, the world of Oz, Wonderland, space exploration, alien encounters, the origin of the Human race, after death experience...

Edit:

Originally Posted by pepelepew

Pink Floyd is one of my all time favorite bands. It is amazing all of the sinchronizing, but I have never heard any credible statements from anyone in production or members of Pink Floyd make any references to AIW or TWOOZ. I personnally would like to delve into this subject and if you have any more evidence than what you have presented Corsaire, I would like to see it. Very interesting subject.

pepe, if you are referring to what the vast majority of people would deem is “credible”, then only a confession from PF or someone else involved in the making of those albums, will do the trick. Myself, I laugh at “official” versions of events. I have lived through so many situations in my life that have been reported “officially” (some of them in the national media in Canada) and to say the “official” version is often a travesty of the reality is a euphemism. Given the right incentive, everyone can hide part of the truth ... doctors, politicians, artists, spouses, grandmas... Why would it be so strange that people involved with the making of those albums prefer not to divulge this information?

Myself, I try to analyse a phenomenon for what it is. I do not rely on “official” people to give me “official” versions of events.


@Chuck (... are you still reading this...)
Have you even attempted to watch just the first movie. 43 min long... That is not much time wasted. Better, just watch the first 20 some minutes of TDSOO (up to the point where Dorothy enters the world of Oz) and see how it feels.

[Azhiri]

As for TWOO itself (the work of L.F. Baum), I have also read about many of its possible meanings, but myself, I have mainly analyse the meaning of the TWOO movie in the context of mass manipulation and “mind control”; the connections there are more than convincing. I will get into that later on if people are interested.

I'd like to hear about it. I've never really thought about mind control and our society, but I remember an interesting Chuck Palahniuk quote:

"Experts in ancient Greek culture say that people back then didn’t see their thoughts as belonging to them. When ancient Greeks had a thought, it occurred to them as a god or goddess giving an order. Apollo was telling them to be brave. Athena was telling them to fall in love. Now people hear a commercial for sour cream potato chips and rush out to buy, but now they call this free will. At least the ancient Greeks were being honest."

What about Eraserhead matched to The Wall?



(In this case the whole album is played, so, contrary to AIW, “Comfortably Numb” does appear.)

David Lynch, the director of Eraserhead, is known to be fond of Alice in Wonderland. So, The Wall matches with AIW and with Eraserhead, a movie from a director who happens to like reusing AIW symbolisms... And both these movies where released before the album. This fact alone is quite disturbing in itself.

It gets better and better! I love Eraserhead; I'm a big David Lynch fan. I love surrealism in general. Isn't it funny how sometimes things you know of that are a big part of your life are often connected, sometimes in the strangest ways?

[Corsaire]

@ Azhiri, I will comment further later...
...
You should really watch "Eraserwall". It is amazing!

...
It is really strange how I only see the mistakes in my written English after people quote my posts...

[lefty12357]

@Azhiri, I like I like Eraserhead too, a I'm a big David Lynch fan as well !

@Corsaire, I guess we will have to agree to disagree on the TDSOTM idea. I take their word for it when they say that they were not thinking of, or synching to TWOZ when they did the album.

Yes, there were large recording rooms with projection screens for film back then, but like I said, Alan Parsons said they did not record in such a room. I could imagine them setting up a small TV with a VCR hooked up to it, but of course TDSOTM was recorded in 1972-73 and Sony Beta and VHS didn't come out until 1975. And writing and recording music to a stopwatch would be extremely difficult at best.

There is one other point I would like to mention. I think the TDSOTM/TWOZ idea somewhat detracts from the original concept of the album. And how they recorded this album without computers and samplers in a totally reel-to-reel, analog world is an incredible accomplishment without the TWOZ connection. For those who are interested, check out "The Making of The Dark Side of the Moon". It is a documentary about how this album was created, with interviews and footage of them in the studio doing the recording. If anyone is into this album or interested in music and recording in general, I'd say the documentary is a must-see. Here's a link to it, but the quality isn't the greatest.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...3019071105716#

[Corsaire]

Originally Posted by lefty12357

@Azhiri, I like I like Eraserhead too, a I'm a big David Lynch fan as well !

@Corsaire, I guess we will have to agree to disagree on the TDSOTM idea. I take their word for it when they say that they were not thinking of, or synching to TWOZ when they did the album.

Yes, there were large recording rooms with projection screens for film back then, but like I said, Alan Parsons said they did not record in such a room. I could imagine them setting up a small TV with a VCR hooked up to it, but of course TDSOTM was recorded in 1972-73 and Sony Beta and VHS didn't come out until 1975. And writing and recording music to a stopwatch would be extremely difficult at best.

There is one other point I would like to mention. I think the TDSOTM/TWOZ idea somewhat detracts from the original concept of the album. And how they recorded this album without computers and samplers in a totally reel-to-reel, analog world is an incredible accomplishment without the TWOZ connection. For those who are interested, check out "The Making of The Dark Side of the Moon". It is a documentary about how this album was created, with interviews and footage of them in the studio doing the recording. If anyone is into this album or interested in music and recording in general, I'd say the documentary is a must-see. Here's a link to it, but the quality isn't the greatest.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...3019071105716#

Yes, I guess we will have to agree to disagree here Lefty. I do not believe one needed a VCR machine or any other “sophisticated” instrument to accomplish that feat in 1972-73. I have a keyboard in my basement and I can assure you that I can write 10 to 20 pieces to fit perfectly to any movie of my liking (and no, I do not pretend to be an accomplished musician or to know the details of how to record an album). I can ask other musicians to join in and add to whatever I have written. Between each pieces, I can add some filling (sound bites and sound effects) so to make it fit to perfection to the said movie. It really isn’t that difficult. Really. You just concentrate on key moments and let the rest fall where it does.

Nick Mason says in that documentary you linked to (at 18:10): “And then, the very critical thing of the tapes starting at specific moments which is all done with hand signs and stopwatches.” Can you get less sophisticated than this?

As far as matching TDSOTM to TWOO taking away from the original concept of the album, that is implying that you do know yourself what the original concept was.