How old were you when you first heard Dark Side of the Moon?

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

And how much did it mean to you?

whoisalhedges is exempt from this thread as I don't give a flying fuck what he says about this!

[tridim]

1. I think I heard "Money" on the radio when I was about 14.

in 84. I had only heard "The Wall" up to that point, so basically I thought Pink Floyd was just "We Don't Need No Education". I quickly became a belated fan after exploring the rest of "Dark Side".

[Rowdyboy]

2. 18, freshman in college, 1973

And it was awesome...I can't begin to tell you....

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

4. try!

[Rowdyboy]

27. Thought about it all day... so here goes....

VERY naive, sheltered 18 year old away from home for the first time. Smoked pot for the first time on the third day. Heard "Thick as a Brick" for the first time that same week and that was my virgin head rush. Later that year you could get high just walking through the hallway of the dorm. I was on my nightly rounds visiting friends, when A stoner named Jeff said he had something for me to hear-it was "Dark Side of the Moon". We sat there in total silence and listed to the entire album. Then he played it again. I could close my eyes and totally merge with the music, feel it all through my body. It was transcendental for me at that stage of my life and remains one of my favorites still. Then he turned me onto "Ummagumma" and I loved "Careful with that axe, Eugene" and "several Species of Small Furry Animals gartered together in a cave grooving with a Pict" (thats SOOO much fun to write!)

Shortly thereafter, I was introduced to Mott the Hoople, Bowie, King Crimson, The Tubes, The New York Dolls, Lou Reed and Sparks.

There was some genuinely flawless music in the early 1970's, to say nothing of the excellent hallucinogins that were everywhere. We were a bunch of insane guys with no responsibilities except getting passing grades and staying out of jail. Somehow, most of us managed to do both. It's a miracle I survived to be 30, much less 50. Thanks for making me remember.

[mark11727]

16. There's a great part in Dark Side with a gazillion alarm clocks

all going off at the same time.

We were all at a party in one of the dorms, and this one fella woke up out of his reefers-n-beer induced stupor just long enough to wing the host's alarm clock out the window.

Good to know the tuition ain't been for nothin'. ;-)

On edit... this was the very early seventies, mind you.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

21. I guessed that by the reference to "reefers"

:)

[AlCzervik]

3. I was about 10, my dad had a teac reel to reel and that was on it

same place i heard Springsteen for the first time too.

[fluffernutter]

5. don't remember, but i know i liked it.

and always will, esp the whole beginning of that song.

[Cyndee_Lou_Who]

6. I was raised on Floyd from birth ('72). I was about 7 and singing

"and the worms ate into his brain" at a family function and got the evil eye. The whole family saw them in '87 in Chicago. They have always meant a LOT...

[trillian]

7. 30

Yup, I'm old!

:bounce:

[NWHarkness]

8. Freashman in college when it was released

I remember the first time I heard it. Someone but it on the stereo in the lobby of my dorm, and we sat there and listened to it all the way through.

[tuvor]

9. Still haven't actually listened to it.

I had a friend when I was but a tween who LOVED the Beatles, Hendrix, Rush, Pink Floyd, Yes, etc.

I purposely chose to hate everything he loved just to annoy him. And frankly, they never really were my thing, yes, Beatles included.

Ironically, he's the one who accidentally introduced me to one of my all-time favorite bands, Devo. In fact, why, my avatar is from their second album!

[SnohoDem]

10. 16 -

when it was brand new.

It didn't mean as much as it would have a few years earlier, when I was taking lots of psychedelics.

[maveric]

11. 17, senior in HS.

And I played it so much I almost wore out the vinyl.

[slackmaster]

12. Just turned 15 years old a month before it came out

Blew my mind.

[ZoCrowes]

13. 8 years ago

I was 12. Thought it was pretentious crap. I now love that album. The reason for the change of heart you ask? I discovered the joys of the sticky icky at 15

[Kat45]

14. In high school, when it came out.

Enjoyed it throughout high school and college.

[emulatorloo]

15. 1973 I heard Money - I thought it was John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band

Not really, but I thought it sounded a lot like JL.

Bought the album, enjoyed it a lot, went thru a pink floyd phase that ended pre-Wall.

[Magrittes Pipe]

17. Probably around 7.

I think I cried for my mommy to turn it off, but she was too high to hear me.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

19. You should have pulled a Rick James and burned her with your crack pipe

R.I.P. Rick James

[achtung_circus]

18. I heard it new

when it first came out I was dating a Valkyrie of a girl, I was 16, she was 15. We went to her place after school, got really high. We lay on the floor, between the speakers. I thought a helicopter was coming to land on my head.

Frankie was beautiful, big, blonde, buxom and very horny. I losy my virginity that day to the soundtrack of Dark Side of the Moon. I was torn between the sensations in my head from the music and the sensations hapening somewhat further south. It was one of the days I will remember forever.

BTW Frankie's brother was an outlaw biker, unaffiliated, who gave me a very large look into that world, and her mother knew a LOT more about sex than Frankie did.

[thanatonautos]

20. 14 years old

Pink Floyd was formative for me. I lived
in England for a year or so circa 1975, and
had a chance to see them in concert, but
I was listening to them from the time
I was in seventh grade. I was still listening
to Wish You Were Here in when I was a graduate
student.

Nostalgia, one of the great pleasures of age,
and youth! :)

I'll see you, on the dark side of the moon ...

[Squeech]

22. When it was new

Freshman year in college.

I actually didn't like Pink Floyd much at the time-- I thought the Syd stuff was too twee and the post-Syd stuff was too slow. Obviously I hadn't given it a fair chance, and I had a good friend who let me know it in no uncertain terms. One night we got really baked and played "Echoes" while watching "Creature from the Black Lagoon" as the late night movie. It was good.

I still didn't much care for Dark Side of the Moon until I saw them live, in Boston's lovely old Music Hall theatre (seats about 4200). And it still isn't my favorite-- but what is, depends on my mood at the time you ask me. Piper, Ummagumma, WYWH and Animals are all contenders.

Pink Floyd has actually been five different bands, which happen to involve many of the same people. First there was Syd's band, whimsical and experimental and ultimately lost in the ozone. Then there was the deep space Floyd, Ummagumma through Dark Side, having been left way out there by Syd's spectacular flameout, and trying to find their way back to the world of human concerns. Then there was the period of trying to come to terms with what happened to Syd. This overlapped with Roger Waters working out his own problems with his father, and with authority, and ultimately with everybody else around him. Finally, without him, Pink Floyd really has become the dinosaur Johnny Rotten dubbed them 30 years ago. (I like about three songs on Momentary Lapse, and nothing on Division Bell.)

[Dukkha]

23. 17 and LITERALLY changed my life

I remember buying the cassette and putting it in my car stereo. I was driving around listening over and over thinking "this is the greatest music I've ever heard!" I was aggressively learning guitar then playing a lot of hard rock/metal songs. This changed everything! Withing a year I owned every Floyd album and several sheet music books. It set me on the path as an artist and gave me direction on the music I create today.

That was 17 years ago! Sheesh I'm old!

I now finally own DSOTM on Quadraphonic vinyl. THAT is the way to experience it.

For CD listeners you MUST find the Original master Recording on Gold CD. This is the only version on CD that faithfully captures the original 1972 release.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000000IRB/102-1980898-2626519?v=glance

[Mistra_Know_It_All]

24. When I was 11

David Gilmore has a way with the guitar

[mogster]

25. About 7 years old, in 1973-74

I remember Us and Them as a ghost memory, walking on to the beach where we ate melon yoghurt and bathed.
The music was played on one of them old tape-machines, weighing about 10 kilos - carried by my two older sisters, of course.

Very good childhood memory.

[catmandu57]

26. Damn, I just listened to it

Before I had even booted up. I don't know, I was probably 17, at a party somewhere stoned on god knows what. It's always been a great acid album.

[mtnester]

28. 1973...

I was 13 and a friend of mine came over and said...you gotta LISTEN to this album....

It was like nothing I had ever heard before...even at 13 I knew I was listening to history and brilliance. Still believe that to this day...

You know what I mean? It was not metal, it was not really rock and roll...I guess you could call it the first "alternative?"

BTW - got my first French kiss from that friend while listening to Us and Them. He was my first real boyfriend.

Oh the memories of slower, easier days...sigh...

[redqueen]

29. Very young

Too young to remember, actually, as this is one of my mom's favorites.

I was about 5 or 6 when I started understanding what the words were saying.

Time really affected me. Made me feel hopeless waaaaay too early.

[kitchen girl]

30. 17, summer before senior year of high school

Guy who lived down the street loaned it to me along with some Bowie and a bunch of other stuff I didn't relate to at all. I did like "Dark Side", however, because of the harmonies and chord progressions. Back then, I was playing organ. Mom had a Hammond B3 with a Leslie in the dining room! I remember taking myself to the music store and buying the score to "Dark Side", then giving all those records back to my friend.