Another week, another track review of the upcoming Dark Side of the Moon Redux album by Roger Waters – the song this go-round is Time.
Right off the bat, some may be relieved to hear that the song, which starts off with a cacophonic sound collage of clocks ticking and alarm bells ringing in the original, is no longer present. Instead, in its place, is more of the spoken word poetry that was heavily present in his other single (Money), so your mileage may very well vary depending on how you feel about the original and the new style that’s being taken.
However, it feels like there has been more effort put into this song as a whole – while there are still the talking aspects, there is more of an attempt at breathy singing, which I think works well in the context of this song. As the title suggests, it’s a piece largely around the all-too-fleeting journey that is life, on an album that was made by Waters while he was 29. Fast forward 50 years, and the message hits a lot harder from the perspective of a man, who, at the time of writing, is now 80 years old, which brings an additional level of weariness and wisdom to the song.
In terms of the instrumentation, it’s also a lot better than Money – bringing an almost “gooey” feel to the guitars, and string accompaniments that work in tandem with the song itself also makes the song more pleasing, at least to my ears.
The song also brings with it the first snippet of the “Breathe” reprise/leitmotif that appears in various spots around the original album, which was also satisfying as a listener. You could say that the song does fall into some of the same trappings as Money – primarily the talk-singing, and the extended runtime (with this one clocking in at 7:19, longer than the original), and the more lo-fi style, it feels like a more well-rounded package of a song. If more of the album is like this, I’m cautiously optimistic about the final product.
