What Is Eclipse By Pink Floyd About?
As the haunting final track on Pink Floyd's legendary 1973 album 'The Dark Side of the Moon,' "Eclipse" has captivated and puzzled generations of fans. Its lyrical minimalism and emotional weight seem to encapsulate the mysteries of human existence itself. Yet unlike other songs on the album, the meaning behind Roger Waters' thought-provoking words has never been explicitly explained. As Pink Floyd's crowning masterpiece draws to its chilling close, "Eclipse" still sparks endless debate over its significance 42 years later.
The Lyrics That Sparked a Thousand Theories
With its iconic bassline and just two verses bookending the album, "Eclipse" makes an immediate impression:
"All that you touch
All that you see
All that you taste
All you feel.
All that you love
All that you hate
All you distrust
All you save.
All that you give
All that you deal
All that you buy,
beg, borrow or steal.
All you create
All you destroy
All that you do
All that you say.
All that is now
All that is gone
All that's to come
And everything under the sun is in tune
But the sun is eclipsed by the moon."
For all its brevity, those 34 lines have spawned endless interpretations from fans and critics. Its hypnotic chant gives no clear message. Instead, Waters juxtaposes vivid contrasts - love and hate, creation and destruction, the past and future. So what is the meaning behind this cryptic climax to Pink Floyd's magnum opus? Let's examine some leading theories behind "Eclipse" and its lasting mystique.
The Crux of Life's Dualities
The most common Pink Floyd Eclipse meaning serves as a meditation on the dualities of human existence. Its first verse runs through a series of opposing concepts - joy and pain, faith and distrust. This underscores how life is defined by contrasts, light and dark, constantly in tension.
By pairing these images together, Waters lays bare the paradoxes of the human condition. Past and future, beginnings and endings, even the sun and moon itself - "Eclipse" reveals how these seeming contradictions are intertwined as one. Just as an eclipse visually aligns the sun and moon, the lyrics underline how separate pieces join together in harmony as part of the same whole.
In this interpretation, "Eclipse" acts as the grand summation not just of 'Dark Side' but all human complexity. Distilled down to its poetic essence, Waters articulates how life's big questions have no single answer but are defined by "everything under the sun" together in balance.
The Inevitability of Death
"Eclipse" has also been viewed more narrowly as a meditation on death's looming inevitability. With its slowed tempo and funereal melody, there is a haunting sadness even amidst the song's mantra-like vocals. Words like "destroy" and "gone" echo mortality's stark finality.
Some point to the lyrical shift in the second verse as evidence it is reflecting on life's ephemeral nature. Suddenly "all that is now" transitions sharply into "all that is gone" and "all that's to come," underscoring time's cruel passage. Just as an eclipse symbolizes the disintegration of light, "Eclipse" becomes Pink Floyd's way of acknowledging that all existence fades to black in the end no matter what "you touch, see, taste, feel or love."
In the context of 'Dark Side,' this grim reminder bookends the album's central theme - the pressures of time as "the root of all pain." Preoccupied by money and ambition, we race towards oblivion until those breaths are silence. From this perspective, "Eclipse" is the chilling memento mori that draws 'Dark Side' to its inevitable close, overtaken by death's shadow.
A Nod to Madness
As part of the album that first cemented Pink Floyd as champions of psychedelia, "Eclipse" has also been interpreted as an exploration of mental illness and altered consciousness. Its hypnotic chant is unmoored from reason in a way that some fans argue alludes to the mind slipping into madness.
References to "everything under the sun" tuning together nicely echo a psychedelic experience, with reality fused into a blissed out whole. But the song's Loansian phrase "the sun is eclipsed by the moon" then signals this cosmic unity shattering abruptly.
Just as lunacy was once thought to be caused by the moon's distortions, "Eclipse" shows the trip darkening, subsumed by mental dissolution. The coherent halves of existence break apart into a schizophrenic jumble of opposing forces. For Pink Floyd aficionados, this unwound psychology reflects the band's early affinity for portraying inner and outer worlds distorted through a troubled mind's lens.
The Promise of Rebirth
But amidst so much obscurity, "Eclipse" ends 'Dark Side' on a note which MAY signal rebirth. As death approaches and consciousness fades, Waters speaks of "all that's to come" hinting at beginnings rising from life's end.
Earlier songs like "Breathe" outline a desire to lose one's earthly worries and transcend time's boundaries. Though the eclipse signifies darkness overtaking the senses, astrological cycles also renew themselves. Is "Eclipse" envisioning the soul's liberation - casting off ego to become part of some greater awakening?
For believers in concepts like samsara or eternal return, this cyclic dynamic offers consolation. With its final line "everything under the sun is in tune," "Eclipse" can be taken as implying existence moves in harmonic rounds. Though unaware of time while living, death returns us to an underlying cosmic harmony revealed as day becomes night, over and over in sublime rotation.
The Part Within the Whole
In the final analysis, "Eclipse" remains profound precisely because it eludes any fixed interpretation. Like the central image of an eclipse itself, the song operates on multiple levels of meaning simultaneously. It is at once about life and death, human nature and madness, endings and renewal.
Or perhaps it is about none of them at all. As Pink Floyd's last cosmic rumination on 'Dark Side,' "Eclipse" seems structured to resist clear explanation as it draws the album's epic themes to a close. Like its chanting rhyme scheme, the lyrics gesture towards some grander scheme of unity but pulls back before fully revealing the grand design.
Instead, "Eclipse" suggests truth lies not in poetic phrases but within ourselves as we each react to its sublime confusion. Left to ponder our place in the dazzling but sometimes dark overall spectacle, simply the act of asking becomes meaningful - all that we feel, question and imagine in response. In Waters' final verse, the singular gives way to the boundless as each life becomes "everything under the sun" until passing beyond sight, wrapped once more in the sky's shadows and light.
The story behind "Eclipse" shows just how boldly Pink Floyd was willing to challenge their global audience. As they stepped back from fame's glare with 'Dark Side,' Waters' lyrics became more enigmatic than ever before. But it was also more purposeful - using crisp melody and poetic weight as conduits for self-reflection. Crafting pop music's most resonant existential meditation, "Eclipse" distills life's essence into a few haunting lines suggesting the sublime is always near if we open our eyes to see it.
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