Well, I just screwed up. Obviously, if they were able to predict the future, they would know what editing would be performed on The Wizard of Oz when it was transferred to video.
That explains it.
Sorry.
oh…
That explains it…
This should prove interesting.
Dammit, I hate it when I have to apply Moderator Pressure. I chose this forum to moderate so I wouldn’t have to do any work, and you clowns are makin’ me work. Pfeh. Not like I got paid for it or anything…
OK, ScOo, welcome to the Straight Dope Message Boards. And both ScOo and Farmer, here’s the bottom line: we have different forums for different type of discussions. This forum is meant for discussion of the TOPIC. You can insult a person’s ideas (especially if they’re stupid) but you cannot insult a person. Not here. You want to insult a person, you take it to the forum called “BBQ PIT” (although they have limits, there, too.)
So, arguably Farmer started it, but I don’t care much how it got started. The insults stop, NOW. (“Parents aren’t interested in justice, parents are interested in peace and quiet.”)
If the boards were responding better, I’d go back and edit them out of the prior postings, but I’m too lazy for that.
Consider this a warning shot, fired across your bows.
Next insult, and I sic the Flying Monkeys on you.
I watched The Wizard of Oz while listening to Dark Side of The Moon and using a list of “synchronic events” to watch for, culled from an internet site. This was before the Staff Report had been written.
Some of the points where the song and the action of the movie were supposed to match were off by a few seconds (sometimes the movie was earlier, sometimes the music was earlier); and the vast majority of the movie did not seem to have any relationship to the album.
So I know - there is no intentional syncrhonization between the Pink Floyd album and the Victor Fleming movie.
ScOo_gUy, you asked for reasons why people think the “synchronicity” between Dark Side of the Moon and The Wizard of Oz does not exist. The Staff Report linked above lists, among others, two powerful arguments, namely,[ul]1. Except for Roger Waters, all members of Pink Floyd have explicitly denied the link.
2. There are more instances where the two do not coincide than where they do.[/ul] In contrast, your arguments for the relationship boil down to,[ul]1. If you watch it, then you will know, and
2. There is a triangle with a rainbow on the cover of Dark Side of the Moon.[/ul] The evidence you present is, unfortunately, underwhelming. If you’re genuinely serious about convincing someone else (like me, for instance), that you speak the truth, then you need to both state why you believe the conclusions in the Staff Report are invalid, and present some credible evidence why your theory is correct.
For example, I would argue that if you compare two complicated and meaningful entities (like a movie and an album) side-by-side, then, given the number of important moments in each, there is bound to be numerous times where these moments coincide, give or take a few seconds. This is doubly true if you take the liberty of skipping some songs, and choosing the “correct” starting point (which you imply is acceptable). So, I would argue, you can find synchronicity between any album/movie pair. If you expect to make the point that Dark Side of the Moon and The Wizard of Oz are intentionally synchronized, then you need to also make the point that Dark Side of the Moon and, say, Terminator II are not synchronized. Can you do that?
[hijack]
ScOo_gUy said:
Your age and immaturity are showing. I am aware that current slang in the teeny-bopper through college set uses “gay” in the meaning of dumb, lame, silly, or uncouth. However, this is just an extension of the homophobic response of the age-group as a whole. It is clearly a derivative of “being gay is stupid” or bad, or lame, etc. It is offensive, even more so because many who use the phrase are blind to so obvious a dig at homosexuals. You would do well to get out of the habit of using it now and save yourself trouble later. Who knows when you might have your room/apartment/house broken into and tastefully redecorated in fuscia?
Seriously, whenever I hear someone use that expression, it immediately marks them as either a bigot or a dolt. I’ll let you pick which you prefer to be.
[/hijack]
So, for the benefit solely of people with access to technology that was not yet available, Pink Floyd secretly synchronized albums they were writing with random popular movies, and when asked later, denied it? This simply makes no sense.
As for comments about Ummagumma, the songs on that were written by the various members separately. I’m not even sure how much they collaborated in recording them. Yet, they somehow managed to synchronize it with Gigi? And later reordered the songs to synchronize with 2001: A Space Odyssey?
I’m looking at the cover of the CD release of Ummagumma and don’t see anything relating to Gigi. Could you point it out?
Cite?
How could they reorder the songs? The songs are, in the order they appear on my CD:
Sysyphus Part 1
Sysyphus Part 2
Sysyphus Part 3
Sysyphus Part 4
Grantchester Meadows
Several Species of small furry animals gathered together in a cave and grooving with a Pict
The Narrow Way Part 1
The Narrow Way Part 2
The Narrow Way Part 3
The Grand Vizier’s Garden Party Part 1 Entrance
The Grand Vizier’s Garden Party Part 2 Entertainment
The Grand Vizier’s Garden Party Part 3 Exit
Aside from the fact that I have never heard (in either of the books I’ve read on Pink Floyd) of any different ordering of songs on the album, I don’t see how they could change much. There’s basically 5 separate songs. If they could be reorder to synchronize with a movie completely unrelated to the one they originally were synchronized to, I’d call it all a coincidence, or patent BS.
No. He was writing a soundtrack for the movie. It was supposed to be synchronized. It was part of the movie. And everyone knew. It was not a case where years later someone “discovered” a remarkable coincidence, that Jerry Garcia had denied, which involved a previously released movie.
But at the time, it was not an experience anyone could actually have. And nobody knew about it for years.
The album cover was designed by a company called Hipgnosis, who did most of Pink Floyd’s covers, and several other popular ones as well. As I recall, Pink Floyd selected that one from four different designs provided by Hipgnosis.
Actually, on the list of songs on my copy, everything is nicely printed, rather than the original scrawled writing. The minus sign appears after the title in the lyrics sheet. Incidentally, the lyrics sheet has many mistakes that were never fixed, including the songs being out of order, and the presence of the song “What Shall We Do Now” which isn’t on the album. This is because the order they appear in was not selected until after the lyrics sheets had been printed.
This fact makes what you claim impossible. If there was any synchronization at the time the lyrics sheets were printed, it would be undone well before Comfortably Numb was reached. If the synchronization was added later, after the song order had been decided, it would have been impossible to give any indication on the lyrics sheets.
Hopefully we can settle this nonsense before I have to go researching when the lyrics for different songs were written and how.
OK, I sacrificed my early evening to settle this once and for all.
I took a CD called “The Irving Berlin Songbook, Centennial Celebration” (RCA). I hasten to add, this is a compilation CD, so it’s about as “random” as you can get aside from all being Irving Berlin songs. I started playing the CD simultaneous with watching THE WIZARD OF OZ on DVD, beginning the CD at the Director’s Credit for Victor Fleming. I couldnt write fast enough to get all the synchronizations, from pauses in the music being answered by dialog from the movie, to the reverse (comments in the movie being answered by the song)
But here’s the start: – note that these are not all the synchronizations, these are just the ones I could write down, so I missed many while writing.
First track on CD: No business like show business
coincides with the opening title about “This movie is for the young and young at heart”
CD’s “They laugh when they are low”
Movie: Auntie Em crabbing at Dorothy while fussing over the baby chicks
Track 2: The Song is Ended (but the melody lingers on) plays during the encounters with the three farmhands, implying that their melody (themes) will become imporant in the movie later
CD:“We sang a love song”
Movie: Auntie Em brings cookies (her expression of love)
Track 3: What’ll I Do?
Dorothy says: … a place where there isn’t any trouble.
CD replies: “What’ll I do?”
Dorothy sings: Somewhere over the rainbow (pause)
CD replies: Don’t come true
Dorothy sings: Someday I wish upon a star
CD continues: When I’m alone
Dorothy sings: That’s where you’ll find me
CD continues: What must I do
(OK, I paused the CD while Dorothy finishes singing the Rainbow song, and started it up again when Toto escapes from Miss Gulch’s basket.)
Track 4: You’re Just in Love
CD: When you’re in love, you’re never alone
Movie: Shot of Dorothy running away with Toto, going down the lonely Kansas road
CD: What’s more I lost my appetite
Movie: Prof Marvel puts hot dog on stick to roast (!)
Movie: Prof Marvel says, “You’re running away from home.”
CD replies: "Don’t need analyzin’ " (!)
CD: “Baby, you’re in love”
Movie: Prof Marvel takes Dorothy’s arm and leads her into his wagon
CD: “Stars that used to twinkle in the skies are twinkling in my eyes”
Movie: Prof Marvel and Dorothy look in crystal ball
Track 5: Cheek to Cheek
CD: “Heaven, I’m in Heaven”
Movie: Prof Marvel describing Auntie Em in crystal ball, says “She’s putting her hand to her heart.”
CD: “Heaven, I’m in heaven”
Movie: It’s a twister!"
CD: “…Dancing cheek to cheek”
Movie: Everyone at the farm running in circles, chickens, etc as twister comes
Track 6: How Deep is the Ocean
CD: “How much could I cry”
Movie: Dorothy calls out for Auntie Em, when they’re all in the storm cellar and she’s wandering the house
CD: “How high is the sky”
Movie: Window hits Dorothy
OK, now ready for this one:
CD: “How many times a day/Do I dream of you.”
Movie: Multiple images of Dorothy’s head as she falls into her dream (note: “how many” and there’s multiple images of her head; and the word “dream”) !!!
CD: “How far would I travel/To be where you are/How far is the journey/From here to a star”
Movie: Dorothy looks out the window
CD: “And if I ever lost you”
Movie: Dorothy looks down into the twister (scary, not funny, shot)
CD: How deep is the ocean/How high is the sky
Movie: House descends, lands with bump at exact finale of song
Song 7: Blue Skies
CD: “Blue skies, smiling on me”
Movie: Dorothy walks through hallway towards door
CD: “Blue birds singing a song; Nothing but blue skies from now on”
Movie: Dorothy opens door into technicolor Oz
NOTE: in the original Baum books, Munchkin land is blue – blue flowers, blue clothes, etc. The movie doesn’t stick to that, but Irvin Berlin clearly is doing an homage to Baum by having the “blue” song as Dorothy comes out into Munchkinland.
OK, that’s where I stopped. The songs almost exactly complement the movie. Sometimes there’s an exact mood agreement, sometimes it’s contrapuntal. Shrug.
Now, who wants to argue that Irving Berlin wrote those songs while watching WIZARD OF OZ?
No, of course not. It’s a coincidence driven by Berlin and Baum’s mutual hatred of the gold standard.
Sha!
Dorothy sings: Somewhere over the rainbow (pause)
Damn ! There I go again - gets me every bloody time…
FarmerOak - I think you’ve met your cyber Sgt. Troy
He’s correct here. I assume that the CD you’re looking at looks like this. You see that white square leaning against the wall, right above the letters “Pink Floyd” on the floor? On my circa '78 import vinyl copy of Ummagumma, that white square is the soundtrack to Gigi. I assume the there were copyright infringement problems with the US version (also postulated here) causing Gigi to be whited out.
Do you have an abbreviated CD? There should be four additional songs, “Astronomy Domine,” “Careful with that Axe, Eugene,” “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun,” and “A Saucerful of Secrets.”
As an aside, my wife remembers that her old copy of Ummagumma listed “A Saucerful of Secrets” as divided up into four parts, “Something Else,” “Syncopated Pandemonium,” “Storm Signal,” and “Celestial Voices” (a point confirmed here). Thus, she proposes that “the act of believing two unrelated performance pieces are, in fact, synchronized” be henceforth defined as Syncopated Pandemonium.
Yeah, I was referring only to the studio disc of Ummagumma, as that’s what was claimed as being synchronous. The songs you mentioned are live, and thus it would be rather silly to even claim that they have been synchronized with a movie.
As for Gigi, that was obviously eliminated so that people wouldn’t catch on to the synchronization. Because, if people knew about it… OK, I’m a little unclear on that point. Why is it that they’re trying to hide this, after going to all the trouble of creating the whole thing? Anyone?
Well, after ScooGuy’s rantings, I reluctantly admit that I’m quite the Floydophile.
On the “Gigi” reference, Ummagumma originally was printed with the Gigi poster where the white square on the cover currently is in today’s printings. It was indeed a copyright issue why it was removed, as the originals were printed with the Gigi without permission from whoever owns the rights to the movie. That’s it. No conspiracy theory, no mysterious soundtrack synching.
I’m still kicking myself for passing up buying a Gigi-edition Ummagumma vinyl I stumbled across in a record shop a few years back 
It was either that or pay rent, man my priorities were whacked.
You can still buy one on eBay. (Link has a pic, for those of you who want to see the Gigi cover.)
Arnold Winkelried posted
I watched The Wizard of Oz while listening to Dark Side of The Moon and using a list of “synchronic events” to watch for, culled from an internet site. This was before the Staff Report had been written.
Some of the points where the song and the action of the movie were supposed to match were off by a few seconds (sometimes the movie was earlier, sometimes the music was earlier); and the vast majority of the movie did not seem to have any relationship to the album.
So I know - there is no intentional syncrhonization between the Pink Floyd album and the Victor Fleming movie.
Arnold, the reason why some of the synchs are off a bit is because the movie is… 2 or so hours long and the album is only 40 or so minutes long. It would have been impossible for every synch to be perfect.
Somehow I just knew that Arnold was missing something. Timing! Ticka Ticka Ticka Timing. Tocka Tocka Tocka, Timing is the thing it’s true. Yes, timing…
Matching up “The best of Jimmy Jones” with “The Maltese Falcon.” Back in a minute…
One small point: although VCRs were not available in 1973, reel-to-reel videotape recorders were. At the company where I had first programming job (in 1971), our computer department had a black-and-white model to play educational videos. It was about the length and width of our current VCRs, but about twice as tall. The audio-visual room was in an out-of-the-way area, so I fiddled with it a bit. I even recorded short excerpts of TV programs on the end of one tape that had a long blank area.
So it is barely possible that Pink Floyd had a videotape of the Wizard of Oz recorded from a TV broadcast.
However, as most of us have said, there is still no evidence that they did.
ScOo_gUy : I’m saying more than 70% of the “synchronic events” that were supposed to happen were at the wrong time, even in the first 40 minutes, before the CD started playing a second time. Try it again and pay closer attention, you will realize that the supposed “connection” is bunk.
By the way, according to Saucerful of Secrets: The Pink Floyd Odyssey, by Nicholas Schaffner, Brain Damage was written during the time they were working on Meddle. At least the words were. Also, it seems to indicate that the bits of dialogue and the heartbeat were mixed in at the end, after all the music was recorded.
To clarify from earlier, Us and Them was based on music written for the soundtrack to Zabriskie Point. And the video Live at Pompeii shows them working on On the Run, Us and Them, and Eclipse. The last was also the last song written for the album.
In order to secretly synchronize the album with the movie, they would have to have had a fairly good idea of the timing of each previous song before writing the next one. It would be pointless to write Brain Damage if you didn’t know when in the movie the idiot would actually be on the grass. Also, the mixing and editing process would have been rather difficult, and tightly controlled, when it actually sounds as if it was expertly and professionally done.
In short, it would have been mind-bogglingly complex to synchronize that particular album to a movie, and there is no evidence of any of those complexities.
Now, why don’t you try to address some of the many points that have been mentioned, rather than choosing one little point and misconstruing it to try to bolster your argument. That’s the same tactic that the Moon Hoax people, and all the other people with their pet conspiracy theories use, and we’ve all seen it several times before.
ScOo_gUy, you asked for reasons why people think the “synchronicity” between Dark Side of the Moon and The Wizard of Oz does not exist. The Staff Report linked above lists, among others, two powerful arguments, namely,
- Except for Roger Waters, all members of Pink Floyd have explicitly denied the link.
- There are more instances where the two do not coincide than where they do.
In contrast, your arguments for the relationship boil down to, - If you watch it, then you will know, and
- There is a triangle with a rainbow on the cover of Dark Side of the Moon.
The evidence you present is, unfortunately, underwhelming. If you’re genuinely serious about convincing someone else (like me, for instance), that you speak the truth, then you need to both state why you believe the conclusions in the Staff Report are invalid, and present some credible evidence why your theory is correct.
For example, I would argue that if you compare two complicated and meaningful entities (like a movie and an album) side-by-side, then, given the number of important moments in each, there is bound to be numerous times where these moments coincide, give or take a few seconds. This is doubly true if you take the liberty of skipping some songs, and choosing the “correct” starting point (which you imply is acceptable). So, I would argue, you can find synchronicity between any album/movie pair. If you expect to make the point that Dark Side of the Moon and The Wizard of Oz are intentionally synchronized, then you need to also make the point that Dark Side of the Moon and, say, Terminator II are not synchronized. Can you do that?
First, you missed the point about the triangle. (theres also one on the back of Saucerful of Secrets on the barcode thing, but here http://camel.4mg.com/ ) The Dark Side of the Moon probably does have times when it synchronizes with Terminator 2, but i’m sure Pink Floyd had nothing to do with that and also, the two have no connections with each other.
To Irishman-- you’re off the topic. When you get back on the topic, feel free to comment.
To waterj2— http://www.geocities.com/ra8id_8ov1n3_s/Ummagumma_GiGi.html there a site with a picture and also, I have ummagumma and i can see the soundtrack to Gigi quite clearly and even clearer when i look at my poster.
The fact that the Gigi soundtrack is on the cover of Ummagumma has been verified by Farmer. Who doesn’t know why its on there (not trying to start a fight).
Also, water, if you read Saucerful of Secrets: The Pink Floyd Odyssey, you’ll see Roger Waters quote and ask a Stanley Kubrick fan about his quote. And, Ummagumma was released with… The Piper At The Gates of Dawn I believe and it was called A Nice Pair.
Waterj2-
The album cover was designed by a company called Hipgnosis, who did most of Pink Floyd’s covers, and several other popular ones as well. As I recall, Pink Floyd selected that one from four different designs provided by Hipgnosis.
I know, they also did Led Zeppelin.
waterj2–Actually, on the list of songs on my copy, everything is nicely printed, rather than the original scrawled writing. The minus sign appears after the title in the lyrics sheet. Incidentally, the lyrics sheet has many mistakes that were never fixed, including the songs being out of order, and the presence of the song “What Shall We Do Now” which isn’t on the album. This is because the order they appear in was not selected until after the lyrics sheets had been printed.
There is a minus sign on my cd also.
C K Dexter Haven –
First, you must start TDSofM right after the third roar of the MGM lion. Which you didn’t.
CD’s “They laugh when they are low”
Movie: Auntie Em crabbing at Dorothy while fussing over the baby chicks
I see no connection.
Track 3: What’ll I Do?
Dorothy says: …
Some place where there
isn’t any trouble.
Do you suppose there is
such a place, Toto?
There must be.
Not a place you can get
to by a boat or a train.
It’s far, far away…
behind the moon…
beyond the rain…
behind the moon. i bet its dark behind the moon, don’t you?
Dorothy sings: Somewhere over the rainbow (pause)
CD replies: Don’t come true
this is a synch?
Dorothy sings: Someday I wish upon a star
CD continues: When I’m alone
and this is too?
Dorothy sings: That’s where you’ll find me
CD continues: What must I do ???
(OK, I paused the CD while Dorothy finishes singing the Rainbow song, and started it up again when Toto escapes from Miss Gulch’s basket.)
why’d you do that?
Track 4: You’re Just in Love
CD: When you’re in love, you’re never alone
Movie: Shot of Dorothy running away with Toto, going down the lonely Kansas road
yeah, she’s running away but, “no one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.”
CD: What’s more I lost my appetite
Movie: Prof Marvel puts hot dog on stick to roast (!)
wow… look on the professors sign. It reads Past Present Future during the song Time.
Movie: Prof Marvel says, “You’re running away from home.”
CD replies: "Don’t need analyzin’ " (!)
ok…???
CD: “Baby, you’re in love”
Movie: Prof Marvel takes Dorothy’s arm and leads her into his wagon
No…
CD: “Heaven, I’m in heaven”
Movie: It’s a twister!"
Hmmm, I think this is when the song Great Gig in the Sky starts.
CD: “…Dancing cheek to cheek”
Movie: Everyone at the farm running in circles, chickens, etc as twister comes
no dancing. running. Great Gig in the Sky still playing.
CD: “How high is the sky”
Movie: Window hits Dorothy
Great Gig in the Sky still playing, but when the window hits Dorothy, the singer softens her voice.
CD: “How many times a day/Do I dream of you.”
Movie: Multiple images of Dorothy’s head as she falls into her dream (note: “how many” and there’s multiple images of her head; and the word “dream”) !!!
still Great Gig is playing
CD: “How far would I travel/To be where you are/How far is the journey/From here to a star”
Movie: Dorothy looks out the window
uh huh…
CD: “And if I ever lost you”
Movie: Dorothy looks down into the twister (scary, not funny, shot)
so far, none are good.
CD: How deep is the ocean/How high is the sky
Movie: House descends, lands with bump at exact finale of song
Still Great Gig, but singing is quiet.
Song 7: Blue Skies
CD: “Blue skies, smiling on me”
Movie: Dorothy walks through hallway towards door
You hear silence…
CD: “Blue birds singing a song; Nothing but blue skies from now on”
Movie: Dorothy opens door into technicolor Oz
NOTE: in the original Baum books, Munchkin land is blue – blue flowers, blue clothes, etc. The movie doesn’t stick to that, but Irvin Berlin clearly is doing an homage to Baum by having the “blue” song as Dorothy comes out into Munchkinland.
You hear the first cashregister of Money. Money is associated with color.
Money, get away
Get a good job with more pay and you’re O.K.
Money it’s a gas
Notice the first letters of each sentence…MGM and al the M’s and G’s and more M’s in the song. In the movie (1939) Munchkin land is…green…hmmm, isn’t that the color of…Money???
Notice how every song fits the mood. Now, who wants to argue that Pink Floyd didn’t do it on purpose?
Good call Zut.
Waterj2, listen to the applause on the ‘live’ album carefully.
to zgystardst–
Pink Floyd were (due to his death) friends with Stanley Kubrick (director). They borrow sounds from each other. I think Stanley used some of Pink Floyds sounds on The Shining. And Roger Waters wanted to use HALs voice (from 2001: A Space Odyssey) but Stanley refused and Roger got quite angry. He even recorded a backward message on Amused to Death. Go here —> http://members.aol.com/floyd260/floyd/index.html to hear it and some others.
I bet Pink Floyd got to go into some of the movie studios because they were friends of Kubrick and also, they’ve made three (3) soundtracks to movies.
to Arnold-- ScOo_gUy : I’m saying more than 70% of the “synchronic events” that were supposed to happen were at the wrong time, even in the first 40 minutes, before the CD started playing a second time. Try it again and pay closer attention, you will realize that the supposed “connection” is bunk.
Yeah, I understand, but you don’t. It would have been impossible for them to be timed perfect. Again, the movie is 2 or so hours and the album is 40 or so minutes.
waterj2-- In order to secretly synchronize the album with the movie, they would have to have had a fairly good idea of the timing of each previous song before writing the next one. It would be pointless to write Brain Damage if you didn’t know when in the movie the idiot would actually be on the grass. Also, the mixing and editing process would have been rather difficult, and tightly controlled, when it actually sounds as if it was expertly and professionally done.
In short, it would have been mind-bogglingly complex to synchronize that particular album to a movie, and there is no evidence of any of those complexities.
Roger Waters and Nick Mason wanted to be architects. Even when they were in Pink Floyd, they still wanted to be architects.