h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Has anyone tried that 'Dark Side of the Moon' thing with The Wizard of Oz (playing the film with sound turned off at the same time as listening to DSOTM), and had better results than I have? I only did it once, and someone said that I should start the cd on the third roar of the MGM lion, although someone else said that you get better results if you start on the first note of the MGM fanfare. It's been a while since I did this, so I can't recall too many of the "coincidences", but I remember that Mrs Gulch/Wicked Witch appears on her bike at the exact moment that all the clocks go off at the beginning of 'Time', that the first side (LP) of DSOTM is exactly the same length as the black and white section of the film, that the wailing female vocal at the end of 'Great Gig in the Sky' almost exactly matches the tornado scene, and the intensity of the vocal drops off as Dorothy flops on the bed and the house starts to fly, that 'Money' Starts at the moment Dorothy opens the door on Munchkinland, and that the cd ends with a heartbeat as Dorothy puts her hand on the Tin Man's chest. There's something about the line "And who knows which is which (Witch is Witch) and who is who" with Glenda and the Wicked Witch, but I don't remember that bit.

Supposedly, if you start the Ween cd 'The Mollusc' 30 seconds after DSOTM ends, there are more coincidences, although the cd ends a good 15-20 minutes before the film does.

If you've got nothing better to do, it's worth trying, just for fun.

Great entry btw

Girl down the hall from me at college keeps on saying she'll do "The Dark Side of the Rainbow" sometime... which I assume is what you're talking about. I think you start the album at some point right after Dorothy leaves Munchkinland... but I can't remember.

I started the CD on the third roar. This was years ago.

During the 'If I Only Had a Brain' sequence, the Scarecrow falls down on a patch of grass along with the line 'The lunatic is on the grass', and there's a shot of him standing on the Yellow Brick Road along with the line 'The lunatic is on the path'. Or so I seem to remember. There was also a coincidence about my roommate at the time looking like the Wicked Witch of the West, but I don't *think* that the guy who claimed to see that took any more than I did...

"What a fool believes, he sees." Was that Kierkegaard, or the Doobie Brothers?

I've tried it sober too, and it still works.

Never heard about the Mollusk before - I'll have to try that.

I think it was The Doobies

I tried the 'Dark Side of the Rainbow' the other night and can confirm that the coincidences are, whilst not exactly spectacular, certainly interesting.

In addition to the points you and other correspondents have recorded, I noticed that the tracks on DSOTM generally co-incide with the scenes in WOZ. Other coincidences I noted were
- When Dorothy falls into the pig-pen, the music definitely becomes more urgent and 'anxious'
- When Dorothy leaves home, Roger Waters sings '..leave your home'
- When Dorothy decides to return home, Waters sings 'Home again...'
- When Waters sings 'Black and blue' we are looking at the confrontation between the Wicked Witch (black dress) and Dorothy (blue dress)
- A few moments later, Waters sings 'Up and down' just as the Witch goes up in a plume of smoke and the Munchkins drop down onto the ground.

Having stopped the tape when DSOTM stopped, I now intend to take the obvious step and resume viewing with 'Wish You Were Here' playing in the background. I'll keep you posted on any more coincidences.

Have you ever thought about just how deeply Pink Floyd would have had to analyse and take apart TWOO in order to write these songs and get them to coincide with the film this tightly?

Of course. I don't really believe the whole 'Dark Side of the Rainbow' thing was some sort of surrealistic joke by Roger Waters - who is really the only person who could have pulled it off. Firstly because, as you say, it would have been extraordinarily difficult, secondly because neither he nor anyone else involved in the album apparently ever mentioned WOZ during the recording of DSOTM, and finally because, from what I've heard about Roger Waters, he doesn't have much of a sense of humour anyway.

I think the parallels between the CD and the film are 'just' coincidences. The key question about these coincidences is - do you want to tie them in with some Jungian theory about human consciousness, or do you take the view that such things are bound to happen from time to time, especially if one deliberately goes looking for them?

Two more 'Ah ha' moments from the Dark Side of the Rainbow that I've just remembered:
- When the farm workers are scramblimg to get inside the tornado shelter, a voice on the record says something about being afraid to die, and
- Soon after the first appearance of the Good Witch, Roger sings 'Don't give me that do goody good bulls**t.'

Regarding watching the second half of the film accompanied by 'Wish You Were Here', I have the following coincidences to report.
- When Dorothy falls asleep after running across the poppy field, Waters sings 'You reached for the secret too soon'
- The track 'Welcome to the Machine' starts just as Dorothy and co. enter Emerald City
- When the Scarecrow etc are looking for Dorothy in the Witch's castle, Roger sings 'Nobody knows where you are.'

All in all, not too much to show for 40+ minutes of music. I was also struck by what a boring album WYWH is, in comparison with DSOTM, but that's another thing.

I don't know what this proves. Perhaps that these sort of coincidences happen all the time if one goes looking for them. To try and prove the latter, I will go and select a CD at random, and run it over the top of the second half of WOZ. Then I'll stop. I don't even like the film that much anyway (although the flying monkeys are pretty cool.)

Ooo, ooo: try "Tommy". It suddenly popped into my head the other day - while catching up on the posts here - that there might be some very interesting coincidences in *that* combination. "Sgt. Pepper" just suggested itself, as well.

Could be fun...

Well, by tossing a coin repeatedly I selected Kate Bush's 'Hounds of Love' from the approximately 150 CDs I own. (Even this was a bit spooky, as Kate has of course very strong Pink Floyd connections!)

On playing the record over the top of the second half of WOZ I again had the impression that the mood of the music seemed to tie in with the images of the film. The most striking point was when 'Waking the Witch' was playing as Dorothy & co. were been hunted down in the forest - the sound of the helicopter cutting in just as the flying monkeys picked up Dorothy and carried her off was especially gratifying.

Other points I noticed were
- Kate sings 'So much hate from the ones we love' just as the Witch tries to set fire to the scarecrow for the first time.
- She sings 'We're running up that hill' as our heroes go, err, running up a hill
- Kate sings 'he's coming for me through the trees' as the Cowardly Lion attacks Dorothy, who's hiding behind a tree
and my personal favourite:
- Shortly after Dorothy has dissolved the Wicked Witch, we see a close up of her face, just as Kate sings 'Murderer! Murderer!'

I suppose all this proves simply that, if one picks a suitable piece of music, there are bound to be the odd moments when what one is hearing seems, as if by magic, to tie in with what one is watching. It is, quite simply, a coincidence. The strange thing about DSOTM is that it seems to contain more coincidences with the first half of WOZ than the other records I experimented with. However, I guess that ten or so such moments within 40 minutes' worth of music is not outside the range of statistical probability, seeing that even 'Hounds of Love' came up with four clear 'ah-ha' moments.

Very cool!

You don't mind if I pass this bit of research on to the Oz group over on Yahoo, do you? There's an outside chance that a couple of them know who Kate Bush is.

For me, of course, I consider every word that Kate has and will ever utter to be an 'ah-ha' moment. Excellent choice! Thanks.



(Arrrrrrgh! You made me try to count our CD collection! I got to ±700 and had to stop 'coz the air got so thin I couldn't breathe... Then, there are *two* of us, and one of us *is* a singer, and we've been buying CDs since 1985... Still, they do pile up, don't they? Whew!)

No, I don't mind at all if you pass on my 'research'. I started Hounds of Love just as Dorothy oils the tin man's knee.

I agree completely about Kate Bush. In addition to being a musical genius she has to be just about the most fanciable person on the planet.