Pink Floyd - Us and Them
Us and Them
And after all we're only ordinary men
Me, and you
God only knows it's not what we would choose to do
Forward he cried from the rear
And the front rank died
And the General sat, as the lines on the map
Moved from side to side
Black and Blue
And who knows which is which and who is who
Up and Down
And in the end it's only round and round and round
Haven't you heard it's a battle of words
The poster bearer cried
Listen son, said the man with the gun
There's room for you inside
Down and Out
It can't be helped but there's a lot of it about
With, without
And who'll deny that's what the fightings all about
Get out of the way, it's a busy day
And I've got things on my mind
For want of the price of tea and a slice
The old man died
Us and Them is a song from English psychedelic / progressive rock band Pink Floyd's 1973 album, Dark Side of the Moon. It was written by Richard Wright and Roger Waters and sung by David Gilmour (harmonies by Wright). It is 7 minutes, 51 seconds in length, making it the longest song on the album. It deals with ethnocentrism, conflict and the belief that a person's self is "always in the right" It is rather quiet in tone and dynamics and it has two saxophone solos in it, played by Dick Parry, one at the beginning and another towards the end of the song. The tune began life in 1969 when Rick Wright, who along with the rest of the band, were frustrated by Michelangelo Antonioni's directions to the band while scoring his 1970 film Zabriskie Point, came up with the basic chord sequence on the piano. Nearly 30 years later, on the DVD commentary track for American Beauty, Director Sam Mendes revealed that the final scene in the film was originally going to be set to "Us And Them", lip-synched by the main characters. It references an earlier scene in the movie where Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) says he had Dark Side on 8-track.