Can Pink Floyd Turn Me Into a Tory?

OK, so I've got two confessions for you. One is a supposedly shameful admission of cultural ignorance that will make Games Workshop employees very angry with me, and the other is a political confession that will have Morning Star sellers high-fiving me across the oil drum fires at fire station picket lines. Basically, I've never voted Tory, and I've never listened to The Dark Side Of The Moon. Until yesterday, these two facts were completely unrelated, but now, our head of state David Cameron has come out from the prog rock closet: he's a Pink Floyd fan, and he doesn't give a ruddy hoot who bloody knows that the Floyd's mega-selling opus is his favourite album of all time.

I thought I'd finally give in to the people who've spent years saying to me: "What do you mean you've never dropped a tab and played it simultaneously with The Wizard Of Oz!?" and: "What do you mean you think Ken is the right choice for London!?" and give the album a listen. Maybe it'd blow my mind open to new free market possibilities, as it presumably did for a young Dave. Let's see if I'll come back to Earth with the ability to vote for somebody with a double-barrelled name. Will merely owning this album send my chin receding into my face like some kind of aristocratic Teen Wolf? Can Dark Side of the Moon turn me into a Tory?

Track #1: "Speak To Me"

OK, this track appears to be an instrumental. There's a cash till ringing, which sounds pretty Tory-ish to me. But, as anyone who's ever listened to Godspeed You Black Emperor! knows, instrumentals are both made and listened to exclusively by people on drugs. People who are so beyond fucked, that they can no longer comprehend words, and instead spend their time listening to impressionistic noise collages set to Windows screen savers. All of which very much goes against the Conservative party's zero-tolerance drug policy.

Am I a Tory yet? Nope.

Track #2: "Breathe"

Praise the lord, we have some lyrics, and I'm saying they're verging towards the Tory side of things. A line like: "Stand around and choose your own ground" is an endorsement of laissez faire Capitalism if ever I heard one. Gradually I felt myself beginning to agree with its message, thinking: 'Yeah, maybe making money isn't such a bad thing' and: 'You know what? Let the handicapped deal with their own problems.' Is there such a thing as society? I don't know, I don't think you can see societies from space, maaaan (unless they're really big?).

Am I a Tory yet? Kind of. Does it count as economic isolationism if you're floating alone out in the stratosphere? There are no shops there.

Track #3: "On The Run"

Again, this one's a little bit sparse on the lyrical front (ie there are none), but they've ripped off Giorgio Moroder's oscillating synth sound completely, which, as everyone knows, is the sound of 80s economic boom time. (And yes, I know Moroder came after, but surely time travel is in the realms of possibility for men with as much money and as many drugs as Pink Floyd). Anything which sounds like it should be on the soundtrack to Scarface is from the blue side of the moon, for sure. I felt inspired to pull up my socks, to go out and find a real job that pays real money, to transform my life into a montage from an Oliver Stone movie. (But with less coke. For some reason this album didn't make me want to take coke very much.)

Am I a Tory yet? Getting Tory-er by the second.

Track #4: "Time"

Musically, this is Tory Blues in its purest form. Those horrible Clapton (as in Eric, not the resolutely Labour part of Hackney) Surrey Delta guitar licks, the louche drums, the vocals that sound like the thoughts a man suffering a midlife crisis can only bear to relay to his dog. I can only imagine this is what that band comprised of MPs sounds like. Lyrically, though, it's a bit more ambiguous. And the song's message of not letting your life pass you by sounds like what left-wing people have been saying to each other for the last few decades to stave off the guilt they feel whenever they're not raging against the state (ie the entirety of the last few decades).

Am I a Tory yet? Still floating around somewhere near the political centre.

Track #5: "Great Gig in the Sky"

I actually kinda dig this one. The girl at the beginning is on some real late-Whitney-style vocal acrobatics; shawty is hitting notes only dogs can hear. So who is this mystery Mariah? Well, it's a girl named "Clare Torry". I don't think we need to delve any deeper to work out where this one is going.

Am I a Tory yet? No, this is too blatant; you're pushing me away.

Track #6: "Money"

I've heard this a lot on documentaries about the 80s. Usually those documentaries seem to be about men in coloured stockbroker jackets shouting into huge mobile phones and thrashing Ferrari Testarossas along the King's Road. I know what you're thinking – that this song is a straight-faced tribute to Thatcher's Loadsamoney generation. But if rock historians actually did their homework for once instead of laying in bed trying to ignore the smell of their own groins, maybe they'd realise that this album actually came out in 1973: a time when Britain was very much in the economic shit (idiots).

So, this is an ironic anthem for the poor, right? Nope, wrong again. Floyd aren't the kind of band who could make an ironic statement about greed, seeing as they're about the biggest, wealthiest band of all time. If it was Anti-Flag doing this track, I might believe it. As it is, I think that Pink Floyd just plain love money. They don't wanna make a song for the Loadsamoney generation, because if that generation didn't exist, they'd have more money for themselves.

Am I a Tory yet? I can feel my heart turning Tory blue.

Track #7: "Us And Them"

Just look at that title. In socialist anthem terms, it's up there with The Manics' "Masses Against the Classes" and Chumbawumba's "Tubthumping". Unless the song is written from the perspective of an unpopular fascist government fighting against revolution, that is. But nobody would write a song about that, would they? Rock n' Roll always favours the underdogs, The Clash never wrote an album called Contra, did they?Do fascists even write songs? Or just massive Tories, like Pink Floyd?

Am I a Tory yet? I'm so Tory I'm about to use the phrase "bleeding-heart liberals" non-ironically.

Track #8: "Any Colour You Like"

Three minutes and 26 seconds of kicking your heels waiting for a hook that never arrives? This is clearly a song about the privatisation of the railways. I'm sure this inspired generations of Tories to believe that the public didn't want just one cheap, reliable train service, but a whole host of overpriced, badly run ones with different names and logos, but is it really a good idea to remind people of that? Thinking of all the time I've lost stranded between Hornsey and King's Cross suddenly has me feeling more Arthur Scargill than King Arthur.

Am I a Tory yet? Massive political swing to the left.

Track #9: "Brain Damage"

The opening line "the lunatic is on the grass" is supposedly a reference to ex-member Syd Barrett, and the song is all about his drug-induced breakdown. I think this might be one of popular music's few anti-marijuana anthems, the counterpoint to the "legalise it" movement, the chilling story of one talented young man's ruin brought on by the evil green herb. Having known several guys who ceased to be able to communicate at all without using the word "man", it's a policy I completely empathise with. #keepitillegal

Am I a Tory yet? If it keeps kids off the smoke, I'll give D-Cam my vote.

Track #10: "Eclipse"

The meaning of the refrain: "I'll see you on the dark side of the moon" has been much discussed in Brighton bedsits and online forums. Is it about the impending madness that all of us will eventually face, or a rallying cry for all of us to tune in, turn gay and drop bombs (or however that saying goes)? Well, my interpretation of it is that the lyric is referring to the grim future under a Labour government. The dark side of the moon represents high taxes, a trade union stranglehold and the Machiavellian antics of Peter Mandelson. New Labour, New Darkness.

Am I a Tory yet? No, but I did speak to God, and he told me to tell Dave Gilmour that his son's a dick.

Follow Clive on Twitter: @thugclive