 French b-side | |
| Released | March 1, 1973 |
| Recorded | June 23 and November 1, 1972, and January 21, 1973 |
| Genres | Progressive rock • psychedelic rock |
| Studio | Abbey Road Studios |
| Length | 2:47 3:54(with Breathe) |
| Label | Harvest |
| Vocalists | David Gilmour |
| Songwriters | Roger Waters • David Gilmour • Richard Wright |
| Producers | Pink Floyd |
"Breathe" (sometimes called "Breathe (In the Air)") is a song by the English rock band Pink Floyd that appears as the second track on their 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon. The song was released as a single with "Time" in France in 1974.
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- This is slow-paced and rich in texture, deploying David Gilmour's skilled multitrack performances of slide guitar and lead vocals in gentle, warm timbres. On the original album, it is a single track that is preceded by Speak To Me. The song is considered to be a representation of birth, with a relief from labor. Its lyrics, composed by Roger Waters, beseech the listener to pause in their seemingly-endless labors and take notice of more meaningful pursuits in life. 2:43 in length, it is the first song on the album with lyrics and is preceded by wordless screaming at the end of "Speak To Me." Since "Speak To Me" segues directly into this via the use of a sustained backwards piano chord, they're usually played together on the radio and the two songs are conjoined on some CD versions of the album.
- The D 7th sharped 9th was inspired by Miles Davis' Kind Of Blue. Keyboardist Richard Wright had worked out the chord and wanted to find a way to get it back to E Minor so he changed it to a D 7th flatted 9th.
Breathe (In The Air)
- The P*U*L*S*E CD and DVD features a live version of the song with a run time of 2:33.
- The song was played at the Live 8 concert and features on the DVD. For that performance Breathe and Breathe (Reprise) were combined to form a medley. Although Pink Floyd themselves had never done this before, Sea of Green had previously covered the song in this manner on their 2001 album Time to Fly.
- The solo Roger Waters DVD and CD, In the Flesh: Live, features a version of the song sung by Doyle Bramhall and Jon Carin.
- The song is composed by two sections: a main theme (written by David Gilmour) and a bridge section (written by Richard Wright). Roger Waters originally recorded a song called Breathe for Music from "The Body", a soundtrack album which he recorded with Ron Geesin. Since the two are totally different, the lyrics turn out to be Waters' only contribution to the current song.
- Although the song is still available through a CD release of the album, it often appears on Pink Floyd bootlegs, most notably on A Tree Full Of Secrets.
| Credits | Chronology |