🌫️ A Quiet Song in a Violent World
“Us and Them” does not shout. It doesn’t accuse or demand. It simply exists — slow, spacious, and painfully gentle. In the middle of The Dark Side of the Moon, surrounded by ticking clocks, cash registers, screams, and madness, this song arrives like a breath held too long and finally released. Its calm is deceptive. Beneath the soft piano chords and floating saxophone lies one of the most devastating anti-war statements ever written. Pink Floyd understood something many protest songs never did: sometimes the quietest voices cut the deepest. “Us and Them” isn’t about a specific battle or political moment. It’s about the human instinct to divide, label, and destroy — and how easily that instinct turns ordinary people into enemies.
🧠 Born from an Unused Film Score
The song’s origins trace back to an abandoned idea. Richard Wright composed a melancholic piano theme for Michelangelo Antonioni’s film Zabriskie Point, but it was rejected. The melody lingered, unresolved, until Pink Floyd returned to it during the sessions for The Dark Side of the Moon. Roger Waters wrote lyrics that transformed the gentle harmony into something far heavier. Where Wright’s music floated, Waters grounded it in reality — war, power, hierarchy, and the cruel simplicity of “us versus them.” This contrast became the song’s emotional engine. The music invites empathy, while the words quietly expose how that empathy is so often denied.
🎷 Sound as a Weapon of Peace
Nothing in “Us and Them” feels aggressive, yet everything in it feels deliberate. The slow tempo forces the listener to sit with the discomfort. Dick Parry’s saxophone doesn’t solo to impress; it mourns. It rises and falls like a wounded voice, carrying sorrow rather than anger. Wright’s electric piano creates space — vast, echoing, almost empty — as if reflecting the emotional distance between opposing sides. Nick Mason’s drumming stays restrained, entering softly and retreating just as quickly, like footsteps in a fog. The song refuses spectacle. Instead, it builds power through restraint, making its message impossible to ignore.
⚔️ Lyrics of Division
“Us and Them / And after all we’re only ordinary men.” That single line dismantles every justification for war. Waters strips conflict down to its most basic truth: the people on both sides are the same. Soldiers don’t fight because they are evil; they fight because they are told to. Orders are given, lines are drawn, and suddenly “forward” becomes survival while “back” means death. Waters contrasts the voices of authority — generals, politicians, decision-makers — with the silence of those who pay the price. The song doesn’t blame individuals; it indicts systems. It exposes how power thrives on division, turning fear into obedience and difference into justification for violence.
🕊️ Beyond War: Everyday Separation
Though often read as a war song, “Us and Them” reaches far beyond the battlefield. It speaks to every form of division — class, race, wealth, ideology. “With, without / And who’ll deny it’s what the fighting’s all about?” These lines blur the line between global conflict and everyday life. The same thinking that sends young men to die also separates neighbors, fuels inequality, and turns empathy into suspicion. Pink Floyd understood that war isn’t just something that happens overseas. It begins in the mind — in the decision to see others as “them” rather than “us.”
🌑 Positioned at the Album’s Heart
Within The Dark Side of the Moon, “Us and Them” functions like a moral center. After “Time” confronts mortality and before “Money” exposes greed, this song asks the simplest question of all: why do we keep choosing division? The placement is intentional. It suggests that conflict is inseparable from how we measure time and value wealth. Wars are fought over resources, ideologies, and fear of loss — all themes woven throughout the album. By slowing everything down, Pink Floyd forces reflection. The listener can’t rush past the message. The music demands attention, patience, and empathy.
🌍 A Protest Without Slogans
Unlike many protest songs of its era, “Us and Them” offers no rallying cry, no chant, no call to arms. That is precisely why it endures. It doesn’t tell listeners what to think; it invites them to feel. The sadness in the music carries more weight than anger ever could. By refusing to moralize, the song becomes universal. It speaks to soldiers and civilians, winners and losers, the powerful and the powerless. It reminds us that division is learned — and therefore can be unlearned.
🌕 Why It Still Matters
Decades after its release, “Us and Them” feels tragically current. The world remains divided by borders, beliefs, and identities. The language has changed, the weapons have evolved, but the mechanism is the same. People are still separated into categories, still told who belongs and who doesn’t. In this context, the song feels less like history and more like prophecy. Its relevance lies in its humanity. It doesn’t pretend that unity is easy. It simply suggests that without empathy, nothing else matters.
🌠 A Gentle Truth
As the song fades, it doesn’t resolve. There is no triumphant ending, no sense of closure. That, too, is intentional. Division doesn’t end neatly. It lingers, unresolved, echoing in silence. Pink Floyd leaves the listener with a quiet realization: peace begins not with victory, but with recognition. The moment we stop seeing others as “them,” the song implies, is the moment conflict loses its meaning.