ONE of the first records I ever bought was Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon- on vinyl, of course. I simply had to have it at the time. But when it came to the small matter of listening to it, I had a slight technical problem: to wit, the lack of a record player, writes Frank McNally.
The only one in the house belonged to an older sister and was located in her bedroom - a place from which siblings of the male gender were excluded on pain of death. Fortunately there was a loophole in the security arrangements. My sister visited a neighbour's house most nights, leaving her bedroom temporarily undefended.
As soon as she left, I would sneak in with my precious album. Not daring to turn the light on, lest it be spotted by enemy scouts, I would place the disc on the turntable and with a trembling hand lift the needle on to the start of track one. Then I would sit on the floor listening, volume down low, in the dark, keeping an eye out the window for any sign of the fiery dragon's return.
The needle would get stuck sometimes, causing certain lines - especially "the lunatic is on the grass" - to repeat. Sometimes it would skip. And in time, all of this, along with the record player's tinny mono sound, became essential parts of the listening experience.
I remember, much later, the first occasion I heard the album in pristine stereo, without jumps or repeats, in a fully lighted room where I didn't have to worry about somebody coming back and flaying me alive. And frankly, it lacked something. The magic had gone.
My point, insofar as I have one, is that I used to be a Pink Floyd anorak. Moreover, I have experienced Dark Side of the Moonwith an intensity normally only achieved via mood-altering chemicals. Yet it never once occurred to me in those days that, as well as being a musical reflection on life, death, and madness, the album was also an alternative soundtrack to the classic MGM movie The Wizard of Oz.
This exciting discovery was only made (by God knows who) sometime in the late 1990s. Since when many people - not all of them mad, but definitely with too much time on their hands - have devoted themselves to exploring at length the allegedly numerous coincidences between the record and the film.
I have never been drunk enough to try it myself. But apparently if you synchronise the start of the album with the third roar of the MGM lion, the film and the music will unfold in miraculous unison: songs beginning and ending with scene changes, lyrics cueing action on screen, the tornado moving in time with the wordless vocals of The Great Gig in the Sky, and whatever you're having yourself.
There is some dissent among the anoraks, however, about the moment that best triggers this synchronicity. Some favour the so-called "second-roar theory" as the place to start. The controversial "first-roar" has supporters too. A radical fringe would have us dispense with roars altogether and not cue the record until the MGM lion fades to black.
All agree that the big "wow!" moment is when the album fades out with the sound of a human heartbeat, just as Dorothy bends to listen to the Tin Man's chest. Of course, that scene happens in the middle of the film, whereas the record is now over.
Which is a bit embarrassing.
Opinion is again divided on what you do then. Light another joint, is probably the best advice. But some people simply repeat the album. Others put on the band's follow-up, Wish You Were Here. No doubt PhDs have been written suggesting more advanced alternatives.
I mention the "Dark Side of the Rainbow" phenomenon (as it is known) only to draw attention to a piece of genuine synchronicity involving The Wizard of Oz, to which Irish audiences will be exposed from next week.
This is John Wilson's painstaking recreation of the original film score - destroyed in a studio clear-out in 1969 - which he will again be conducting live with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, as the film screens simultaneously.
The rewriting of the score - by listening to the soundtrack over and over and transcribing each part - was feat enough. As Wilson told Arminta Wallace last year, it was "like doing a million-piece jigsaw. It took me all of a Sunday one time just to get a second-and-a-half's worth of music." But even with the music sheets, the orchestra has to play the thing live with split-timing timing, and no room for competing theories as to when the first violins should kick in.
The special screening may have an added layer of synchronicity this year. Another of the many theories about the film is that it was an allegory for the Wall Street crash (played by the tornado) and the subsequent recovery, thanks to Roosevelt's New Deal. At least some of that history is now repeating itself, though it remains to be seen whether Barack Obama is the new, real-life Wizard of Oz.
• The Wizard of Oz, with live music by the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, conducted by John Wilson, is at the Helix, Dublin from December 3rd to 5th and at Belfast's Waterfront from December 15th to 16th.