 This video is brought to you by CuriosityStream. If you sign up to CuriosityStream with the link in the description you'll also get access to Nebula where you can watch this series in its entirety. According to legend when Henry Ford first released his Model T car he told customers you can have it in any color you like as long as it's black. Decades later Roger Waters came about that same joke by way of a merchant who sold wares out of the back of his van in Cambridge. The merchant would offer up sets of china saying you can have them all any color you like. They're all blue. In an interview with Phil Rose Roger Waters described what that sentiment meant to him. It denotes offering a choice when there is none and it's also interesting that in the phrase any color you like they're all blue. I don't know why but in my mind it's always they're all blue which if you think about it relates very much to light and dark, sun and moon, good and evil. You make your choice, but it's always blue. In the modern age more people than ever have choice in how they live their life. In the entire history of mankind never have so many people had the freedom to choose where they live, what they eat, how they dress, what media they consume. But still so much of our lives are out of control. We have no say in the place we're born and raised or the class we're born into. We have no say in the color of our skin or in the people we love and we have no say in everything that goes on around us. Pandemics and natural disasters, wars and economic recessions can and do wreak havoc in our lives at any given time. So in the modern age though it may feel like we have a whole spectrum of color to choose. In the end they're all blue. And that illusion of choice is the core theme of any color you like. And given that the song is an instrumental, understanding its title is key to understanding the role it plays on the album. Though David Gilmore claimed that any color you like has little impact on the wider narrative of the album, water said it still plays into that scope. To understand how any color you like slots in, I think it's important to look at the track sequencing of Dark Side of the Moon. The album was created not as a collection of songs, but instead as a cohesive unit. When viewed through this lens you can see the role that any color you like plays in the musical flow of the album. It serves to transition us from the discussions of modern life to the revelation of what it'll do to the human mind. But even as any color you like prepares us for the end of the album, it also looks back on where we've come. The music of any color you like is built around the same rhythm as breathe. This marks the third appearance of the album after the reprise at the end of time. In a lot of ways this rhythm is the beating heart at the center of Dark Side of the Moon. Whenever we venture too far away, this rhythm returns to bring us home. It's a reminder of where we came from in the album, but also where we came from in life. The first time the rhythm appears it's breathe, a song about birth and childhood. Then we hear it again at the end of time as we return home to die. In its final iteration the rhythm has shifted slightly, it's played a bit faster with some more bounce and the key has changed. There's a kind of joy and freedom to any color you like. In an album so meticulously planned, it's freeing to hear Pink Floyd let loose and tear out an impulsive jam. And perhaps more than any other song on the album, any color you like pairs perfectly with its iconic artwork. Dark Side of the Moon may have the single most iconic album cover in music history. It's elegant and simplistic, but it also seems to hint at a profound mystery. The artwork was designed by Hypnosis, a creative house led by Storm Thorgeson and Aubrey Powell. Hypnosis were good friends with Pink Floyd and are responsible for the look of almost all of the band's discography. In the case of Dark Side of the Moon they were given simple directions by Richard Wright. Do something clean, elegant and graphic. They came up with a few concepts including one that featured the Silver Surfer, but then Thorgeson found a picture of a prism refracting light. It reminded him of the laser light shows that had become a key part of Pink Floyd's performances. But there was a deeper meaning too as Thorgeson explained to the Rolling Stone. I think the triangle, which is a symbol of thought and ambition, was very much a subject of Roger's lyrics. So the triangle was a very useful icon to deploy. This triangle motif was repeated throughout the entirety of the album's packaging. Inside of the album Hypnosis put inserts including stickers and an infrared photograph of the pyramids of Giza taken by Thorgeson himself. Some of the album artwork was also built around suggestions by the band. It was Roger Waters who suggested the prism be flipped and continued across the gatefold. He also suggested the inside artwork, the peaks of a heart monitor graph. When taken as a whole, the packaging of Dark Side of the Moon reflects the themes of the album and it also captures the dark and mystifying mood of the music. When it comes to any color you like, the cover plays right into the moral of the title. Because at the end of the day, the modern age has given us myriad colors to choose from, myriad paths to walk down. But in the end, all paths lead to the same inevitable destination. And in the end, all colors are really just different parts of the same light. And as well as exploring the illusion of choice, any color you like functions as a very important transition. We've looked at some of the major forces in modern life. And in the final two songs of the album, we'll explore what these forces will do to the human mind. This video and the entire Dark Side of the Moon project were only made possible because of Nebula. Nebula is a streaming platform created by and for independent content creators. It's a place for us to experiment and try things that we might not have been able to do within the constraints of YouTube. For me, that means longer form pieces like this and my Led Zeppelin's Epic series. It's no exaggeration to say that the video you just watched would not exist without Nebula. Creating for YouTube alone, I simply wouldn't have had the time and resources to make a longer form project like this. If you want to watch the rest of this project or if you want to help support future projects, the best way to get Nebula is by signing up with CuriosityStream. While Nebula is the place to go for indie content, CuriosityStream is the best place online to stream professionally made documentaries. 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