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I'm sure some of you will have heard this before, but I found out about it, and its tried and tested (I thought I'd send a bit of light heartedness after all these heavy serious debates!) Amazingly weird connections that leap off the screen when you play Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" as the soundtrack to "The Wizard of Oz." The lyrics and music join in cosmic synch with the action, forming dozens upon dozens of startling coincidences... the kind that make you go "Oh wow, man" even if you haven't been near a bong in 20 years. Here's how it works. You start the album at the exact moment when the MGM lion finishes its third and final roar. It might take a few times to get everything lined up just right. Then, just sit back and watch. It'll blow your mind, man. Consider these examples: Floyd sings "the lunatic is on the grass" just as the Scarecrow begins his floppy jig near a green lawn. The line "got to keep the loonies on the path" comes just before Dorothy and the Scarecrow start traipsing down the Yellow Brick Road. During "Breathe," Dorothy teeters along a fence to the lyric: "balanced on the biggest wave." The Wicked Witch, in human form, first appears on her bike at the same moment a burst of alarm bells sounds on the album. During "Time," Dorothy breaks into a trot to the line: "no one told you when to run." When Dorothy leaves the fortuneteller to go back to her farm, the album is playing: "home, home again." Glinda, the cloyingly saccharine Good Witch of the North, appears in her bubble just as the band sings: "Don't give me that do goody goody bullshit." A few minutes later, the Good Witch confronts the Wicked Witch as the band sings, "And who knows which is which" (or is that "witch is witch"?). The song "Brain Damage" starts about the same time as the Scarecrow launches into "If I Only Had a Brain." But it's not just the weird lyrical coincidences. Songs end when scenes switch, and even the Munchkins' dancing is perfectly choreographed to the song "Us and Them." The phenomenon is at its most startling during the tornado scene, when the wordless singing in "The Great Gig in the Sky" swells and recedes in strikingly perfect time with the movie. When Dorothy opens the door into Oz, the movie switches to rich color and and that exact moment the album starts in with the tinkling cash register sound effects from "Money." Anyone who has ever nursed a hangover watching MTV with the sound off and the radio on can tell you how quick the brain is to turn music into a soundtrack for pictures. But this is uncanny. The real fanatics will point out that side one of the vinyl album is the exact length of the black-and-white portion of the movie. And then there's that iconic album cover, with its prism and rainbow echoing the movie's famous black-and-white-into-color switch not to mention Judy Garland's classic first song. The real clincher, though, the moment where even the most skeptical of cynics has to utter a small "whoa!," comes at the end of the album, which tails off with the insistent sound of a beating heart. What's happening on screen? Yep, you guessed it: Dorothy's got her ear to the Tin Man's chest, listening for a heartbeat. Maybe it's just a string of coincidences. Maybe the mind is just playing some really cool tricks. Maybe I just had waaaay too much to drink before I tried this! Or maybe, as Pink Floyd sings to close out the album, "everything under the sun really is in tune." And I thought playing Black Sabbath backwards was a trip!!! HAVE FUN! Steve Lauder steve.lauder@elspa.com