As a matter of fact it’s all dark’ came from the studios’ Irish doorman, Gerry O’Driscoll. The closing words ‘there is no dark side in the moon, really. Wings guitarist Henry McCullough contributed the line ‘I don’t know, I was really drunk at the time’. Floyd roadie Roger ‘The Hat’ Manifold is the voice behind ‘So if you give ’em a quick short, sharp, shock, they won’t do it again’. The band’s road manager Peter Watts (father of actress Naomi Watts) contributed the repeated laughter during ‘Brain Damage’ and ‘Speak to Me’, and ‘I never said I was frightened of dying’ from the beginning of ‘The Great Gig in the Sky’. The interviewees were placed in front of a microphone and shown such questions as ‘What’s your favourite colour?’ and ‘What’s your favourite food?’, before moving on to themes more central to the album (such as madness, violence, and death).
#Pink floyd albums in order series#
All pressings after 2005 list the composition to Richard Wright and Clare Torry.ĭuring recording sessions, Waters recruited both the staff and the temporary occupants of the studio to answer a series of questions printed on flashcards. In 2005, prior to a hearing in the High Court, an out-of-court settlement was reached. In 2004, Torry sued Pink Floyd for songwriting royalties, on the basis that her contribution to ‘Great Gig in the Sky’ after originally being paid the standard Sunday flat studio rate of £30 (equivalent to £400 in 2018 for the session. She was initially embarrassed by her exuberance in the recording booth, and wanted to apologise to the band – only to find them delighted with her performance. David Gilmour was in charge of the session, and in a few short takes on a Sunday night Torry improvised a wordless melody to accompany Wright’s emotive piano solo. The band explained the concept behind the album, but were unable to tell her exactly what she should do.
She declined this invitation as she wanted to watch Chuck Berry perform at the Hammersmith Odeon, but arranged to come in on the following Sunday. She had worked on numerous cover albums, and after hearing one of those albums Alan Parsons invited her to the studio to sing on Wright’s composition ‘The Great Gig in the Sky’. Session singer Clare Torry, was a regular at Abbey Road. The first full-length performance was at the Guildhall in Portsmouth, England, on January 21st, 1972, after which almost the entire year was spent with the band performing Dark Side live, interspersed with visits to Abbey Road studios from May onwards to work on individual songs. In the pre-Internet age, it wasn’t too commercially suicidal to preview new material before its release, so Floyd were able to knock the album into shape over several months of road work. Another, to become ‘Brain Damage’, was a piece of Roger Waters’, created in the writing sessions of the Meddle album in January of that year. One of the musical elements, to become ‘Us And Them’, already existed, having begun life as a rejected musical sequence by Richard Wright for Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point. The band initially convened in December 1971 and January 1972 at Decca’s West Hampstead Studios in Broadhurst Gardens, London and then at a warehouse owned by The Rolling Stones at 47 Bermondsey Street, South London. Part of its enduring appeal is the quality of the material, there simply isn’t a bad track on it, with a listening experience greater even than the sum of the parts.Īs to its subject matter, Roger Waters said in 2003 that it was ‘An expression of political, philosophical, humanitarian empathy that was desperate to get out.’ He said it was about ‘all the pressures and difficulties and questions that crop up in one’s life and create anxiety and the potential you have to solve them or choose the path that you’re going to walk.’ Generally regarded as Pink Floyd’s masterwork, the qualities of The Dark Side Of The Moon have perhaps been taken for granted in recent years, but a return to it with fresh ears reminds the listener of its strengths.
No-one in March 1973 could have imagined that an album released in that month would still be thrilling listeners decades later, but it’s true.