Floyd’s music to contain more direct
lyrics that would resonate immediately
with the fans, in contrast with the some
of the abstract work they had released
to date. Surprisingly, given the later
power struggles and acrimony within
the band, this new writing approach was
actually welcomed by the group at the
time, with Gilmour even stating, ‘I never
rated myself terribly highly in the lyrics
department, and Roger wanted to do it.
I think it was a sense of relief that he was
willing to do that.’
In fact, Pink Floyd were so pleased
with the results of Water’s writing that
they decided to print the lyrics on the
now iconic sleeve for Dark Side of the
Moon, the first time the band had chosen
to do so.
Whilst Roger Waters was the only
credited lyricist on Dark Side of the Moon,
the album featured vocal appearances
from a multitude of individuals outside
of the band. Pink Floyd roadies, Abbey
Road staff and other artists who were
recording at the studios during that
period, were confronted with a series
of questions; from the banal to the
philosophical, with the intention of
including their responses on the album in
an attempt to tie the songs on the record
together. Certain snippets successfully
made it to the final mix of Dark Side
of the Moon, however the answers of
the most famous interviewee, Paul
McCartney, were deemed unusable, with
Roger Waters commenting, ‘He was the
only person who found it necessary to
perform, which was useless, of course.
I thought it was really interesting that
he would do that. He was trying to be
funny, which wasn’t what we wanted at
a l l.’
Despite producing some truly
iconic quotes, it was the vocals of
songwriter and session singer, Clare
Torry on The Great Gig in the Sky
that would prove to be the most
memorable cameo on Dark Side
of the Moon. Torry’s collaboration
with Pink Floyd initially gave no
indication that her performance
would go on to become one of
the most unforgettable vocals in
rock history, and Torry had this to
say of her inauspicious recording
session with the band, ‘I just had
a call from this guy that worked
at Abbey Road called Dennis who
rang me up and asked if I was free
to do a session, so I went up to
Abbey Road and I had no idea what it
was, nobody told me, I didn’t know if it
was going to be a choir, two other girls or
three other girls. So, I walked in to the
control room and the band were there,
they explained to me that they were doingthis album and that it was nearly finished,
the concept of the album, birth and death
and everything in between, and theyplayed me the backing track, and I asked
what they wanted and basically they had
no idea.
When I look back, I was very
new to this sort of world and
probably quite naïve, but anyway
I listened to the track a couple of
times and personally had no idea
what to do or what they wanted
so I said I think the best thing for
me is to go in to the studio, put
the cans on and have a little go to
see what happens. So I started off
by going, “Oh baby baby, yeah,
yeah baby baby”, which is what
one tended to do for scat singing,
and they said “Oh no, no, we don’t
want any words”, and that really
stumped me. So David Gilmour
came in, and I have to say he
was really the one that directed
me, there wasn’t a word from anybody
else as far as I remember. So David said
“Would you like me to write out thedarK side Fact
Just like Earth, both the near side
(light side) and the far side (dark
side) of the moon have both a day
and a night. We are simply unable
to see the far side; as the time
it takes the moon to complete a
revolution on its axis is the same
amount of time as it takes to circle
Earth – around twenty-seven days.