80 Fun Facts About The Dark Side of the Moon

In what year was The Dark Side of the Moon released?

It came out in the US on 1 March and in the UK on 16 March, more than a year after the band had first played the whole suite live.

The prism sleeve was designed by which design studio, which had also done the band's cow and ear covers?

Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell offered seven designs; all four members pointed at the prism.

'Money', the band's first US hit, peaked at which position on the Billboard Hot 100?

Cash Box had it three places higher, at number 10; the single edit chopped out most of the sax and guitar solos.

Most of 'Money' is written in which unusual time signature?

Waters wrote the riff on an acoustic guitar and said the odd meter suited the song's bluesy feel; the guitar solo switches to a straight 4/4.

Which saxophonist, an old friend of David Gilmour, was booked to play on the album?

The band did not know many other musicians, so they simply asked someone Gilmour knew; he later played on Wish You Were Here too.

Which session singer improvised the wordless vocal on 'The Great Gig in the Sky'?

She was asked to express emotion rather than sing words, did it in a few takes on a Sunday night, and left thinking it would be cut.

How much was the 'Great Gig in the Sky' vocalist paid for her session in 1973?

It was the standard flat fee for a Sunday; she only learned she was on the record when she saw her name in the credits in a shop.

After a 2004 lawsuit, 'The Great Gig in the Sky' is credited jointly to the vocalist and which band member?

The keyboardist's chord sequence began life as an organ instrumental with Bible readings and Malcolm Muggeridge speeches over the top.

Which EMI staff engineer, later famous for his own Project, engineered the album?

He earned a Grammy nomination for the engineering and later grumbled that the band 'made untold millions and a lot of the people involved in the record didn't'.

The album's engineer had earlier been assistant tape operator on which 1970 Pink Floyd album?

He had also worked as a recording engineer on the Beatles' Abbey Road and Let It Be.

The album's initial run on the Billboard 200 lasted how many nonconsecutive weeks, from 1973 to 1988?

It included one unbroken stretch of 593 weeks, and it went back on the chart in 2009 once catalogue titles were allowed again.

By 2013 the album had sold roughly how many copies worldwide?

That made it the best-selling album of the 1970s and the fourth-best-selling album ever, and it lifted record sales across the whole industry.

Which band member received a rare solo writing credit for the opening sound collage 'Speak to Me'?

Wright and Waters later said the credit was a gift to give the drummer some publishing income, which Waters came to regret after leaving the band.

Which track grew out of 'The Violent Sequence', a piano piece written for the film Zabriskie Point?

Its 7:49 running time makes it the longest track on the album.

Antonioni rejected 'The Violent Sequence' as too sad because it made him think of what?

He wanted something more like 'Careful with That Axe, Eugene', so the piece sat on the shelf for three years.

Under what working title was 'The Great Gig in the Sky' performed live in early 1972?

At that stage it was an organ instrumental with Bible readings; NASA astronaut chatter was among the effects tried and rejected.

The pulsing sequence of 'On the Run' was built by entering eight notes into which synth?

Even the hi-hat sound came out of the synth, and it all had to be played live because there was no way to sync two performances.

Before the album's release, 'On the Run' was replaced on stage by which guitar-and-Wurlitzer jam?

A studio version of the jam was recorded but judged not good enough and stayed unreleased until 2011.

'On the Run' evokes the anxiety of travel, and in particular which fear of the band's keyboardist?

An airport announcement plays 27 seconds in, and the piece ends with the sound of the presumed aircraft exploding.

Where were the ticking and chiming clocks that open 'Time' recorded?

The engineer had taped each timepiece separately as a quadraphonic test, not for the album, and the band said 'Stick it on!'

Which drums dominate the two-minute passage after the clocks in 'Time'?

The band tried tiny tuned boobams too, but the tunable rototoms gave the best effect over Waters's muted-bass tick-tock.

'Time' ends with a one-minute reprise of which earlier track?

The reprise swaps in Farfisa organ and Wurlitzer piano for the Hammond and Rhodes of the original.

Which two members share the lead vocal on 'Time'?

It was the keyboardist's last lead vocal until 'Wearing the Inside Out' on 1994's The Division Bell.

What did the band call 'Brain Damage' during live performances and recording sessions?

Earlier still, while making Meddle in 1971, Waters had called the song 'The Dark Side of the Moon', a title that migrated to the whole album.

The themes of madness on the album were inspired in part by the decline of which former member?

He had left in 1968 and would famously wander into the studio unrecognised during the Wish You Were Here sessions in 1975.

Who sings lead vocal on 'Brain Damage'?

Gilmour actively encouraged him to sing it despite his lack of confidence in his own voice; Gilmour took the lead himself on the 1994 tour.

What was the job of Gerry O'Driscoll, whose spoken answers about dying and the moon appear on the album?

His unused follow-up line was that the only thing that makes it look light is the sun; the band felt anything after his first answer would be an anticlimax.

Which famous couple's answers to Roger Waters's flashcard questions were cut for 'trying too hard to be funny'?

They were next door recording Red Rose Speedway; their Wings bandmate Henry McCullough did make the cut.

Which Wings guitarist contributed the spoken line about being really drunk at the time?

He was in the building because Wings were recording next door in November 1972.

The repeated manic laughter heard on the album was recorded by which member of the band's crew?

His daughter Naomi Watts became a Hollywood star; his second wife supplied the line about a geezer cruising for a bruising.

Chris Thomas, who had worked with George Martin, was hired at the end of the sessions to do what?

He was the 'fresh pair of ears' brokering between the Waters-Mason dry mix and the Gilmour-Wright echoey one, and nailed the echo timing on Us and Them.

Because the band Medicine Head had already used the title, the album was briefly renamed what?

When Medicine Head's album flopped, the band went back to their original preference.

What subtitle did the suite carry at its February 1972 press premiere at the Rainbow Theatre?

The Times said it brought tears to the eyes; Melody Maker felt like it was in a bird-cage at London Zoo.

The album's press launch on 27 February 1973, which most of the band boycotted, was held where?

Guests got life-sized cardboard cut-outs of the band and a stereo playback over a poor PA; only Wright turned up.

Why did the band skip their own launch reception?

The quad mix that eventually emerged was never endorsed by the band, and a new 5.1 mix was made for the 30th anniversary instead.

The spectrum on the album cover has only six colours. Which one is missing?

The beam continues across the gatefold at Waters's suggestion, and the back cover shows a second prism recombining the light.

Besides two posters, the original sleeve contained two stickers themed on what?

One of the posters was an infrared photograph of the pyramids at Giza shot by Powell and Thorgerson.

Wright asked the designers for something classy and simple, like the artwork on what?

EMI had been baffled by the wordless cow and ear sleeves, so the band's own request for something neat was a change of pace.

Storm Thorgerson's prism idea came partly from a photograph he found in what kind of book?

The other inspiration was a 1942 Alex Steinweiss illustration for a New York Philharmonic performance of Beethoven's Emperor Concerto.

How long did the album hold the number one spot on the US album chart?

It reached the top on 28 April 1973 and never got there again, yet stayed on the chart for the next 15 years.

In the UK, the album held what unusual distinction as of 2017?

It was the seventh-best-selling album of all time in Britain, where the band had not released a single since 1968.

Some of the album's profits were invested in the production of which 1975 film?

The band were fans of the troupe and would stop recording sessions to watch Flying Circus on television.

Fans claim the album synchronises with which 1939 film when the two are played together?

The engineer called the theory 'a complete load of eyewash', pointing out any record works if you turn the TV sound down.

Which Beatles song is faintly audible over the closing heartbeats on some Dark Side of the Moon pressings?

It was accidental: a Hollyridge Strings record was playing in the background while the doorman was being interviewed.

In March 2004 the album's closing track was used to wake which Mars rover, in honour of a transit of Phobos?

It was not the first Floyd in space: Soviet cosmonauts played an advance copy of Delicate Sound of Thunder aboard Soyuz TM-7.

The album's closing track was played after the cauldron was lit at the opening ceremony of which event?

It accompanied a fireworks display and a photo montage of mostly British Olympians.

What was the title of Waters's 2023 solo re-recording of the album, minus guitar solos?

He recorded it without any other Pink Floyd members and framed it from the perspective of an older man.

Waters recorded the coin sounds for the 'Money' effects loop by throwing coins into a mixing bowl where?

The loop was later spread across four channels for a 'walk around the room' effect in the quadraphonic mix.

Where did Waters record the album's demo tracks?

His demo of 'Money' was in G-sharp minor and, in his own words, 'prissy and very English'; the band moved it to B minor.

The album's Grammy nomination was in which category?

The nod went to the engineer rather than the band; the album entered the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999.

Where did Rolling Stone rank the album on its 2020 500 Greatest Albums list?

It had been number 43 on the 2003 and 2012 versions of the list.

The Dark Side of the Moon is which number in Pink Floyd's sequence of studio albums?

The soundtrack Obscured by Clouds, cut in France during a break from these sessions, slipped in ahead of it in 1972.

Recording was interrupted in early 1972 so the band could score La Vallée for which French director?

He had also used the band for More in 1969; the La Vallée music became the album Obscured by Clouds.

Sessions were regularly interrupted so Waters could watch which football club play?

The rest of the band would knock off to watch Monty Python's Flying Circus while the engineer kept working.

In March 1973 the band played the album at a midnight show for 6,000 people at which New York venue?

The album hit number one six weeks later and the band were back for another US tour within two months.

Which US label released the album, even as the band quietly negotiated to leave for Columbia?

New chairman Bhaskar Menon threw a huge campaign behind it anyway; the band signed with Columbia in 1974 for a reported $1 million advance.

Which band remade The Dark Side of the Moon track by track in 2009 with Stardeath and White Dwarfs and Henry Rollins?

Dream Theater and Phish have covered the whole album live, but this was a studio remake.

Easy Star All-Stars' 2003 full reggae cover of the album was released under what title?

They followed it with Dubber Side of the Moon in 2010; a bluegrass band plays it as Dark Side of the Moonshine.

Which pop duo opened a track of their own called 'Money' with the tape loops from Pink Floyd's song?

Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch also borrowed from the album on Music for the People.

A Hans Zimmer remix of Pink Floyd's 'Eclipse' soundtracked the September 2020 first trailer for which film?

During the eclipse of August 2026, Spotify reported streams of the track jumped 144 per cent worldwide.

Which NBA team's announcers used 'On the Run' as the visiting team's theme in the 1990s?

Chicago radio station WLS had already used a slice of the track behind its 1970s contest phone calls.

The airport announcement in 'On the Run' calls a flight to Rome, Cairo and which other city?

The engineer reused the same sample decades later on a bonus track for the Alan Parsons Project's Tales of Mystery and Imagination reissue.

At the end of 'On the Run' in 1970s shows, what flew the length of the arena and seemed to crash?

On the 1987 tour the aeroplane became a flying bed, and on the 1994 tour it came back with its tail on fire.

The 'Great Gig' singer missed her first call because she had tickets to see whom?

So a three-hour session was booked for the next day, Sunday 21 January 1973, and she stopped the third take halfway through.

According to Waters, the title 'Any Colour You Like' came from the sales patter of whom?

The punchline of the patter was that any colour was available as long as it was blue.

In 2007, what share of Americans under 50 were estimated to own a copy of the album?

At the time it was still selling between 8,000 and 9,000 copies a week in the US even in slow weeks.

The album's title alludes to which of the following, rather than astronomy?

The band premiered the piece at Brighton's Dome in January 1972 as a suite about the things that make people mad.

Which engineer created the new 5.1 surround mix for the 2003 30th-anniversary SACD?

The band passed over Alan Parsons's original quadraphonic mix; the SACD won four Surround Music Awards and sold over 800,000 copies.

The 30th-anniversary edition's cover is a photograph of what?

Transparent glass held by lead strips replaced the opaque colours, chosen to reflect the 'purity' of surround sound.

What was unusual about the two clear-vinyl LPs in the 2024 reissue of the 50th-anniversary edition?

The blank sides carry UV-printed artwork; the 2023 box set added a Dolby Atmos mix and a 1974 Wembley live album.

Where did the band first premiere the new material, on 20 January 1972?

They had rehearsed in a Rolling Stones-owned warehouse and hauled nine tonnes of kit in three lorries, a first for a whole album on tour.

What replaced Clare Torry's vocal on 'The Great Gig in the Sky' in early 1972 live shows?

Early performances also lacked synthesisers on tracks such as 'On the Run'.

Which track was the first recorded for the album, on 31 May 1972?

'Money' followed seven days later; sessions at EMI Studios ran about 60 days spread over nine months.

How many channels did the Studer A80 recorders used on the album offer?

Even so, the band used so many tracks that second-generation copies were needed to free up tape.

Which TV comedy would the band stop recording to watch while Parsons kept working?

They later put some of the album's profits into Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Assistant engineer Peter James contributed to 'On the Run' by doing what?

A specially treated bass drum was used to fake the heartbeat heard at the album's start and end.

What did guests at the boycotted 1973 press launch find in place of the band?

Only Richard Wright turned up, and the stereo mix was played over a poor-quality PA system.

Which word was censored from the mono promo side of the 'Money' single sent to radio stations?

The stereo side kept the uncensored version, so the single was withdrawn and DJs were told to bin the first copy.

For roughly what advance did Pink Floyd sign to Columbia at the start of 1974?

Capitol chairman Bhaskar Menon's huge promotional push for the album could not persuade them to stay.

With which 1997 Radiohead album is The Dark Side of the Moon often compared?

Ben Schleifer argued both albums share the theme of a creative individual losing the ability to function in the modern world.