

The original live arrangement of “On the Run” bore little resemblance to the electronic freakout on the record. “So we could work on the transitions as part of the recording process rather than just part of the mixing process.” 4. “The way one track flowed into another was an extremely important part of the overall feel,” Alan Parsons told Rolling Stone in 2011. The band would eventually record all 10 of the album’s songs onto the same reel of 16-track master tape at Abbey Road, an unusual approach that nonetheless paid considerable artistic dividends. The band premiered Dark Side of the Moon: A Piece for Assorted Lunatics (as it was provisionally known at the time) at the Brighton Dome on January 20th, 1972 and though it was inadvertently cut short that night by what Waters called “severe mechanical and electric horror,” the band went on to perform the song cycle in its entirety in during the rest of their 1972 live dates, further refining the songs (and the transitions between them) as they went. Though the lush textures and spacious arrangements of Dark Side of the Moon make it sound like a purely “studio” project, the band actually aired out all of the songs in concert - in the exact same sequence that they would appear on the album - more than a year before the album’s official release.

Floyd fans were first treated to Dark Side of the Moon in concert more than a year before the album was actually released. So we’ve always had a little bit of tension in those areas.”ģ.

Dark side of the moon secrets full#
At the same time, him being the lyricist and more of the driving force didn’t ever mean that he ought to be in full charge of the direction on the musical side of things. “I think it was a sense of relief that he was willing to do that. “I never rated myself terribly highly in the lyrics department, and Roger wanted to do it,” Gilmour admitted to Rolling Stone in 2011. Though Waters’ lyrical dominance on Dark Side essentially planted the seeds for the massive rift that would eventually occur between him and the rest of the band, it was actually welcomed at the time. “To try and drag it kicking and screaming back from the borders of space, from the whimsy that Syd was into, to my concerns, which were much more political and philosophical.” “That was always my big fight in Pink Floyd,” Waters is quoted as saying in Mark Blake’s Comfortably Numb – The Inside Story of Pink Floyd. Along with adhering to a cohesive concept, Waters wanted Dark Side to feature lyrics that were more lucid and direct than anything the band had written before. Toc H.” and “Interstellar Overdrive” from The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, the band’s 1967 debut), but Dark Side marked the first - though definitely not the last - time that the bassist took the lyrical reins for an entire Floyd LP. Roger Waters had been contributing lyrics to Pink Floyd albums since 1968’s A Saucerful of Secrets (he also received co-writing credit on the instrumentals “Pow R. Dark Side of the Moon was the first Pink Floyd album to feature Roger Waters as its sole lyricist. Here are 10 things you might not know about Dark Side of the Moon.

Recorded at London’s Abbey Road Studios in various sessions from May 1972 through January 1973, the album’s cerebral soundscapes (exquisitely captured on tape by Abbey Road engineer Alan Parsons, and mixed with the help of veteran producer Chris Thomas) and heavy lyrical musings on the human condition inspired countless bong-fueled headphone listening sessions in darkened bedrooms, but its songs also sounded great on FM (and even AM) radio. In addition to its massive commercial success, Dark Side of the Moon was also a career-defining artistic achievement for the British quartet, one which marked Pink Floyd’s transition from an experimental, jam-oriented progressive outfit primarily beloved by college students and assorted “heads,” to a top-echelon rock act characterized by its rich songwriting – as well as by Waters’ mordant worldview. A true colossus of classic rock, the album made its creators - bassist/vocalist Roger Waters, guitarist/vocalist David Gilmour, keyboardist/vocalist Rick Wright, and drummer Nick Mason - incredibly wealthy, and ultimately spent a mind-boggling 937 weeks on the Billboard 200. since its release on March 1st, 1973, and more than 45 million units worldwide. Pink Floyd‘s eternally popular song cycle has sold more than 15 million copies in the U.S. There are hit albums, and then there’s Dark Side of the Moon.
