Random Fascinating Facts About Pink Floyd's 'The Dark Side Of The Moon' (12 items)

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  (#11) Jazz Influenced 'Us And Them'

  Pink Floyd wrote "Us and Them" for a film soundtrack a few years before the Dark Side recording. It featured prominent jazz influences. It was, as keyboardist Richard Wright explained, an unusual song for pop music at the time.

  "It has quite a simple chord sequence, except for the rather strange third chord, influenced by jazz," Wright said of the song. "It was an augmented chord, hardly ever used in pop music then."

  For the version on the soundtrack to Zabriskie Point, there was much less there than what made it to Dark Side. The band recycled and reworked the music, which had the working title "The Violence Sequence," into "Us and Them." Wright also wrote the song's bridge for the album's reassembled version.

  "We needed a middle-eight. I came up with the chords for that," Wright explained. "It's very flowing and sweet if you look at the verse, then there's the contrast - this big, harder chorus. With the lyrics about the war and the general sitting back - it worked so well."
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  (#4) You Can Hear A Beatles Song Playing At The End Of 'Eclipse'

  There is a Beatles contribution in the Dark Side album - albeit accidentally. At the same moment the producers were in the process of recording Abbey Road's doorman, Gerry O'Driscoll, for the DSotM album, an orchestral version of "Ticket to Ride" played in the background.

  O'Driscoll delivered a famous line during this unique moment as well: "There is no dark side of the moon, really. Matter of fact, it's all dark. The only thing that makes it look light is the sun."
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  (#3) The Band Recorded The Money Sounds On 'Money' At Home

  The famous intro to the song "Money" consists of cash register sounds and clanging change - and the recordings mainly took place at the band members' homes.

  "I had drilled holes in old pennies and then threaded them onto strings," Nick Mason recalled in his autobiography, Inside Out. Mason continued: "They gave one sound on the loop of seven. Roger had recorded coins swirling around in the mixing bowl [his wife] Judy used for her pottery.

  Each sound was measured out on the tape with a ruler before being cut to the same length and then carefully spliced together."
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  (#1) Session Singer Clare Torry Got Royalties For Her Work More Than 30 Years Later

  In 2005 session vocalist Clare Torry sued the band for lost earnings - she claimed they owed her royalties for her improvised contributions on "The Great Gig in the Sky." Torry won the suit against the band and their publisher, garnering 50% ownership of the song and 50% of the royalties. The settlement was reportedly worth millions of dollars.

  "Clare came into the studio one day, and we said, 'There's no lyrics. It's about dying - have a bit of a sing on that, girl.' I think she only did one take. And we all said, 'Wow, that's that; done. Here's your 60 quid,'" Waters later recalled.
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  (#2) The Band Helped Make Monty Python's 'Holy Grail' With Money From Album Sales

  As die-hard Monty Python fans, the band assisted the legendary British comedy troupe with raising capital for their film Monty Python and the Holy Grail using some of the money from sales of Dark Side.

  Director Terry Gilliam explained why artists like Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and Elton John all chipped in to make the now-classic film come to life.

  Gilliam told The Guardian:

  There was no studio interference because there was no studio; none of them would give us any money. This was at the time [British] income tax was running as high as 90%, so we turned to rock stars for finance. Elton John, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin - they all had money, they knew our work, and we seemed a good tax write-off. Except, of course, we weren't. It was like The Producers.
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  (#7) A Bootleg Leaked A Year Early

  Pink Floyd began playing Dark Side of the Moon songs in concert around 1972, a year before the album's official release. To the band's horror, someone publicly released a bootleg recording of the entire album sequence from a London show and sold it in record stores.

  Though the band feared the bootleg would hurt album sales, it didn't - Dark Side has sold more than 15 million copies in the US, becoming one of the most successful albums of all time and holding the record for the most weeks spent on the Billboard 200 chart.

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